Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades your philosophy on fillet knives?

side question: Anyne ever try a leech lake knife?

Sold in Minnesota for about $110.

They have the tip backside sharpened with a slight hook for doing initial scale cuts.

Most of the pros around here use a curved blade that looks more like what a meatcutter might have. I can see how it would help when removing the filet from the skin without cutting into it. I just use old Chicago Cutlery long thin boning knives I got a garage sale for nearly free. On the boat I use Walmart filet knives that cost about two bucks, and surprisingly they hold up in saltwater! I like fancy knives as well as the next guy, but they stay in the drawer.

I have used several electric knives. I currently own at least 15 different conventional filet knives if not maybe 24. I have come to prefer the stiffer non bendy blades for most work and am not in the least handicapped for speed. I do tend to use different sizes to match fish size, and I do use long bendy blade knives for fileting salmon, but mainly I do that because they call stiff knives that long swords.

Are you removing skin? I find a flexible blade best at skin and scales removal.

I found a semi dull butcher knife excellent for removing skin from filets.
Might be a bit much for gills though.

Of course I remove the skin! I use a 2 foot by 3 foot 3/4 inch piece of exterior plywood laid on top of an old picnic table so that it overhangs a couple inches on two sides. That makes the bendy blade irrelevant. I used bendy blades on salmon because they are thicker and usually my salmon are not right out of the lake fresh which makes them a little firmer.

re: scales I just cut. with decent steel, cutting scales doesn't phase the edge. Even 420 and 440 steels are adequate to that. Yeah, you have to sharpen them more often than better steels, but I use several CPM 154 blades and the 420/440 blades and they're easy to give a couple licks on a oval diamond steel an they're back to sharp. I used a Tim Olt S35VN blade he was kind enough to make to my pattern for a little over a year without sharpening. That year saw it do a couple hundred fish, 3 deer and a couple of whole beef rounds and some pork. I like the S35VN best of any steel. It touches up as easily as anything, but stays sharp way longer. Easy to live with is GOOD.

I never cut ribs anymore. I cut around them and the pin bones. When I flip the filet over to remove the skin I drag a finger across the pin bones and if I missed any the stiff blade is faster and easier to remove them with. The only small problem with doing that is when that hard steel is that sharp it can and does lice right through pin bones and it might not be something I can feel.

I'm likely faster with an electric, but I also muck up more. I find that I make fewer mistakes and they are easier to correct with a traditional filet knife.

We had a homemade knife made from a recipical hacksaw blade. No flex but sharp it cut well.