Fillet or not to fillet...... That is the question.

[Earl W Story]

 Pros and cons to bone in or bone out? 

[Jeffrey D. Abney]

I filet more than I scale Earl.....I prefer filet and my wife likes the smaller ones on the bone.....I probably didn't help you!

[John Foro]

new to this site but thought i'd chime in. used to just gut and scale but since the '70s been filleting bit occasionally will scale then fillet leaving the skin on.

[Bill "Musky" Modica]

Fillet......of course.

But every once in a while....bone in.

[Tony Livingston]

Growing up at home, it was always bone in.....

Now, it's fillet every time!

[Vince Fusco]

I fillet them all now, except catfish. My wife says the only way to eat a small catfish is on the bone. I like the tails left on em too. I do sometimes clean trout whole to put on the grill. 

[George]

fillet is the only way to go at my place

[Jim Gronaw]

I am almost exclusively a fillet guy, but will keep bone in baked large trout or 24 inch class stripers.

[jason grimm]

depends on how tired i am, or how many beers ive had, either way is all good to me. ;)

[Papa Turner]

When I was a boy a very long time ago we never fillet. Now I fillet the big ones and leave the bone in on the small ones, seems a shame to waste the meat that filleting misses. As for trout I never fillet. Of course I never caught one big enough to consider it.

[Jacob Hill]

Catfish, Trout, Salmon, Whitefish and Grayling, gut and throw on the grill with bones. They come out after the fish is cooked. Gills, Perch, and Crappie just fillet.

[Allen Morgan]

Big fish (like the Stripers, Sand Bass, Kentucky Bass, Catfish, that you see me posting up) get filleted.  Smaller fish, like the stunted Crappie from my home lake, or most Bluegill, I would prefer to "cut & gut", cooking whole.  However, She Who Must Be Obeyed has decreed that all fish must be filleted.  I don't like to mess around filleting smaller fish, so I don't generally keep them.

[Tim Cotton]

I keep and filet a few biguns(8 1/2" +) for the kids. Then a few in the 6" I keep for myself to eat whole.