How to Fillet a Trout
January 16th, 2008I went ice fishing for my first time. My friend and neighbor Bill Anderson was kind enough to show me the ropes. I’m sad to say we caught our limits in less time than it took to drive the one hour to fishlake. But, the sun was shining and the trout were beautiful. We were fishing for dinner, so Splake was the target fish. Bill says they are probably the best eating trout there is. When we got home Bill showed me this technique for filleting trout. His first rule, use a very sharp knife. Here is the step by step process of filleting a fish. No more bones.

Step 1: Make a cut from the top of the head to the belly, just behind the gills. Do this on both sides.

Step 2: Holding the fish head down. Cut from the anal fin to the gills. If you did it right the guts and head should all drop to the ground.

Step 3: Next we make a cut from the head to the tail-fin right along the back bone. Take a second to cut out the dorsal fin.

Step 4: Do the same on the belly, continuing down from the anal fin to the tail fin. Take a second and remove the anal fins here.

Step 5: With the fins removed and an incision down the belly and back you are ready to remove the skin. With your knife peal up a corner of skin and pull toward the tail. Do this on both sides.

Step 6: Next, we want to seperate the backbone from the two fillets. Lay the fish flat on your board and slide your sharp knife from head to tail along the backbone.

Step 7: Now remove the back bone from the remaining fillet using the same method. Toss the backbone into the guts pile. You just got rid of most of the bones.

Step 8: Now we slice at an angle to shave away the remaining bones from the rib cage. They should all come off in one clean cut. Do this to both fillets.

Step 9: Remove the remaining bone where the dorsal fin was cut away. Do this on both fillets.

Step 10: Now all that’s left is a small ridge of bones down the upper center of the fillet. You can feel the bone tips by rubbing your thumb allong the fat part of the fillet. They run at a slight angle about 2/3rds the length of the fillet.

Step 11: Make a cut along both side of the bony ridge. Try to save as much meat as possible. This step takes a few tries to get good at it. You should have a beautiful fillet left in the shape of an upside down V. No Bones.

The last and final step is to rinse the fillets down real good in cold water. Then cook them up any way you choose. If you are freezing them for later place them in a zip-loc freezer bag with some water in it to help avoid freezer burn. I cooked mine using an egg wash and italian seasoned bread crumbs then fried them in margarine. The trout fillets were amazing and I never detected a bone. My two boys ate it all up, but the girls are still a little squeemish about fish in general. Oh well, more fish for me, my wife and the two boys.
Note: Notice the difference in color of the Splake (very red) and the lone Rainbow Trout (Whiter). We caught these fish on the bottom of fishlake (water temp – 32 degrees).
















