I was horrible at cleaning fish to begin with and am still not great. But after the first few hundred I have gotten pretty proficient at filleting BG. We have so many fish we do not even try to get every last morsel of meat. I fillet the BG around the rib cage boneless and leave the head, guts and tail all intact. On the smaller ones do not even try to get any of the lower rib belly meat. On the larger ones will cut through the pin bones then the wife will pull the pin bones out later when she is prepping them for freezing.

I know lots of people like to eat them bone in but it is just not our thing.

Probably a third or fourth of the BG carcasses go back in the pond to feed the CC. I usually cut it up in three pieces, head, body and tail section before throwing it back in the pond. If I clean only a half dozen fish I will put it all back in the water but if we clean a big batch will only throw in what I think the CC will clean up quickly. The CC carcass we always take to the pasture along with any excess BG cleanings for the coons and coyotes. 24 hours later it will be gone.

While I am filleting I like to slice off a little meat I missed and throw it to the waiting BG to watch them snatch it up. The cleaning station I added to our dock is the cats meow for cleaning fish. Carolynn and I both filleting can clean a days catch in no time. Spray it off into the pond and cleanup is done. We have really made use of the cleaning station. Edit: we have since removed the rinky dink faucet that came with the cleaning station and replaced it with a kitchen retractable spray hose. It works much better than the faucet. Use the kitchen one as we are cleaning fish then the one on the garden hose with more reach to clean off the station when we are finished.

Last edited by snrub; 07/05/18 11:04 PM.
John

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