Panfish Knife.

M

M118LR

Joined
Feb 23, 2018
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What ever happened to the panfish Knife? Remember when you just gutted and scaled panfish prior to frying them. Sometimes you would get a catfish, so you wouldn't need to scale it. Just drive a nail through its head into a tree, cut around the head and peal off the skin with a pair of pliers. Has the multitool replaced the panfish Knife? If not, what knife do carry while panfishing? Thanks.
 
Mora 4" fishing knife. They have a stiff, skinny, blade scaler and a flexible blade. Mini fillet knife.

Every job has a tool.


As for the panfish I personally catch. There're slice into chunks for catfish bait. Then it's a 5" fixed blade Benchmade.
 
Grasshopperglock said:
Mora 4" fishing knife. They have a stiff, skinny, blade scaler and a flexible blade. Mini fillet knife.

Every job has a tool.


As for the panfish I personally catch. There're slice into chunks for catfish bait. Then it's a 5" fixed blade Benchmade.
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Isn't 5 inches a bit long for smelt, crappie, bluegill, brim, etc...? I mean I have cleaned fingerling trout with a MK2-USMC Fighting/Utility Knife. (KaBar) Isn't a pocket bird knife just as, if even more effective? Does anyone even make folding trout blades anymore? I don't want to include smelt cleaning on the Chicago Docks in the 50's. We had to roll the 55 gallon barrels of cleaned fish to the pickup at daybreak. (Those where the days, one night fishing was a years worth of fish.)
 
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M118LR said:
Isn't 5 inches a bit long for smelt, crappie, bluegill, brim, etc...? I mean I have cleaned fingerling trout with a MK2-USMC Fighting/Utility Knife. (KaBar) Isn't a pocket bird knife just as if even more effective? Does anyone even make folding trout blades anymore?
Click to expand...


Half the time or most of it. You're standing in mud and your hands covered in bait. All you're caring about is getting fresh bait on the hook.

I actually carry a small section of a plastic cutting board in my fishing backpack.

Catfish like the head the most.


Slicing a bluegill horizontal. 4-5" blade. Bigger being welcomed because it becomes a bank fisher chef knife. I bought a Hogue 7" in A2. It should be an excellent bait knife. With an edge sharp enough to cut braid fishing line.

There's a lot going on when you're fishing.
 
A cane pole and a can of nibbelets corn, unless your using cheesecloth stink bait, ain't all that much happening. Folks call that a day off nowadays. But running a trout line or pulling a smelt net can be a bit more energetic. LOL. Yet the goal is still panfish. JMHO. Gut em, scale em, toss em in the barrel. Roll em Home to the freezer. Sounds about right to me. LOL. 😍 Now about those catfish, ain't no reason to fillet them. Mix a cornmeal with a warm egg from the roost, skim a little cream off the top of Besties Bucket, dreg that catfish and toss it into the bubbling lard. Soon as it floats dip it out. Pin down the tail and drag a fork across it. All the meat will flake off and you can toss the bones aside. Just my experience. YMMV.
 
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Bird & Trout knife.

Even better, one piece stainless scalpel.
 
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When I use to panfish I was 8-9 years old.
I had one of these folders in my equally yellow all plastic tackle box.
Had no idea which brand, there were several that all looked like this,
yellow, knife blade, scaling blade with hook remover on the end. No idea if they;re still around or not.

Oom57M.jpg
 
Down here in Texas we call that a filet knife. 😉 While an ordinary filet is fine, I like to use my custom hunter from David Mary. The blade is pretty tall, so maybe not as agile as a traditional filet knife, but the grind is so slicey it’s irrelevant.
 
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