"Weekend Experiment. One weekend we took a break from our research activities at Southern Illinois University Fisheries and Illinois Aquiculture Center, to spend a day fishing for crappies. On the trip a bit of friendly bantering ensued about which is best: an electric fillet knife or a traditional fillet model. The debate centered on the time it takes to remove fillets and the amount of flesh recovered. There was only one way to put it to rest - two fishermen, two knives, some crappies, and a cutting board.
And so we used our catch to conduct an experiment comparing the efficiency of both types of knives. One knife-wielder filleted one side of the fish, cutting the flesh away from vertebral column, rib cage, and skin. The other the filleted the flip side of the fish, using the other knife technique. Time taken to fillet each side and the fillet weights were both recorded. The process went back forth until all of our crappies were cleaned and filleted.
Overall, the electric knife was about twice as fast as the traditional knife but gathered about 15 to 20 percent less flesh. for a crappie that weighed 16 ounces, for instance, the traditional knife gathered 5 ounces of boneless flesh in 85 seconds while the electric fillet knife brought a little more than 4 ounces of boneless meat in 45 seconds. Differences in the amount of flesh recovered are likely due to the precision of the traditional knife for removing the flesh covering the rib cage. Cuts performed using electric knives are less precise and any mistake in electric filleting is exacerbated, making it much more difficult to correct filleting errors.
Our test shows that a traditional fillet knife minimized fillet loss when cleaning for crappies or, probably, other panfish, and is the best choice when time isn?t a factor. Other types of fish such as pike and trout that have different bone structure may show different results."

Quinton Phelps and John West

August-September 2008 "In-Fisherman"

Rick

PS Does this sound like they fillet slowly?
How fast do you fillet a fish?