Cleaned our 3 day catch yesterday

Where we fish we have a fish holding cage and just pull up to it, open the lid and put the catfish in the cage and dock the boat. We do this instead of cleaning the fish every trip, then we take a few hours and clean them all. We had been checking our dittypoles twice a day and out of 15 poles we were averageing about a 30% catch every time we checked them.

Its alot of fun when you drive the boat and when getting close, the poles start to bounce because the catfish is trying its darnest to get off. Sometimes they pull free and do but most often the net lands them. We got there to clean fish and we went over to where the fish cage is tied to some trees out of the current and pulled the boat up next to it. We both grabbed the cage and rolled it over into the boat with the lid faceing twards the bottom. There was so many catfish in the cage, 37 to be exact that when the cage was on its side the lid fell open and the catfish were jumping out like minnows jumping in a flowtroll lol. Some jumped out of the cage and were bounceing by my legs because I was kneeling down so I had to quickly sort and pull them past my legs because I didn’t want to get horned. It took about 5 minutes to get them out of the cage then we rolled the cage back over the side of the boat and back into the water.

We pulled the boat back into the dock and threw the anchor on the bank and took 5-5 gallon buckets of fish and put them in the back of the S-10. The S-10 had a dog kennel in it and the rest of the bed was covered with catfish. We drove up to the fish cleaning table, sprayed it down with water so the blood wouldn’t soak into the wood and started cleaning fish. We skined, filleted and then skinned again. We rinsed down the fillets pushing on them to get the blood out then cleaned the table again, several times. Anyway we had around 15 that were 8 pounds and over with the biggest being around 10 pounds, maybe 11. Most ran from 3 to 8 pounds and were nice looking fish. We got 1/2 dozen that were under 2 pounds. We save the belly meat and everything thats edible on the fish throwing nothing away, we eat it all. When we clean fish and have weighed them in the past we average about a 50% meat to fish on the fin (hoof) catch. We ended up with 2-5 gallon buckets of fillets and split them up between the three of us.

Even after the spawn has taken place were still getting good catches of some very nice channels. The catfish bite is better during pre-spawn but their still biting good right now. Pole and dittypole fishing is going good right now here in Iowa for the guys who fish for them.

I can smell the fried catfish and hush puppies right now Your stories take me back to my youth and running trotlines and bank poles and a time when we catfished for the table. Thanks for reminding me that catfish taste good and I can get them someplace besides Crackerbarrel

Ya Rich, If we were closer Id give you some, you could even go with us and fish and help clean. We use straight yellow cormeal or 1/2 shorelunch and cornmeal, both ways are delecious.

I cleaned and fried up a 9.75# channel a while back and I found something interesting: the belly meat on a cat that size is thick enough to bother with, but it’s got a really different texture.

It’s not exactly tough, but it’s a lot firmer and muscle fibers are longer than the meat from the fillets.

Do you guys find that too?

Ya I know what you mean Jared, I think the fillets have a diffrent fibre setup then the belly meat. To me it doesen’t flake like fillet meat does. Fillets flake more to me and bellymeat kind of just pulls apart.

Yeah, the belly mean has a texture a lot more like chicken breast or something.

Still, it makes really good catfish nuggets!

I think the belly meat is a little stronger in taste but its still pretty good, with homemade tartar sauce its even better, add in some fresh homemade coleslaw and crisscross cut fries with ranch dressing to dip both into and thats a good meal.