Skinned a ton of coons with the little rapala !!!

I’ve had a 6 inch and a 9 inch Rapala for a long time. I use to 6 inch to fillet crappie bass and other pan fish and the 9 inch for everything else; walleye, striped bass, etc.

I recently bought a 12 inch Rapala fillet knife at an estate sale. I didn’t even know they made one that big and I don’t see it listed for sale anywhere. I got the knife, a chain stringer, some cleaning patches and then old cleaning kit for five dollars.

Dexter Russel

Bubba electric has lasted the longest. 3 year and thousands of walleye. I do ever use a rapala electric blade ( need to remove the black guards for it to fit) in the bubba. Can't beat victornox for fixed blade fillet knife.

I use a Buck fillet and a Rapala fillet knives.

I like my Cutco and Leech Lake, but my new favorite is a White River with the cork handle.

Zim

Thanks for all the input, that gives me several choices to look at.

American angler hands down for a corded knife. American angler for a 12v knife.

I have tried a lot of them and wound up just using the Rapala filet knife more than anything and the American Angler for the bigger boned stuff.
I wound up selling most of these at my last garage sale but did keep enough to keep me cuttin'. Just keep whatever you use sharp.

I have gone off flexible knives for prepping fish altogether. Its a bit of a learning curve , but once ya get the hang of it, a good Deba is hard to beat. Just thought I would throw that into the mix . The reason I like working with a Deba is that the stiff blade will give me a better feedback and I can feel the contour of every vertebrae going along the spine. But it will cut through rib bones without deflecting because of a flexible blade. You know exactly where the tip and edge is at at all times.

Well I love my filet knives and have many between home and cabin. My daughter bought me the Gerber folding filet knife and I absolutely love this knife. I bought another
on for the cabin to go with the other 6 I probably have. Breasted out 7 turkeys this year on a multi state trip, it is a great travel and home knife.

Cleaned 100 crappies (and some bluegills) with my 10 year old Mister Twister corded fillet knife in the last two days. I've done thousands with it. 4" Rapala to cut out the ribs. Spend all the money you want but you sure don't have to.

I share fillet knives with Zim, of course, but I also like a few simple Rapala fillet knives with the soft handles. Nice grip for me.

I don't ever use electric knives anymore because I have seen the intestinal parasites (also parasitic to humans) that come out of the digestive tracts of some fish once you cut into them. I also have spent enough time cleaning up after folks who left them behind on a fish cleaning table without ever knowing they were there. Some of them can appear like a piece of clear monofilament fishing line until you watch closely and see them moving. Ingesting one tiny segment from one of those is all that a human needs for an infection. Freaks me out! I can appreciate the lightening speed with which some people can fillet fish with electric knives though.

Most of my fish cleaning experience was with saltwater fish, mainly mahi, wahoo, and tuna. Cleaning crappie might be a different skill. I have cleaned tons of seabass and vermillion snappers. The seabass we scaled, the snappers we cut and skinned with a serrated knife. We used an assembly line. I was almost never the fillet man. I skinned, scaled, and made some preliminary cuts.

We used 7" and 9" Dexter Russel fillet knives mostly. For triggerfish, a shorter knife was easier for outlining them before skinning.

We sharpened dull knives on an electric machine in the kitchen, then used the F.Dick Hypersteel at our stations and rarely ever needed to take a knife back to the kitchen machine. Life was so much easier once we discovered the F.Dick sharpeners. The condition of the fish made a difference. The fresher, the better. Ice is a fish's best friend to assure a quality product.

If you watch a video of women in the poultry houses, they give their knives two strokes on a spring steel device after every chicken. Their steels are mounted horizontally.

I use to cut thru ribs and then have to cut them out until a buddy told me to angle my handle towards the tail like so..


Cut down to the tail as usual and your blade skips right over the ribs.



Then slip the meat off the hide, leaving it attached to the carcass.


All done in one motion.

Going fishing tonight hippie. I will give it a try

We always cut from the top of the head downward to the anal vent. Leaves guts and ribs in the fish. You end up discarding those parts anyway.. Flounder is different.

Good luck Danny, hope ya catch a mess.

I went this morning and caught some trout as ya can see. They weren't biting real good but I managed.

Well we did get a nice mess. catfish is on the menu tonight. I never really thought about how I fillet before but I instinctively angle my knife that way already. Fillets are trimmed up now and ready for a black skillet and olive oil

FWIW those fish were not near the rocks they spawn in. We were drifting and caught them all over the place. fish finder said the water temp was 70-71 they should have been near spawning areas i would have thought, but they were not. guys fishing from the bank off the rip rap were not catching many.