How To Fillet Trout
| Your knife can never be too sharp! The best type has a stiff blade for "feeling" down the backbone of the fish. |  |
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| The first cut, just behind the gill and down to the backbone, turn the knife over and cut through to the gut slit following the line of the gill. |  |
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| Using the fin as a guide insert the blade and cut down towards the tail keeping close to the bone. |  |
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| Turning the blade over cut up toward the head, you should be able to feel the backbone whilst doing this. |  |
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| You can now lift the fillet and cut from the bone toward the belly. |  |
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| Turn the blade over and continue to trim towards the tail until the fillet can be lifted away. The other fillet is done in the same way but is a bit trickier due to the first fillet being removed. This may seem a bit daunting but with a little practice it does get easier. |  |
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| It is worth a bit of effort removing the pin bones at this point. They are in a single row and run back from the head for about half of the fish's length. |  |
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| Once the fillets are off, trim off the fatty areas, that is the belly and, sometimes, there is some along the back. |  |
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| We now need to prepare the fillets to be cooked and smoked. Taking equal parts of salt and brown sugar spread the mixture onto the fillets. The salt draws water from the fillets and the sugar adds flavour and colour. I prefer a light coloured sugar but this is all down to personal taste so feel free to experiment with darker sugar. Rub the mixture onto the fillet to get even coverage and leave for 20 minutes. The cover doesn't need to be heavy. If you think you have put too much on just remove it prior to smoking. |  |
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| After 20 minutes a lot of excess moisture will have been drawn out from the fillets. They are now ready to be cooked and smoked. Please go to the smoking page (scroll to top of page and use the button) to see the final stages. |  |
