I Need a Good Fillet Knife

Y'all recommend some good'uns!

My personal favorite

https://www.walmart.com/ip/BLACK-DE...sem&gclid=CMvmvfCg2uICFeSSWwod8WoEUw

Dexter Russell traditional carbon steel. Will be less than $15. I recommend getting a traditional steel with it.

Bubba blade is good

Best

This is a good one for sure. If your looking at electric, ive had a lot of em, but the Rapala HD is about the best I’ve found. We flllet 60,90, and 120 crappie at one time a lot of times. And this is about the only one I can do 100 with without having to get another cause the motor is hot.

Good to know. i need a good electric too. I use several depending on size and everyone needs both manual and electric. No matter what I always use a cheap throw away pair of gloves to handle the fish. Much easier.

I would get whatever brand it is that birdcarver uses. 😁

Gloves are a big help for sure. I use to use them Walmart brand electric knives. They was $15 I think. About every 30 fish or so I would just swap out with another one. But we do 1500 plus crappie a year and they just wouldn’t hold up. The HD I have now has done over 5000 fish since I’ve had it and still going strong. Well worth the $50ish it costed. Plus blades are like $10 a set and last a while also

That Mister Twister has never gave me a reason to look for another brand...

I have cleaned a couple hundred with one like this so far this year.....no complaints yet.
Ozark Trail Electric Fillet Knife https://g.co/kgs/7HGJa4

American angler pro. If your tires of burning up a couple a year

Bubba blade is solid! Best for the money imo

These are the ones boat captains use. Dexter Russel

https://jmtackle.com/collections/knives-stones

For the money these are hard to beat. I’ve used a bunch of them. When blades get dull, just buy a new knife.

I like them all perch but particularly the wooden handle carbon steel bladed ones. Traditional series,I think,but the blade will patina much faster than my white handle stain free DR blades.

I have the traditional as well and several others of Dexter Russel knives. They are great knives. I honestly never fillet fish with it tho. The few fish I clean is done with a mister twister electric which is very geo as well.

If you know how to sharpen one, the Dexter Russel or a bubba blade is good steel.

But those battery powered rapala knives are f’n handy.

Victorinox

Electric rapala

The restaurants in Orange Beach buy lots of the 142-9SC serrated knife because it saws through the big frozen chunks of "fresh fish" that was caught in some third world country or raised in a Chinese sewer system.

sounds about right. we went to doc's awhile back and the fish of the day was sway. some kind of vietmanese catfish raised under a hut in a rice paddy eating gook chit and scraps

Fake news, everyone knows there are no restaurants in Orange Beach!

They gave me a reason to look for another brand. I bought the saltwater blue and white one because they're supposed to be more of a heavy duty knife. On my 2nd mess of Stripers it gave up the ghost. It stripped out one of the plastic gears that push and pull the blades. These were not huge stripers. I don't keep them over about 10 lbs. Well, rarely anyway. The ones that killed my knife were all between 5 and 8 lbs.

The cheap knife I bought from Walmart to replace it with is doing great by the way.

I’ve cleaned 1000s of fish with an old Mister Twister, but the one i bought a few years again was garbage. I clean a lot of redfish. For the last two years I’ve been using an electric Rapala or a Bunba Blade:

I always hated sharpening Rapala fillet knives. I never could get them sharp as new. Sharpening is a big reason I like the DR traditional with traditional steel. I have only used the steel for years and a few swipes brings back shaving sharp. Being very thin carbon steel they sharpen extremely easily. Personally I would rather sharpen like that often than have a harder sharpening job less often. That's why I don't go in for expensive super steel fillet knives.

Bubba blade makes a battery powered one now too

Buy this combo and fillet anything! We've been using this for 2 years and love it. We're using the 8 1/2 inch freshwater blade. https://www.boschtools.com/us/en/boschtools-ocs/reciprocating-saws-ps60-102-38658 https://filletzall.com. You can buy the sawzall kit refurbished for about $100.

Mr. Twister has been good to me. We cleaned over 200 big bluegill one day last week with the Mr. Twister. Works great.

Some of them big Florida bream?

Yes, Orange Lake in Gainesville. Caught them til we got tired of catching them.

I’m headed to to the Apalachicola river below Wewa very soon...

Berkley--when somebody gives me some fish.
I can halfway sharpen electrics with the smallest
chainsaw file I can find, and then a regular sharpener
for the flat side.
Bought an Ozark Trail 2 years ago and the teeth
were so agressive it tore through the fish
instead of cutting it.

Thanks for this thread, I need a good one too. I'll be following.

the cordless lithium ion bubba blade is the best electric knife ive ever used comes with 4 blades and 2 batteries i can filet a cooler full of fish on one battery and still have 50% charge left

Cordless bubba is nice but I’ve broken two of em so far. My favorite knife to use is a dexter prodex. This knife is amazing.

Another vote for the cordless bubba

Bubba blade is a good one. Bought a 9” flex several years ago. Would rather use it than an electric.