Inspired by someone from the salmon forum, I decided to smoke the channel I brought home the other day. Boy did that work out well.
It lasted a full 10 minutes after I pulled it out and brought it in the house!
One of the best fish meals I’ve ever had. And I figured out a new way to use the smoker that I wouldn’t have thought of before. I’ll try to post pics of the smoking technique next time I some fish.
Good stuff! 
Yum. Sounds good.
x2 on the pic’s not working…but I by-passed as well. Yup, those look awesome. I’ve always wanted to try smoking catfish but thought the meat would be too moist to do it right. But as you did, it would be great served hot as a meal…I’ll try that next time. Those fillets look really moist and I bet that smoke flavor really tasted great.
Thanks for the insiration.
I did smoke some Asian Carp last weekend. It too came out great. The meat was white and flakey. Not oily like carp at all. I would compare it to Buffalo. And I will be doing it again.
L8R…Ken
My Dad and I used to smoke little cats and bullheads in a old Amana upright freezer that we converted to a smoker. We would brine them in a salt and brown sugar bath then smoke em up.
The neighbors would always come over to “talk” when they saw the smoke rolling out the top. 
never kept catfish but like the meat and this looks awesome, is it hard to fillet a catfish?
Cats are very easy to fillet. No scales to dull the knife is a plus. Just cut down to the ribs, once past them go all the way thru. Then I go back and trim off the rib meat. Then flip it over and fillet off the skin. I use a cutting board as a flat surface works best, newspapers do not work well.
Don’t even need to fillet off the skin if you are going to smoke them. Leave the skin on. make incisions through the meat down to the skin about 1 inches apart to make 1 inch cubes out of the meat. Then put your rub and brine on. Really gets it into the meat and very tasty. I haven’t smoked a cat yet but haven’t found any meat to be bad on a smoker.
OK, picture issue resolved… there we go.
As for how I did it:
When I clean channels I clean them much the same as I did bullheads when I was a kid… circle cut just behind the head, peel the skin, fillet from the skeleton. And same as with bullheads this method strips off the belly meat and leaves the head, guts and belly all attached and easy to toss. Theoretically anyway.
That leaves the membrane inside the skin but outside the meat still on the fillets. When I’m going to bread and deep fry, I cut out the lateral line, shave off that layer of sub-skin (for lack of a better term) and the underlying layer of brown, slimy fat, bread and deep fry. That’s why walleye guys can’t tell my catfish from their walleye when it’s all piled on the same plate.
It’s that fat layer that “tastes like fish” and, to me it tastes like a mouthful of greasy lake water.
In this case, though, I left that sub-skin on, a lot like sandmannd said… honestly in this case you really couldn’t taste that fatty layer. Well, you could, actually, but it went really well with the smoke and the fish. I put it on the smoker skin-side up from 5PM till about 12:30AM.
From 5 till about 11, I had a hot plate in the smoker on high, with a cast iron skillet full of alder wood chips. Then at 11/11:30 I started a charcoal fire in the hot box (I have an offset smoker). My hot box has the fire grate in the bottom and a ledge to put a grill on just below the door opening… so I filled an aluminum baking pan full of woodchips and set it where the grill would go.
Pics would be easier. Next time.
Anyway, 6 hours with the hot plate @ ~120F, then 90 minutes with the charcoal @ 150F. I LOVE my offset smoker!!
Anyone says catfish is moist is _right_. I’m not sure I like it cold, either. But hot, fresh off the smoker? HECK YES!
They were fresh fillets, no brine, no sugar… I rinsed and salted them heavily before putting them on and put them right on the grill inside the smoker.
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I did smoke some Asian Carp last weekend. It too came out great. The meat was white and flakey. Not oily like carp at all. I would compare it to Buffalo. And I will be doing it again.
L8R…Ken
I’ve been wondering if we were going to end up harvesting those fish…
Seriously? They’re insidious and invasive. If we can overharvest our native species to near extinction why can’t we do the same thing, on purpose, to invaders? Trawl the HECK out of them, turn America into another country famous for an aquatic protein source?
Anyway… if we ever do end up having them around here in any sort of numbers I intend to harvest intently. 
Thanks for the inspiration. 
I’ve been wondering if we were going to end up harvesting those fish…
Seriously? They’re insidious and invasive. If we can overharvest our native species to near extinction why can’t we do the same thing, on purpose, to invaders? Trawl the HECK out of them, turn America into another country famous for an aquatic protein source?
Anyway… if we ever do end up having them around here in any sort of numbers I intend to harvest intently.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Yes, that is my intent. We don’t have them here yet but I am fishing some catfish tournaments in Missouri and we catch them for bait. I kept a couple just to try it. I’ll be back down this weekend and intend to add a few more filets to my cooler. I really want to try deep frying and also cooking one on a grill (or maybe ever that Cedar Board method). I’ll let you know how that turns out.
When I smoke fish, I usually put a concoction of spices on them just before I put them on the smoker. Adds a little extra ‘kick’ to the fish…not that it needs it though. I mix some brown sugar, salt and chili powder with some soy sauce. Then ‘paint that on the meat side of the fish, let it soak in for a few minutes, sprinkle some cayane pepper on (be careful with that stuff) and put on the smoker. Like I said, it add just a little ‘kick’ to the fillets.
I think I’m with you about the cold catfish. I can see that as a main course served with dill pickles and some pumpernickle rye bread along side some potato salad and cold slaw and of course, your favorite adult barley pop. My carp and (now) Silvers come out pretty dry…nearly jerky…but very tasty. I like them as a snack with crackers and…well…of course…your favorite adult barley pop again. I even made a smoked carp salad once. That was pretty good on crackers or a sandwich. Might try that with catfish too.
L8R…Ken
Looks delicious. When I catch a bunch of smaller catfish (12-16″) I like to just cut the head off, gut it, and then peel off its skin and throw the whole thing in the smoker (after going into a brine for a night of course).
Good stuff.
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Looks delicious. When I catch a bunch of smaller catfish (12-16″) I like to just cut the head off, gut it, and then peel off its skin and throw the whole thing in the smoker (after going into a brine for a night of course).
Good stuff.
That sounds like a great way to turn a night full of fiddlers into a smoker full of delish… I’ll keep that in mind!
Thanks.
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