Cleaning and Preparing Gamefish: Step-by-Step Instructions, from Water to Table

For an angler, it's tough to beat the fresh-caught flavor and satisfaction of a delicious fish dinner savored after a successful day on the water. But to get the most from your catch, it must be handled, cleaned, and prepared properly from the moment of capture. In this long-awaited guide, outdoorsman Monte Burch, with the help of step-by-step instructions and detailed illustrations, explains how to handle all types of gamefish caught in both fresh and salt water, including trout, salmon, bass, walleye, perch, catfish, northern pike, bluefish, redfish, striped bass, and many others.
This thorough handbook demonstrates the techniques required for gutting, scaling, skinning, steaking, and filleting all popular gamefish, and offers all the practical advice you'll need on choosing the methods that work best with the species you've caught. Burch also covers the knives, tools, and other equipment needed for preparing fish, and illustrates basic cooking methods. He covers all the major methods of preserving fish, such as freezing (in water or vacuum wrapped), drying, pickling, canning, and smoking. Then he shares many of his favorite recipes gleaned from a lifetime of experience in the outdoors, for frying, baking, poaching, and broiling your fish. CLEANING AND PREPARING GAMEFISH is a book all anglers will want to keep close at hand and refer to often. Its usefulness will last a lifetime.

MONTE BURCH has been an outdoor writer for more than four decades and has written more than fifty books, including Field Dressing and Butchering Big Game (page 185), The Ultimate Guide to Making Outdoor Gear and Accessories (page 113), The Ultimate Guide to Calling and Decoying Waterfowl (page 190), and Country Crafts and Skills (page 37), as well as hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. He lives in Humansville, Missouri.