Reasons to Keep Every Gafftop You Catch

[MathGeek]

Originally Posted by Pull n Pray

Do you skin them first or do you just filet them with the skin?

I used to skin them first, like is customary with catfish.

Lately, I've tried a new technique, first cutting the fillet off the bone with the skin attached, and then using the fillet knife to cut the fillet off of the skin, much like you would do for a speck or a redfish.

The new technique is faster, and my son has learned to do it well. As a result, I can remove the fillets from the bone, pass them down for my son to cut from the skin. He then passes the skinless fillets down to my daughter to trim the red meat off and bag.

This assembly line approach goes very fast, less than 2 minutes per fish.

Skinning first is a lot more work and slows it all down.