Fillet Spanish Mackerel Step By Step (And How To Get Rid Of The "Fishy" Taste!)

good afternoon fish fans this is Captain Mark Hollywood Johnson here at angler House marina and today's episode we're gonna do the proper way to clean Spanish mackerel we had a great day of fishing this afternoon with Joe and Luke and I'm gonna send these boys to the local restaurant for some amazing fresh fish and before we do that we're gonna put the clean down on some fresh Spanish mackerel now cleaning the Spanish mackerel there's one fish that can be a little tricky to clean because of how thin the skin is and what makes it so thin is that the nick name of these fish is slimy and if you were to look here you'll see on this razor-sharp knife the scales are just about microscopic which makes them really easy to cut through this skin unlike a snapper or a snooker or a triple tail that has big scales those scales create body on the fish and makes it much easier to fillet Spanish mackerel with the the tiny scales it's really easy for the knife to go through the skin which then causes a little more work when you're gonna skin it before you take it to the restaurant okay so we're gonna start here with your Spanish mackerel sharp filleting knife from Affco brand-new and when the knives are sharp and the fish is delicate it's easy to go through the bones it's easy to go through the skin it's easy to cut yourself so you have to pay attention to what it is you do so the basic makeup of any fish is you have a backbone and a spine kind of run right down the top and in the middle so as I cut this fish and I turn this blade in Here I am trying to keep my knife blade parallel to the spine of this fish and with that being said you watch how easy this knife goes right down keeping the plane of the blade just right and it goes right on down all the way through voila you can see the bone line in here and you can see how nice a fillet came out you can turn this fish right over the exact same again again this knife is razor sharp unique so it's right through there it's fast to perfect fillets just like that alright so we're going to take this and we're going to feed our local sharks can you see our local sharks down here at the bottom if they can get to it before the birds do nope maybe not but anyway once again mackerel right here behind the PEC fin turn your knife blade keep the plane of that blade just right in ease right down that fish perfect again turn the blade you can hear it go through the delicate bones and it'll slide right down keeping that blade parallel is important so that you don't miss a bunch of the meat by having your knife blade if you look in here you can have your knife at all different angles but if you can keep it just right and slide right down that bone you can make a perfect fillet so now we have one filleted fish you can just about see through it no meat goes the waste fantastic so you'll see when you do this about ten thousand times it becomes second-nature the same stroke everything it never changes flip it right over get right in here and go common mistakes turn the knife just a little bit it'll go right through the skin turn the knife the wrong way you go right through the bone we're gonna hear that that's how these bones are delicate and you can go right through okay fresh Spanish mackerel all right so one of the next in line when you're doing this one of the things are most important is to keep a clean work area so once you get through the first part of this and we're going to get the blood off the table we're gonna clean the surface so that it's nice and not some slippery we clean the knife blade clean the hands because all fish are slimy okay so part two of the Spanish mackerel fillet now you have this beautiful Flay but you're not done yet you want to cut the rib cage out again you cut it on an angle slide nice and through brand new sharp knife gets a little bit of the skin and gets all that rib cage out okay now you have real nice fillet you can see the blood line down the middle now we're gonna skin this fish so what I was talking about earlier is how delicate this skin is it's really easy for the knife blade to go through but one thing that's in common with all fish that you skin is the angle of the blade on the table and my dad taught me years ago the trick to this whole thing skinning is to keep the handle of your knife off the table and if you can do that that keeps your knife blade flat to the table you see this it's flat if your knife gets up here there is no way you can make that flat and you see the gap here that is all me you're gonna miss this is the million dollar trick to making perfect skinless place keep the handle off the table keep the knife blade on the table nice and flat works every time okay so super sharp knife very delicate fish biggest mistake people make is they go right through the skin it happens to all of us all the time but we do our best not to so we get in here notice my handle is way off this table and nice and gently now you get the first couple inches done you hold on to this with your other hand and I am working this knife just right down here perfect and I am trying to keep that knife tilt it up just a tickle so that I don't go through the skin voila okay if you go through the skin it just causes you to have to go back in and work on the fillet okay so now you have this no skin no bone but you have this red line Spanish mackerel are fantastic eat but they get a bad rap because folks don't treat the fish right so now we're gonna go in here we're gonna cut this blood line out on both sides okay just like that now you have a beautiful piece here get rid of the bone in the blood line and you have a beautiful piece here now we're gonna cut this into thirds and make what I call perfect fish fingers okay you got a little bit of red here that's from the gaff shot earlier and you cut that out just a little bit again real sharp knife pay attention get rid of that cut that in thirds perfect now once you get to here you're almost done you're gonna rinse your filets so when you fish saltwater and you clean saltwater fish you want to put it in salt water bucket whether you do a little brine or not if you're gonna travel far but regardless you want it in saltwater not fresh and you just let it get in there and by the time it takes me to knock all this out I'm gonna put them all in there rinse it real good put them in a ziploc bag and then they're ready for transport so once again once we get to here you see the rib cage you want to get all the bones out you always want to cut on an angle because that will leave a little extra meat there if you cut it straight up and down and just hack it that's just that much more meat you give away back to keeping the knife handle off the table and delicately sliding down this skinned okay turn it over the knife is so sharp I mean it is not hard to go through that skin all right so this side we're going to cut the blood line out again you get rid of that we're gonna cut this into thirds okay so here's a piece you can see there's a little bit of bone that came when I filleted it again the knife so sharp it goes right through it so you recognize that so I'm gonna cut the rib cages out on the angle I'm gonna come on this side and just gently again on the angle and just slide that little bit of bone out skidding again this is always off the table the handle stays off the table grab the skin and then work yourself down all right turn it over see that there so here we go that was so sharp I didn't even feel it now you got to get creative and you got a saw and slide and just get in here and wiggle this off without taking big hunks of meat out so it takes a little practice because this meat is so delicate and the skin is so thin you can carve this all up like a bad horror movie and that's no good right so you have to be really careful with your blade okay now we're back to cutting out the blood line cut your fingers into thirds imma take these go right in the bucket of salt water so now we got all of our mackerel fillet skinned blood line cut out ready for the restaurant so once again we always want to put your fish in the bucket of salt water and then you get your handy little ziplock can you give just a little bit of just a shake in here all right and then all this goes in one bag because this is going right from here to the restaurant so total time of this is gonna be about 15 minutes and they're gonna make some amazing fish tacos with good old Spanish mackerel okay all wash ready to go filleted knowledge so now you have you get all the air out of your bag okay zip it up now if you were traveling some distance you would double bag this and put a little ice on the bottom they make what we call the Florida Keys cooler but my boys are only going right across the street to the restaurant with enough fish to feed the village and that is as good as it gets Spanish mackerel all right guys for any questions or ideas and how to fillet fish skin fish Spanish mackerel you can always find captain mark on Florida Keys fun fishing comm as well as salt strong calm and you can reach out to me anytime have a great night we're going to the restaurant hey there Joe Simon's one of the cofounders here at salt strong and have you claimed your free pack of these irresistible slam shady paddle tail lures we designed this lure with over 12,000 serious inshore anglers including many full-time guides to go out there and catch more redfish more speckled trout more snook more flounder more inch or saltwater slams and if you want to free pack the trout a sample yourself click down below right now we have one free pack per angler while supplies last click down below right now you

Channel: Salt Strong

Views: 98,928

Keywords: how to clean spanish mackerel, how to fillet spanish mackerel, eating spanish mackerel, how to skin spanish mackerel, debone spanish mackerel, spanish mackerel fishy taste, catch and cook spanish mackerel, fillet mackerel

Id: gOxX1uizT2c

Length: 12min 29sec (749 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 06 2020