Best Way To Clean A Trout

So you've caught dinner! Way to go! If you catch a trout under two feet in length, this is the best way to clean it that I've found. While the fish is still pretty fresh, take your knife (I use a sharp serrated pocket knife), and make a 45 degree cut from above the fish's head to behind the gills to the underside of the fish, but don't cut all the way through the backbone just yet. Next flip your fish over and repeat, but this time, proceed to break through the backbone of the fish while trying not to "cut" through the remaining guts. You just want to break the backbone.

Now while paying careful attention to what you're doing, pull off the head of the fish and most of the guts should come along with the head. Toss the fish head and guts on the lakeshore or river shore or else you may cause a disease in the fish that remain in the water because if they eat the guts from your fish, they could get sick (this is especially true in limited fish population areas). So now, take your knife and cut straight along the underside, starting at the anus of the fish and going towards the head of the fish (or at least where the head "used" to be). Clean out the rest of the guts.

At the top of the inside of the fish, you will see a white skin and underneath that is a ton of blood. I usually scrape that area with my knife and use my thumbnail and scrape backwards to get that skin off and start cleaning out all the blood. You have to do a really great job with the cleaning out all the blood, and at this point, get an old toothbrush and work deeply into the backbone area until there are no traces of blood at all. This is best done under running water with a fresh fish because as the fish dies, the blood thickens and makes it even harder to clean. Get all the blood cleaned out or else you'll have a nasty fish taste when you cook it up.

Finally, just wash (with your hand) the skin of the fish, getting it pretty clean, and get all of the extra innards out so you should be left with a perfectly clean fish, ready to freeze or cook up for dinner!

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