Saltwater Catfish Cleaning, Tips and Techniques

When you head out on a fishing trip, you're filled with the dream of catching lots of fish. Your next fishing trip can be filled with your biggest catch or more fish than you've ever seen before. Not knowing what to expect means that you need to prepare that much more.

Catching saltwater catfish is fun and exciting but what do you do once you catch them? Many places let you keep a certain number of fish per person or per day. Other fishing sites only allow you to catch and release.

If you want to keep what you catch you need to be sure that you can. Checking the policy of the place you're going to fish is the best way to make sure that you can do this. Your fishing trip is that much more enjoyable when you actually get to keep the fish that you catch.

Catfish are considered to be a very delicious meal in North America and many people around the world like them as well. If you intend on keeping your fish you need to know how to clean it and prepare it to make the best meal possible.

There are a few things to remember when you decide to clean your own catch and following these few simple tips will make for a better meal.

Preparing Catfish for Cleaning
If you've never cleaned a fish, especially a catfish, you're in for an interesting experience. While it can be difficult your first time, it only takes a bit of practice in order to become a master of it. There are a few things to remember before you start the process of cleaning your fish.

Before you get to the actual cleaning process, you'll have to prepare the fish to be cleaned. Removing the head, skin and fins will be a process you'll have to figure out yourself. There are a few different methods to removing these parts but the easiest way for most people is to remove the head with a knife and then gut it up the middle from the top of its neck down to its bottom.

Running your finger through the middle will remove all the unwanted internal parts and help reduce the amount of cleaning you will do later. You can choose to wait to do this until later but it's much easier to do it in this step. Once you have the guts removed from the catfish, it's time to remove the skin.

Removing the skin of the fish is one of the hardest parts in preparing the fish. Having patience is important since you probably won't get it right the first few times you do it. Most professional fisherman and chefs can't always get a catfish completely skinned and cleaned the first time. Use a sharp knife that's meant for filleting the fish.