Clean the Fish Yourself: How Does It Work?

If you want to gut a fresh whole fish yourself, you need scissors and a large, sharp kitchen knife. If you don’t want the skin to fall off the fish after gutting, you’ll need to cut off the fins and remove the fish scales. After cutting off the dorsal and ventral fins, hold the fish by the caudal fin and scrape the scales from the tail towards the head with the knife.

You can then remove the intestines. To do this, carefully cut open the belly side of the fish with scissors. Alternatively, you can use a sharp knife. In this case turn the animal on its back and stick the knife into the opening of the anus before carefully separating the abdominal cavity up to the head. Hold and guide the knife or scissors as flat as possible. Otherwise, the intestines could be injured.

For example, if the bile is cut, the bitter bile leaks out and can ruin the taste of the fish. If this does happen, wash the fish immediately and carefully under running water.

Once the abdominal cavity has been incised, unfold the flaps up to the gills. First loosen the intestines at the anus opening and then slowly and carefully pull the innards out in the direction of the head. Since the intestines are very tight in the throat, you usually cannot remove them with your fingers alone. If so, cut them out with scissors. The kidney runs along the spine like a tube, covered by thin skin. You can recognize them as a dark red stripe. Scrape them out under running water with your thumbnail or a small spoon.

At the end, you still have to remove the gills. These are arcuate and are located under the gill covers. Open them up with your thumbs and cut out the gill arches at the base.