How To Fillet Flounder (Without Losing Any Meat)

hey this is Luke's times with Sarang today we're gonna do in a video on how to clean flounder we've got a nice flounder on the flats today testing out a new lure and a lot of people struggled with flounder they are delicious one of my personal favorite fish for that are caught inshore and I've started for many years as well and so the key is to just is to really do two filets on each sides that's that that's the core premise and so what I do is I just start out basically going right in it's kind of close to the gills and going up as close as I can to the head that's where a lot of the best meat is this knife is not the best I need to sharpen this puppy up but a beast is going right up along the edge will twist him around and then I'll go till I get to about the center line and then I do a cut all the way down the vertebrae and you want to be able to feel the other vertebrae as you're going down if you're not perfect on them it's not that big of a deal but that if you can get right on top of and that is that is the goal if you look closely you can see there's just a just the top of the hump there's a slight line there and just follow follow the top it doesn't have to be perfect and this is the key because if you try to do a normal like a normal Flay on the normal fish is that you're you're going to lose a lot of meat and and doing it this is doing it this way is the way to just get the most meat possible and so now we have that cut down the center line and so this this top half is the best meat you know we have some ribs to deal with down here so I do the top part first or so now we've got the center line so now the point is to go just go down the center line and just start angling the knife out and what you're doing is just cutting right up along the edge and you will be getting a ton of me you'll there'll be hardly any meat that is missed so again just go down there just point that the knife in and you can if you look up right here you can see these ribs we're going right up along the edges of those ribs and this is the only one we got today so I'm going to try to get as much meat as possible go nice and slow and and again just kind of angle it down and just follow right up along the ribs then when you get up here you can can now power through there are a couple bones right up here at the top that you have to power through and then now we're clear of the bones so now we can just go ahead and just keep just begin just doing sweeps and you can see this is there's no meat left you can go oh I give it me I miss something there when I was fooling around those bones but I will kind of get in there and see if we can get that alright and so now now we need to break through the skin so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to pull up the flap and just start breaking through the skin up top and then we'll just follow the line down I like to just cut it all the way off up top and there we are so that is a good chunk of meat again there's really hardly any meat left behind it's missed a little tad there but that's the way to go and just get as much meat as possible these this Flay's or these filets just taste so good it's a shame to miss any meat and that's the best way right get in go over cross the center line and then start going out cutting down the right down the edge and you got it now we're gonna go ahead and skin this guy and just like normal right the key for skinning is get your knife get it close to the edge so that your knife can see that your knife doesn't have this gap you're gonna miss a bunch of meat if you have this gap you don't miss any meat at all if you have your handle over the edge and you can keep it just nice and flush to the table all right so now we're going to get started and now we can just slowly get this skin off of this meat well you're gonna be having some good dinner tonight all right there's through the skin out it's now some real tasty meat right there and I immediately soak it in salt water that's cutting you know salt water with ice in there that's really cold that's gonna keep that meat nice and fresh and now we can start on the on the back side so this sides a little bit more difficult you do have some ribs to deal with and so we're going to is we're going to start it again right over the the rib bones right over the vertebrae and start starter a little you know start just following the the backbone again just kind of keep going in there just have the knife angled down and you were gonna get as much meat as paw school you can get pretty aggressive with it so now I'm almost breaking through and so this time I'll just go ahead and break through and just follow it all the way down that's there we are so you can see I was just doing cut after cut after cut not missing really any meat at all and now we can just start moving up the back we have to get through the ribs and those ribs are right around there so I just go ahead and just cut it straight off instead of dealing with those ribs this flatter it's so flat all this this ribs are gonna basically be impeding all the meat right there so I just I just cut it off right there to start the ribs and now we have again that's just pure pure backbone all the meat is right here and it'll be on the grill tonight skins gone there's some nice Flay's ready to go and again the same premise holds true on the other side right I'm just going to do the same cut cut down or get right on the spine and then start going out start fleshing it out fleshing it out and that's the way to get the most meat possible so the same same premise holds true the white side that still does have some meat it's not quite as much as the other side but it still has to meet so I'm just gonna do the same exact process yeah so the back side just do the same exact thing right just start in the I'm gonna get the cut going get towards the middle and this end it on the back side you actually have this line so here's the center line right there you can see it nice and clear and so now we're just going to just go right down the line simple as that and I start on the top side first it's just a little bit easier alright so now I got the top side going I'm just just doing the same exact thing alright just taking the knife and just cutting down right up keeping the angle down got to power through that put that bone right there angle the knife down and just power right through the skin just like that so again nice nice slab of meat again that's the white side the white top that's some really good meat on there again straight bones now we'll do the same thing as before we want to get the skin off there we are that's the white side again still a nice nice slab of meat get that right there in the cold water and then the final one is the the white side bottom and it's same premise and just as before we're gonna just go to we get the rib bones and we starting to get the guts there you can see a little bit of guts stomach there just go above the stomach try to claim as much of that meat as possible and then we'll just go right on up that way we don't have to cut out rib bones and all that sort of stuff alright there's a that's the bottom the bottom white side still again plenty of meat and then here is the fun alright just to evaluate ourselves right the key is just did you get this meat the thickest meat is gonna be right here this is all bones all bones all bones all bones pretty much see right through it that's the goal see you're right through your fillet that's what you know you got as much meat as possible so that's it for now just wanted to share how to clean these flounder these are really really good eating we're gonna go and now you know get this get this meat I'll be cooking it tonight so I hope you enjoyed that video if you have any questions on cleaning flounder or if you have any ideas on ways to improve this I would love to hear them and I look at all the comments so leave a comment down below if you have any questions or comments otherwise yeah thank you so much for watching hope to see you again soon 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 Lou 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 try out 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: 114,091

Rating: 4.7606835 out of 5

Keywords: flounder, fluke, how to fillet flounder, how to filet flounder, how to clean flounder, how to clean fish, fish fillet tips, flounder fillet tips, flounder fillet tutorial, fish fillet tutorial

Id: owpz62e6P5Q

Length: 8min 51sec (531 seconds)

Published: Tue May 12 2020