YOU'VE BEEN CLEANING WALLEYE WRONG!!! Maximize your BONELESS FILLETS and catch with minimal waste!

[Music] all righty before you fillet your fish in general it starts in the boat as soon as you catch the fish it comes in the boat this is what we do so come down here take a look um we'll grab the fish out of here and we what we do is right here we snip make a slice and cut their throat so that they bleed out in a in a pail or in your cooler or whatever you want to do what that does is when you're filleting it keeps the meat nice and white so then you don't have big bloody fillets it keeps everything nice and white and there's no blood you get a clean nice white white meat walleye fillet that's just generally what we do we'll catch it out of the out of the water net it comes in the boat give it a little cut just underneath i'll show you one more time um just in front of these fins right here so we'll grab it by the grab it by the gill like this and we'll pull its head back like that and give it a snip so then when you're when you're you're giving uh you're starting your fillet and you'll get your knife right in there like that so it has really affects none of your meat um it just it bleeds it out so your meat is nice and white that's the only thing it does then you don't have a big bloody mess and uh so let's get on with the cleaning welcome back to another one uh this is just your typical walleye um just wanted to make a video on how i clean them other people might have different ways they do them but i typically use cordless bubba electric really awesome nice knives i've um really i i'm not sponsored by them or anything but i recommend this it's uh i've cleaned like 150 perch and then uh like 60 crappy the one day and uh i did i was cleaning walleye again and it was still had a quarter of a battery come they they hold out really well so um what i do is i'll start right and try to get as close to the head as possible right along here because that's where all your meat is right up here or most of the meat so i'll cut in behind both fins right to the back phone and right up through i'll give it a little slice down the middle pop this like that turn follow that backbone making sure i'm staying right if you look come around this way making sure i'm staying nice and tight to that backbone that's all your meat is right here if you veer off of that you'll lose most of your fillet so i come along there at this point you want to make sure your knife is above that fin on the bottom and still on this side of the fin on the top so both both there and there you want to make sure both both sides keep going right till you get to about there stop flip it down like that keep your blade on a little bit of an angle not too much because you'll dig into the skin this is too far and flat is okay now if your fillet is super cold sometimes if your your fish is on ice for long periods of time throughout the day it'll get a little bit stiff and when you're cutting here your blade will actually cut in and start cutting some and leave a strip of skin just flatten out your blade like that a little bit while you're flying them and that'll that'll solve that problem uh this one's pretty good it's cold but it's so there is your fillet right like that flip this over before you flip it over though what you want to do this is a little thing i do right here on the cheek so you don't forget cut down like that carve it up flip it over grab that and just peel it off comes right off just the skins left and you got a nice little medallion just check that right in there good little chunk of meat off of that cheek do this side when you come up to the the top there if you don't cut almost all the way to the skin there like right in there it'll stay attached and you won't it'll be tough it'll rip apart so you want to make sure you cut that sever that meat right off so then this just pops pops right off the skin like that and then you got a little chunk of meat so this side same deal make sure you're getting that top corner right up in there and then you're going to turn your blade like that when you get in there following that backbone when you get to this when you get to this point here you want to make sure you're above that back fin again and stay while staying on top of this fin so you don't end up cutting into both don't cut all the way through so you have something to hold on to flip it over pull this back there's your fillet this goes in scrap bucket coyote bait whatever you want now this is where the fun part comes in a little hand and blade grab your fillet get right along that rib bone there will be a little this this row of bones goes all the way through right along there like that so you're gonna have to once you cut in like this i typically go like this and then do a little crunch like that and you'll hear it it'll go through it'll pop while trying to follow the blade like follow the ribs and don't cut yourself be very careful when you do that it takes a bit of time but as i'm as my blade is going along here i'm actually forcing the blade that way so i'm i'm flexing it out like that to follow along those ribs like doing that kind of emotion with it underneath so you can feel it go across the ribs and that helps you keep all your meat there and then it just pops off at the end like that with the maximum amount of meat kept with the minimum uh damage to your fillet so that's just the way i do it and those ribs stop right there so now you can see them that's just scrap goes there i like to get rid of this this is a little bit of the uh rear end and uh and uh part of that fin so if you uh you cut all that out of there that's just kind of my personal preference and i'll double check to make sure there's no skin left on here if there is just give it a little trim but that gives you a clean fillet then i'll flip it over and i'll zipper it cutting right down through about a quarter inch wide on each side of that lateral line now this is a trick here too a lot of guys rip it straight 90 like that that's not good i'll show you why you got to kind of keep it in a y it keeps there's a double row of bones now this one comes out nice and clean on the bottom that goes in there now this one here i'll do it this way first so if you rip it in a straight 90 it comes off and there's a second row of bones right here and not always like this time we got lucky not always it'll it'll leave a little strip of bones from like here to here so you gotta always watch for that uh this time we got lucky and it came out but uh i'll see if i can do it on that one but there's the other boneless piece do the ribs just like i was doing before cut through you'll feel it when it goes through again and get in behind it sometimes i like to do it this way on the off hand if you're right-handed depends on still pulling you can see i'm pulling up on that fillet as i'm doing it so then it keeps all that meat there and you just get the thin rib shell or like that all those ribs just come out in one little package but once you get down that far you can flip it back this way and it's fairly easy follow them sometimes you just give it help it a little bit give it a little cut on that side when you know you're past the ribs there we go and then i'll check along here for that rear end and you don't ever want to put that in your fillet little piece of skin make sure there's no scales or skin then you got your your fillet no ribs you'll rip it down right here one other thing to check too is a lot of times there's one one bone left right here if you can feel it like this one i just felt it you want to pull it or you can just take your knife and give it a little little chop it'll come off like that but that's one one little piece that always uh some it's it depends on how how efficient you are cleaning them but sometimes it always sticks and sometimes it's there sometimes it isn't so just check that we'll rip this like that uh-huh so see how that i ripped it a little quicker so that so some of those bones stayed there those are bones right there there's one there one there one there and there so when that happens that's because you didn't why zipper it like this you went in a complete 180 degrees and just ripped it sometimes that little layer of bones stay there so what you got to do is you got to put your knife along here right here and just make a little cut like that you'll see see that how it starts to come off and that grab it and start help it give it a little pull sometimes you might have to cut it right off but that'll bring that last little bit of rib rib bone there there's a couple bones in there so that's just something so you can kind of see them but you can feel them really good but that's something to look out for there's your piece of uh fillet that's completely boneless here's the other side so remember keep it like a y you never want to go right 90 180 sorry 90 degrees on both sides you never want to go right flat and rip it apart like that you kind of want to follow that back take both of your hands and just just gently go along it like that and just help it kind of separate because then it comes off nice and clean keep that in mind that those there's a double row bones in the middle so a lot of guys don't pick up on that that's just something i've learned through the years then you got this is a 24-25 inch fish you got two medallions and a handful of meat that's all boneless off of one fish [Applause] if you look at the fish itself there's not much left on there so there's uh you know that's uh that's fairly clean you don't miss any meat up near the head right here cheeks are gone a lot of guys miss out on the cheeks some people clean this too [Applause] clean it up make soup out of it but that's uh optional if you're it's all how far you want to go with it but that's the way i clean walleye and that's uh the way we've been doing it for years so thanks for watching

Channel: HawYeeTV

Views: 599,252

Keywords: walleye, pickeral, fillet, cleaning, zipper, zippering, fish, filleting, boneless, ribbing, fillets, skinning, your, how, to, clean, cheek, meat, debone, deboning, saving, cheeks, fresh, taking, the, bone, bones, out, professionally, walleyes, pickerals, electric, knife, as, much, possible, right, way, catching, fishing, for, white, no, do, professional

Id: 5-HIyWlpuKM

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2021