been cooking a mess of crappies lately, I am in the skin on scale camp , actually everyone I fed them too skin on joined my skin on team

I know it depends on the fish like you wouldn't likely do cats with skin on

but for pan fish where you are already making little fillets , I like skin on

it may be that it reminds me of how my great uncle used to do it , always , scale and butterfly those perch .

kids were designated scalers , here is your spoon , start scaling

I do both but I usually get lazy and fillet the skin off. It saves a lot of time.

Panfish/ walleye. Scale em n cook em.

Skin off for my wife she cannot stand the skin on shes.mostly bluegill,crappie type of gal for panfish.doesnt make me much difference.

I don't mind skin but I like taking the skin off panfish bass etc. I keep it on trout and macks

Never thought much on it, here, we fillet and skin everything

My thinking if you skin them you really dont like fish, the skin and the thin layer of fat underneath has all the flavor.

No skin

I hate fileting anything smaller than 14". scale and fry.

Lot of good flavor in the skin.

Depends on the fish

on

Smaller fish, skin ON. Bigger fish, depends on my mod, LOL. Always peel any I'm gonna fillet. I always peel Cat, Carp, Gar etc.

Who cleans up the scales? I always skin everything otherwise I'm finding scales around the house for a week. But I don't fish much in the summer, so most of my fish cleaning is during the winter so outside is less than ideal.

Never scaled a fish in my life.

Skin off for us.

Same. I like 'em fileted regardless of what type of fish.

piece of carboard on the tailgate when the scales dry the brush right off

but I can see winter may be harder

it comes down to labor I guess

some one said scaling takes longer , maybe if your doing it all yourself but if you have a helper you can just fillet and they have all the scales off for you so your part of the labor is less. a good scaler can feed 2 people filleting so if you have a mess of fish and someone not so great with a knife they can have them scaled for you.

The smaller the fish the skin stays on.

Only takes a minute to scale a small fish. We'll worth it.

No way, unless you fillet a lot slower than me.

Off

To each his/her own. I prefer scaling and making fillets and eating skin-on except for burbot and catfish.

Jack

Love the skin on. Just like a seasoned potato. I know friends who are from European countries who also toast and brown the fins , crunch them like candy. I like that too. Seasoned just right.

The secret to life......Buttah .

I prefer scaled. Fried crisp, hard to beat. My kids do too, always request me to leave skin on fish. Some fish are skinned.

My favorite salt water fish to scale and leave skin on are black perch, sea bass, speckled trout, and flounder.

skin off

My great grandfather used to eat the fins like that and loved them.

Yes ADC I fillet a lot slower than you

I maybe should get me one of those fancy electric knives

do you have a video of the rib removal?

No, but its pretty simple. Just use a little 4" Rapala fillet knife and cut right around them. Typically my wife cuts out the ribs for me. We can fillet 50 crappies in under 20min., faster if we're in a hurry. After 30 years we have a pretty good system. Oh, and yes the electric knife is awesome. And FWIW we still have scales all over the shop. lol

For me, this is especially true for crappie. Without the skin on, crappie tastes like water to me. Skinned crappie is a bit on the mushy side. With skin on? Now we're talking. More flavor and crispier.

I have a stainless steel loop type scaler you just scrub each side for a few passes and it is done.
a bit faster than a spoon , or back of a knife, but both work

I go over the ribs , I tried cutting the ribs the other day on one it took me longer to get the ribs out than going over the ribs with the knife
but that is how I have always done it so it may just be practice.

Wife caught me supper Sunday evening and I just fillet them. I occasionally do some fish just scaling them. But not so much any more as years ago. My father in-law used to scale small panfish. My mother in law always had to check his work because leave scales. Lmao






Mac

"Never Forget Which Way Is Up!"

If someone is cooking my fish and leaves skin on or bones in, we’re fighting!

Isn't there some kind of contraption you can put in a 5 gallon bucket to scale fish with don't know how well they work.

When Im cleaning 40-50 crappie, I aint got time to scale.

LOL!

yes there is , my cousin has a really nice one for his fish processing business


there are all sorts of different power options now , you would have to clean a Lot of fish to make a power drum scaler worth while

it looks like a fine cheese grater drum and the fish roll around inside of it and get scales pulled off

there are also numerous power type that use a small drum or paddle to remove the scales.

I just use the stainless steel loop type , most of my fish cleaning takes place on a tailgate and involves a head lamp , toss down a sheet of cardboard and start cleaning.

Skin taste better but scaling is more work than skinning.

Same thing with my wife with sunfish. She doesn't like the skin on and doesn't like messing with bones. If it was just me, I would scale, gut, and fry them whole. You don't lose any flesh that way and I prefer the taste.

I have never fried hole but I decided I am going to give that a try when I catch my next mess of fish

scale , gut , head off and fry

Yes, I do cut the head off as well.

That's how I learned to cook fish.
We as kids used to just gut, scale , cut the head off, and cook over an open fire on a stick.
The best tasting bluegills were rolled in flour , just scaled and gutted, fried in butter, or bacon grease , used a fork to run along the dorsal fin.
Flip the meat skin and all off the ribs, and just leave a skeleton on the plate.
The wife marveled at how I would do that.
I fillet them most of the time anymore , because of how many people eat them that can't see eating the tails, and skin.
But that's the best tasting fish ever, beats perch even.

Cut behind the head through the spine. Grab the head and pull off, pulling the guts out at the same time. Stick your fingers inside and hold it down on the table or stump you're cleaning on and give it a quick scrape with the 97¢ scaler from Sam Walton's Mart. Flip and scrape again. Faster than cutting filets off.

Dip in cornmeal mix and fry. If I've got time, I'll run the filet knife down both sides of the spine so that I can get some breading in there and it will open up the filet when it hits the hot grease.

When it's time to eat you just gently lift the filet off with the fork. Flip it over and do the same and you are left with two boneless filets and just the skeleton like the cats ate on Saturday morning cartoons.