Cleaning catfish

What is the best and fastest way to clean catfish? Is it nailing it to a piece of wood and using pliers to remove the skin? Or is it faster to fillet It like walleye or pike?

I've been filleting cats/bullheads for a long time--the nail-in-the-board and pliers thing seems pretty Fred Flintstone-ish. Here's a quick vid on filleting a small catfish. You can bypass the ribs--wasting some meat minimally--or include the ribs and remove them as usual before skinning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxZ0H8557rE Another-same principle-with an electric fillet knife: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEQrVL4uvw8&feature=related

yeah I still don't understand the need to drive a nail thru the head, skin em, or treat them different than any other fish. I do sometimes steak them if I'm gonna smoke em.

Had a fishing guy tell me you cant fillet catfish with an electric knife. After I did 12 of them while he watched he changed his mind. no silver left on them when the skin came off. tasted awesome

been eating cats all my life as i am from the south. pull the sking off. then twist of the head pull out guts. then fillet the meet off. once you have your fillets of cut out all the dark colored meat. then soak in mil for several hours prior to frying and it will remove any and all bad tastes. i cooked it for a bunch of wisconsinites along with perch crappie and walleye and they wernt able to tell the difference. over 100lbs of fish cooked and none left over.

Peeling the skin off leaves the silver back skin on the meat. Makes it taste very strong. I Take a cat when it's live and cut the throat, I even cut the guts out. Then I swish it in the water 10 seconds or so. This gets the blood out, and keeps the fish from spoiling too soon. Then I put it on ice till I get home. I fillet it like any other fish but I keep the knife a little higher so I get all the skin and silver off the meat. You will notice some meat on the back of the skin though. I then cut out all the yellow meat and the red stripe down the middle of the fillet. You will notice four small fillets per fish. I'm convinced this is the only way to make a channel cat taste good. There is not a lot of meat on a catfish but done right it is as good as any fish including the severly over rated walleye, just a slight different taste. You will also notice the meat is much whiter if you cut the throat and cut the guts out as soon as you catch it because the blood is washed out. You will also notice it tastes better too.

Had a neighbor fisherman tell me you cant get the skin off filleting a catfish. He believed it till I fillet 10 catfish with him watching.