As a surgeon, I too cringe at the butcher jobs I see all too often at the fish cleaning station. Meat is not the main reason many of us fish, but when you consider the time, tackle, and treasure invested in our favorite pursuit, there's no sense in wasting valuable meat on a poor fillet job when you finally decide to harvest a fish for the table.

I tend to see the most waste when folks are filleting the bigger fish... 30 pounds plus. That's because what most folks consider a negligible amount of meat left on the bones of a small fish is suddenly magnified perhaps 5 to 10-fold on a magnum sized fish. Most guys are taught to fillet a fish by riding the length of the backbone with their fillet knife. That may be fine for a 3 pound trout, but try that on a 40-50 pound king, and you get a slab 3/4 to 7/8 inch thick left on the carcass. There is nothing heroic about getting a fillet off a fish in one piece when there is that much waste!

Here's my method for filleting a big salmon.... it's really quite similar to how most folks fillet a halibut, except that I do it in sections.

1) Make a long sweeping cut along the lateral line all the way to the backbone.

2) Make several diagonal "cross cuts" depending on how big a chunks you want for the finished pieces. The first one is made just behind the bony "collar" and the last right at the wrist of the tail. I usually divide the entire side into thirds or quarters. This would yield either six or eight pieces per side.

3) Remove each piece by sweeping your fillet knife from the backbone toward the dorsal ridge for the top pieces, or from the backbone toward the belly for the bottom pieces. It is easier to start at the tail end and work your way toward the collar. Sweep the knife slightly toward the tail in the same direction as the spine bones or rib bones, keeping direct contact with those bones for the cleanest fillet.



With a little practice, the resulting carcass is so clean that it is almost transparent.