Whats your fish fileting techniques? specifically specks

Specks - electric knife:

- Hold by the head, anal fins up
- Cut the belly from the a-hole to the gills
- Turn on one side, cut from the head to the tail
- Flip the slab then cut the fillet off the skin while the skin is still attached to the tail/carcass
- Turn over, repeat the last 2 steps

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Flip the slab then cut the fillet off the skin while the skin is still attached to the tail/carcass

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I do this way sometimes as well.

Regarding starting from the tail - supposedly you can cut the entire length of the filet until the knife hits the head. If you start at the head you miss a very miniscule amount (this is what my anal-retentive uncle preaches anyway). Not worth it to me to switch, Im already used to head first.

Hat got it. Knife never stops moving.

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Used to use electric but got this baddass Dexter knife that fillets the hell outta them. Works head to tail. Flip, back to head with fat slab.

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I'm going back to electric. My new Dexter sucks arse.Always leaving skin and shite on the meat. I feel I can feel what's going on better using electric.Maybe it's just because that's what I'm used to. Not the serrated Dexter for redfish. That's a whole different beast. That knife does work son.

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serrated Dexter

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that thing is amazing

Reds

For specks, I cut behind the head going down to the spine and then follow the knife through the belly to the anal fin. Similar to how some people cut the belly to anal fin first; I just incorporate that into the first cut.

I use manual knives- no electric

I recently started doing this as an experiment, and I like it….takes a little more time but...

Filet the speck from head to tail and then descale the skin side (trout have very very very small scales on the skin side). It takes a few seconds to do for each fish. I tend to like trout skin when baking fish or topping it with sauces, and it comes out perfectly.

Did the same with a large redfish recently and baked it whole (without head) and stuffed it with herbs. Took some time to descale it but it came out great!

I moved from electric knife to Dexter regular blade. I keep an Accusharp sharpener handy.

Quicker than electric IMHO and the thinner blade leaves more meat than an electric.

Electric and head to tail, on initial cut i stick finger in towards belly and slide out bladder then no problems with that,been doing this way for years so not gonna change.

For white perch I scale first then fillet. I know, I know but when I fillet them it's for me and I find the skin adds a lot of flavor.

I don't fillet for time-saving purposes, I do so for quality. I also only fillet what I think my girls will eat (3 or 4 fish fries)so I give most of what I catch away.

I fillet the small ones and give the big ones away.