06-21-2005, 01:01 AM
I can relate ! I hate trying to carve into something carefully when it won't stop moving - especially since I like to keep my knives as sharp as possible. So, I always konk the fish in the head - you gotta hit the big ones really hard.
Any hammer will do. A ball peen works excellent, but then, so does a 20 oz. framer's claw hammer, a crowbar, or a large rusted piece of rebar - at least those have worked for me in the past. It should just be something pretty robust that you can swing with a moderate amount of accuarcy. Caution - if you hit it hard enough, you and everything in the immediate area can get splattered, so, you might want to consider covering it with a towel first and/or doing it outside.
Tube Dude has the plan with cutting the fin spines before hand so the fish lies flat - then use an electric fillet knife(I just got one after TD showed me the advantages of them). I found it makes for much better fillets with less waste.
Also mentioned in a prior post here, is the ice method - which I have used since I was a kid. Simply, I fill my cooler with ice before going fishing and leave it in the truck. When I done I throw the fish in the ice water and in short worder they are out like a light. The rapid and large temperature change puts most fish down and keeps them fresher. However, I have found that cats(especially bullheads) are often still moving(sometimes barely) when I put them on the cutting board - that's when the heavy blunt object is employed. I don't want it moving around because my some of my extremities happen to be in the proximity when I'm wielding the sharpest knife in the house or the equilvalant of an electric saw and trying to be somewhat precise about it.
When I was a kid, the "good old boys" dispatched them with an axe and sledge. But, they also did not fillet.
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Any hammer will do. A ball peen works excellent, but then, so does a 20 oz. framer's claw hammer, a crowbar, or a large rusted piece of rebar - at least those have worked for me in the past. It should just be something pretty robust that you can swing with a moderate amount of accuarcy. Caution - if you hit it hard enough, you and everything in the immediate area can get splattered, so, you might want to consider covering it with a towel first and/or doing it outside.
Tube Dude has the plan with cutting the fin spines before hand so the fish lies flat - then use an electric fillet knife(I just got one after TD showed me the advantages of them). I found it makes for much better fillets with less waste.
Also mentioned in a prior post here, is the ice method - which I have used since I was a kid. Simply, I fill my cooler with ice before going fishing and leave it in the truck. When I done I throw the fish in the ice water and in short worder they are out like a light. The rapid and large temperature change puts most fish down and keeps them fresher. However, I have found that cats(especially bullheads) are often still moving(sometimes barely) when I put them on the cutting board - that's when the heavy blunt object is employed. I don't want it moving around because my some of my extremities happen to be in the proximity when I'm wielding the sharpest knife in the house or the equilvalant of an electric saw and trying to be somewhat precise about it.
When I was a kid, the "good old boys" dispatched them with an axe and sledge. But, they also did not fillet.
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