Not a First -World problem

Hooky Wednesday is back on track.

It had been put on hold with Mom's medical issues and the heavy mosquito population.

Yesterday we fished in downtown Eaton Rapids. Say what you want about urban fishing, but short grass and paved parking lots are not friendly to mosquitoes.

I kept six bluegills/sunfish. They had swallowed the hook. The rest were clean catch-and-releases.

Cleaning fish

I was the designated "fillet" guy as a kid. My other brothers got off with scaling them. Dad and I did the filleting.

I remember filleting as taking forever to do. My brothers could rip through the scaling and be doing other things long before I finished filleting and cleaning up the mess. 

Part of it is the time distortion of being young. Another part is we kept a lot of fish. Any bluegill over six inches was a keeper. Dad had a lot of mouths to feed. The final part of my filleting angst was that Dad was fussy about certain things.

Last night I was tickled by how quickly I got the fish cleaned.

Esoteric discussion on Bluegill anatomy

---Warning: Remove fish from hand before making cuts with knife or chainsaw---

Dad's method of filleting a bluegill involved first making a straight cut as shown. (Not my photo. It was one I borrowed from the Internet)

My quibble was that the meat in the area circled in red is very thick while the region circled in green (the belly) is paper thin. Paring every molecule of the thin belly meat off the ribs is meticulous work, especially when the mosquitoes are buzzing.

Dad kept insisting that I slow down and get every square millimeter of belly meat and yet we were leaving far more meat on the bones by not cutting farther forward on the top.

Some of it was the inspectors problem. It is easier to inspect bellies (lots of area) than filet mignon tips.

Idealized first cut

Last night I made slightly curved first cuts. It angled way forward at the top and pretty much left half of the belly meat on the ribs. Dad was probably looking down from heaven, clucking his tongue and wanting to give me guidance.

I love you Dad. I honor you by cleaning and eating the fish rather than feeding the turtles or burying them under the rose-bush. But you gotta give me a little room on the style issues.