I trust you won't mind if this video finds its way into NZFisher?

How do you cook them with skin on? 

Very easy method to fillet Gurnard.

Great advice for beginners

https://www.knifetechnz.co.nz/pages/how-to-fillet-series-gurnard" rel="nofollow - https://www.knifetechnz.co.nz/pages/how-to-fillet-series-gurnard

Might have to buy knife tech product ... very informative. One best things outside    “catch of day” I’ve  seen on here.  Actually better than catch of day in terms of my reality.

Love his knife angles filleting,  including boning. Do prefer skin on but can adapt lot of what he did.

I catch few gurnard (18 last weekend) so was very relevant.

Thanks Shane

The Knifetech video is great, some really good pointers there, My only comment is I prefer to leave the skin on as gurnard isn't an oily fish and leaving the skin on helps to prevent it from drying out. Great advice though - perfect for the newbie - well done Knifetech. I'm going to have a smooch around that website later because knives are cool.

The Pommie vid is pretty good too but they are different fish to what we have, very similar though.

Good stuff

Hehe yeah me too, plus it's messy and those fish are spikey critters

Smudge, if you're ever over Ellerslie on a week day, pop in to Victory Knives' factory - they sell for cash (no Eftpos, actual cash!) over the counter. The ladies hunted around the warehouse shelves and dug me out the carbon steel one I was after.

I presume they are still there and selling in the factory shop. It's just around the corner from the NZ Fishing News office, so you can pop in and see Grunta and co at the same time.

Great to support a local business, and I love their knives.

TKK, I'm not a fan boy of name brands but I do know a good product when I see one. I own a fair few knives and I have 3 Victory knives. The first courtesy of this website and they represent great value for money.

 
I have a few other brands, Green River (nice in carbon steel & vfm) Victorinox (same), Svord (cool) Victory rip off no name brand (surprisingly good) Rapala (I don't rate it at all), one I made myself  (a hunting blade) a Wenger (really nice) and a heap of other stuff.

My favourite filleting knife is still the 22cm Victory. Buy local

What  I like on knife guys video (2 back) was his boning technique - that was better than what I do. Real learning.

With Smudge on not taking skin off, as that’s not how lot of us like it. But that was optional on knife guys one.  Gurnard skin off is sin.

Did like other system however that knife guy showed.

But there’s an old school way to that with smaller investment. Most buthers and the best fishing jeweller ever,  who taught me, will know it.

God I talk a lot of compost.

Awesome. I'd love to see your video Shane, yes .. taking the skin off a gurnard is some sort of sin

We all do at times. 

Keen to see your knife sharpening techniques. My son is a butcher and he does a pretty mean job. My knives tun out ok too but he takes them to the next level

Hardest part will be getting wife to do the video. 

My favourite filleting knife is still the 22cm Victory. Buy local

  Goddards...(Green River brand) went to stainless a long time back.. then produced Green River and Victory..And only in the last couple yrs, obsoleted the near century old Green River  and replaced with Victory.. same knife.
 I think it had to do with an American 'green river 'brand (??)

 And yeah , go to to fillet is the 22cm victory.. the wider blade filleting knife,( I have both).

Hi Steps,

You're right, big US knife maker Dexter Russell (still made in the US) uses the Green River name for some of its knives. 

Dexter Russell do hickory wooden handled Green River carbon steel filleting knives which are stocked in some knife shops in Australia. Quite a narrow, flexible blade, though.

BUT, you'll be pleased to know that according to the Victory Knives 2020 catalog, they still make Green River carbon steel knives. They just don't do a filleting one. See p61 and p64.

https://victoryknives.co.nz/content/VK_2020_Catalogue_2.pdf" rel="nofollow - https://victoryknives.co.nz/content/VK_2020_Catalogue_2.pdf

E Goddard has used the Victory label for a long time (since 1945), as you know. It's always sobering when I see the memorial rock at Howick Beach to his son Roy's two young sons (13 and 11) who drowned there along with a friend one winter evening 1956 - went fishing in a dinghy and never came home. Roy carried on the business for many years.

Any of the Victory knife models starting with 1-xxxx are carbon steel, and the ones starting with 2-xxxx are stainless. I think they have stopped making the filleting knives in carbon steel, hence me going to the shop to ask. I was stoked when they dug around and found one. They still do lots of the butchers and skinning knives in high carbon steel.

My GR carbon steel knife is a wider than most filleting knives and I wonder if that's because carbon steel has a tendency to break if mistreated? I know that the ductility is entirely dependent on the grade and quality of the steel used but I still see lots of old carbon steel knives such as mine and skinning knives but very few boning or filleting knives? Maybe it's just a matter of economics? You can easily get top end carbon steel knives in those patterns. I dunno, just random thoughts

My GR carbon steel knife is a wider than most filleting knives and I wonder if that's because carbon steel has a tendency to break if mistreated? I know that the ductility is entirely dependent on the grade and quality of the steel used but I still see lots of old carbon steel knives such as mine and skinning knives but very few boning or filleting knives? Maybe it's just a matter of economics? You can easily get top end carbon steel knives in those patterns. I dunno, just random thoughts

I had to confess, Smudge, i don't know anything about the shape of butchery style knives - ie. boning versus skinning.

But Victory do a "straight boning" and a "curved boning" knife in high carbon (same model is available in stainless too) for pretty modest prices. Eg.

https://www.top-gear.co.nz/shop/KNIVES+AND+MULTITOOLS/BUTCHERS+KNIVES/Victory+Butchers+Curved+Boning+Knife+-+HC+Steel.html" rel="nofollow - https://www.top-gear.co.nz/shop/KNIVES+AND+MULTITOOLS/BUTCHERS+KNIVES/Victory+Butchers+Curved+Boning+Knife+-+HC+Steel.html

https://www.top-gear.co.nz/shop/KNIVES+AND+MULTITOOLS/BUTCHERS+KNIVES/Victory+Knives/Victory+Curved+Boning+Knife.+High+Carbon+Steel+13+cm+-+221313115.html" rel="nofollow - https://www.top-gear.co.nz/shop/KNIVES+AND+MULTITOOLS/BUTCHERS+KNIVES/Victory+Knives/Victory+Curved+Boning+Knife.+High+Carbon+Steel+13+cm+-+221313115.html

I suspect that it's hard to find high carbon filleting knives these days because the majority of fishers buy stainless. Most can't be bothered having to go through the steps to look after high carbon ones. They finish filleting, have a beer or two and a yarn with their neighbour and by the time they get around to cleaning their knife it's already going to have marks from not being immediately cleaned. Or they leave their knife on the boat without any care whatsoever.

Some of the knives I see being used on boats and filleting in a communal setting are so poorly looked after it's a wonder they cut anything.

This 14" high carbon knife from the US by Old Hickory looks like a couple of the ones I inherited from my poppa. I use them for cutting up snapper frames for soup. 

https://www.top-gear.co.nz/shop/KITCHEN/KITCHEN+KNIVES/BONING+KNIVES/Old+Hickory+14+Butcher+Knife+with+Wide+Tip+-+7111.html" rel="nofollow - https://www.top-gear.co.nz/shop/KITCHEN/KITCHEN+KNIVES/BONING+KNIVES/Old+Hickory+14+Butcher+Knife+with+Wide+Tip+-+7111.html

I wonder if whacking the top fins off like in Watson's clip and then slicing down like Shane does with no skin to impede the slice...

Yes many ways of skinning a cat, Smudge.

I do a far better job or closer to the bone by tail up to head and over ribs versus starting at head/shoulder and working down.

And of course fish well chilled is the key, but I must try bleeding as well as iki to see if better in the carving and eating dept.

The traditional slide to head roll knife under wing and then carve to tail, stopping and turning over to do the otherside and then skinning from tail end was a Blue Cod Sth Is method first and foremost...

Good discussions

As you might gather it was a struggle technically to do one for me... makes me appreciate what went into Smudges, Matt’s and Knifetech efforts, which are far superior.

By the way I am not a mute as Dan (Muppet) does know,  but was just focusing on simple visuals as first try. Clearly no good at multitasking and when nervous prone to reverting to a phoney welsh accent... and didn’t want to offend any welsh people..

With a sharp knife you don’t have to cut down from top first , and can roll knife down near head to bring fillet off, for probably as a good result and have been doing that myself on some fish.

Fishb8 you are right, a shorter knife would be better.

Knife shown is the longer Shimano .. has been going 6 years does everything reasonably well,  including snaps. I have the shorter Shimano version still in packet (won in a comp), which will open when current knife expires. Did think about opening for video. But sharpening brand new knife with the diamond steel used at beginning of video would be false representation.

I have a beautiful wheeler which is one I take away for marlin, spearfish, kings, and tuna.. don’t it use everyday/all the time for table fish.. it is heavy duty knife for cutting big stuff.

For boning etc we use a very nice long blade Rapalla (also won in a comp) It is kept in kitchen, lovely knife, never gets dirty on blood and guts stuff. For fine cutting.

Anyway probably wouldn’t say I will do another video anytime soon, as didn’t appreciate work and technicalities involved, but happy managed to put something up.

Here is a vid I found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGirdiK5eGE" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGirdiK5eGE

This was how my old man taught me but I'm not convinced it is any better than other methods.  In fact filleting the trunk looks awkward as you have removed the bits to hold onto.  If you are going to leave as a trunk then fine.  

All good mate, wife reckons I should be on mute most of time. Occassion clearly got better of me this time, who knows what I might have said. . 

I’m sure you would do a really good video .. only if you want to.. probably could do a flatly if gurnard a bit scarce over there.

I didn't think it was right to touch it while preparing food, maybe I'm just fussy