Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Filleting a Esox Americanus (Pickerel)

Last year was my first big year fishing in many years and my first big year fishing in Northern New Jersey.  I got an opportunity to eat some perch, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, pickerel and walleye.  My personal favorite (and yes, I am bias being born in Minnesota) was the walleye, however my wife's favorite was the pickerel.  So this means two things for me in 2013:

1) If I want to be allowed to do more fishing next year, I better catch more pickerel
2) If I catch more pickerel, I have to do a better job of filleting the thing than I did last year

So I searched Youtube for some tutorials on filleting a pickerel.  I also search for videos on filleting a northern pike as they have the same bone structure.  Youtube is a tremendous resource for learning new skills and I was not let down again.  However, although most of the videos were pretty good, I never got that "A-HA" moment of exactly what the Y-bone looked like, exactly where it was in the fish and which direction the Y-Bone was positioned.  So I tried searching for images and I came across this very useful image.  As they say, a picture is worth a 1,000 words.


This image was created by Canoe Camp Fish

1 comment:

  1. Good grief this was exactly what I needed. I've been waiting for that "A-HA" moment too, and I think this is it. Thank you!

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