Fish for the Table — How to Fillet Like a Pro

You've caught the fish. Now what? The difference between a great fish dinner and a mediocre one usually comes down to filleting technique — get it right and you turn a 1kg whiting into 400g of perfect, bone-free, restaurant-quality fillets. Get it wrong and you've got fish, bones, scales and frustration in roughly equal measure.

Filleting isn't hard, but it does take a sharp knife, a steady hand, and about 5 minutes of practice on each species you target. Here's the how-to that covers 90% of Aussie table fish.

Photo by Compagnons on Unsplash

You can fillet a fish with any sharp knife. But a proper fillet knife makes it 10x easier:

• Long flexible blade (15–20cm) — the flex lets the blade ride along the spine instead of carving into it
• Razor-sharp edge — sharpen it before every session. A pull-through sharpener works for camping
• A non-slip cutting board — wet plastic or wood with a rubber mat under it. Slipping with a fillet knife is how the day ends in the ER
• A cup of clean water for rinsing fillets
• Pliers or fish-bone tweezers for pin-bones

Brands worth the money: Victorinox, Wusthof, Dexter-Russell, Mercer Culinary. Avoid the bargain-bin fishing knives — they won't hold an edge through a single sitting.

This technique covers most of the table fish you'll catch in Australia.

1. Scale the fish first (or skip if you're going to skin the fillets). Use a scaler or the back of the knife — work from tail to head
2. Cut behind the gill plate down to the spine, but stop when you hit it. Don't cut through
3. Turn the knife flat against the spine, blade angled slightly down. Slice along the spine all the way to the tail in one smooth motion. Use the rib bones as a guide for the knife to follow
4. Lift the fillet up as you go to see where you're cutting
5. Free the fillet at the tail with a final cut
6. Flip the fish over and repeat on the other side
7. Trim the rib bones off the bottom edge of each fillet by sliding the knife flat under them

You should end up with two clean, boneless (or near-boneless) fillets. Rinse, pat dry, and you're ready to cook.

Photo: Oscar Chevillard / Unsplash

For a totally boneless, skinless fillet:

1. Lay the fillet skin-side down on the board, tail end towards you
2. Make a small cut at the tail end, just down to the skin (not through it)
3. Hold the small piece of exposed skin firmly with one hand
4. Angle the knife slightly down toward the board and slide it forward, between flesh and skin, all the way to the head end
5. The skin peels off cleanly — the fillet stays whole

This works best with the fillet flat on a wet board (the wetness keeps it from sticking).

For some species you don't skin: trout, salmon, tailor, mackerel — the skin crisps up beautifully when cooked and is half the appeal. Leave it on for those.

Some species (snapper, salmon, trout, mulloway) have a row of pin bones running down the centre of each fillet. Run your finger along the fillet from head to tail and you'll feel them.

To remove them: use needle-nose pliers or fish-bone tweezers, grip each bone close to the flesh, and pull at a 30° angle in the direction the bone points (toward the head end). Don't pull straight up — you'll tear the flesh.

For small species, the pin bones often soften enough during cooking that they're not worth removing. For larger species, take the 60 seconds — your guests will thank you.

Photo: Creab ThePolymath / Unsplash

Flat fish are easier than they look — they yield 4 fillets each, two from the dark side and two from the light side.

1. Lay the fish dark side up
2. Cut down the centre line, head to tail, all the way to the spine
3. Starting at the centre cut, slice the knife flat outwards toward the fin, riding along the rib bones
4. Lift each fillet free
5. Repeat on the light side

For leatherjacket, the skin is genuinely leathery — peel it off in one piece by gripping at the head and pulling toward the tail. Then fillet as above. The flesh underneath is some of the best eating fish in Australia.

• Eat fresh — same day or next day refrigerated, on ice
• For freezing, vacuum-seal each fillet individually with a small splash of water. The water layer prevents freezer burn for 6–9 months
• Don't refreeze — once thawed, eat within 24 hours
• Label everything — species and date. "Mystery white fish" from 8 months ago is how dinner becomes regret

• Flathead — beer batter, deep fry. Or pan-fry skin-on with butter and lemon
• Bream — whole, foiled with herbs. Or fillets pan-fried in olive oil with salt and pepper
• Whiting — small whole fish, gently pan-fried in butter. Lemon, parsley, eat with bread
• Tailor — strong-flavoured, marinate fillets in soy/ginger/sesame and grill on the BBQ
• Snapper — fillets pan-seared skin-side down for 3 mins, flip 1 min. Crisp skin is the prize
• Trout — whole, foil-wrapped with lemon and dill, on the campfire
• Leatherjacket — fillets battered and fried — sweet white meat, no rivals
• Mulloway/jewfish — bigger fillets do well as steaks: oil, salt, hot pan, 3 minutes a side

Filleting is one of those skills that looks impossible the first time you try it and obvious by the third. Buy a good knife, watch a YouTube video for your target species, and practise on a $5 supermarket whiting before you ruin your trophy snapper.

The reward is that you'll never look at frozen fish the same way again — and "I caught and cooked this myself" is the best dinner-table line in the world.