When fishing for rockfish, you need to know field-dress them quickly to preserve their freshness and flavor. Field dressing a rockfish also avoids making a mess of your home kitchen, and you can use the parts removed as bait. Knowing field dress a rockfish doesn't take a lot of time, but practice does make perfect. When you know field dress rockfish, and other fresh-caught fish, you're able to save time on preparing the fish once you get them to your kitchen.
Instructions
1. Secure the live rockfish to the scaling board by using the board's clamp to secure in place by the tail. Clamp the clipboard-like clip down on the tail at the point where it fans from the fish's body.
2. Chop the fish's head off just at the gills. Because this is where the fish's neck joint is located, hitting it with the blade of the knife at the gills will make removing the head easier.
3. Puncture the rockfish's underbelly just behind its gills. Cut down toward the tail of the fish, staying in a straight line down its underbelly. The guts will spill from the fish. Remove the guts from the fish and discard them.
4. Press the blade of the knife flat against the scales of the fish, with the blade pointing in the opposite direction of the scales.
5. Shave the scales away with sweeping outward motions, using the sharp scaling knife. The scales will shed from the fish, looking like clear plastic shingles. When finished, flip the fish and scale the other side.
6. Rinse the fish with cool, clean water and store in the ice chest until you are ready to prepare it.
Tags: from fish, blade knife, dress rockfish, fish with, with blade