Thread: Scaling?

OK, once again showing my inexperience at saltwater fishing, (only got to Senior Member status because of all my questions) here goes another possible snickered at question. Freshwater fishing I catch a lot of fish that need to be scaled.....any Pier fish that need to be scaled?

Personal preference for most of the inshore species. I like to leave the skin on trout,flounder,whiting,small Spanish,mullet and pompano. Sheepshead and most other fish over a few pounds need to be skinned and have the blood line cut out. Scaled with the skin on is how I grew up eating fish but some people thinks it taste to fishy.

I think its easier and cleaner to skin everything. Once you get the hang of it you can skin a fillet in a couple seconds. The exception would be pompano which I scale dehead gut and cook whole. Also for stuffed flounder I scale them of course.

Still not good at skinning Spanish though I always cut through the skin.

I scale flounder, puppy drum, barely legal redfish and small sheepshead if I am going to cook them whole.
Same deal with whiting, ground mullet, spadefish and croakers: if they are going to get cooked whole, they get scaled.
I have a couple of the metal scalers you can get from tackle shops, they are cheap and work fantastic, much better than a knife.

If I fillet any fish, 99% of the time, the skin gets cut off as I am filleting them.

Don't bother taking the skin off smaller Spanish macs, not worth the effort and the scales are so small, you don't have to scale them either.

I skin pretty much everything because I fillet pretty much everything. It's simple---my wife doesn't like bones or skin, so I don't either.

Now, if you want a real treat, you need to scale a big triggerfish and bake it whole.

Pier#r showed me a technique for skinning Spanish (and most other fish) that is an absolute marvel, and I'll be happy to share it with you if we are on the pier at the same time-----and have some Spanish to clean. He doesn't mind you watching him, either, but he finishes so quickly that you only have a small window of opportunity. That is not to insinuate that he doesn't have very many fish to clean, but that he's a whiz with his fillet knife.

I might take you up on that Haywire!

I used to "skin" pond catfish with pliers. When you guys refer to skinning do you mean with the filet knife or pulling the skin away from the meat? I had difficulty removing the skin from my pompano with the filet knife so I just prepared them "on the half shell" and didn't eat the skin. I found that once thawed the skin would peel off with a little effort leaving the meat intact.

I don't really scale my fish. I just skin them, and by those fish I mean sheepshead, flounder, croaker, whiting, and specks. Other species I just leave skin on and scales because they get grilled, (spanish, reds, pompano, and all snappers/groupers).

I don't catch many pompano, but the ones I do, I bake gut and bake whole, head and all. No need to scale or skin them.

Hey George,why don't you post your triggerfish recipe on April Fools Day.