06-20-2005, 11:19 PM
Over the years as I've brought home catfish, sometimes I would let them sit in the fridge over night before filleting them, and I would get complaints from my wife of opening the fridge the next day and having a catfish still flopping and scaring her. So I bought one of those little bats which I called the cat bat, and I would try to kill the fish by hitting them over the head which really didn't work all that well especially on the big ones. One day while I was trying to kill my days catch before I came home, an old man walked up and told me there was a better way. He said you just slit their throat like you would a deer, and let them bleed for ten or fifteen minutes just before you go home. He said they taste better anyway when they're bled. I've been doing it ever since and it works great. I just lay them on their back, stick my knife under their gills and slice up through them while they're still on the stringer. Usually by the time I stick them in a bag or whatever i'm taking them home in there is hardly any blood left, and hardly any blood on the fillett board, plus they still taste just as good if not better.
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