Now what I do is just hold the knife down and pull the skin from under the knife with knife blade turned slightly down ... for some reason it cuts the fish off the skin rather than cutting the skin ... I'm not certain why. All I know is it works good.

This is a view of the outter side of the fillet that had the skin on it. You can see that it works slickern a whistle. If you're not a real tough sorta okie that loves the taste of strong tasting catfish which most people aren't you'll want to trim that red meat off of the fillets it's a bit loud, these blues are probably the best tasting fish there is just as long as they're caught out of clean moving water.

Here's the finished results ... I breakout a tray of ice to speed up the cooling down of the water and fish. Don't have to but I just like them to get cool fast ... I put a little salt in the water ... about a teaspoon full and stir it up really well ... I don't know the purpose of doin this. It does allow the fish to get colder due to salt water doesn't have the same freeze temp as fresh water ... it's done on homeade ice cream makers too to make it cold enough to freeze the icecream ... try makin icecream without rock salt on the ice used in the old crank or electric type homemade ice cream churns. Grandpa put the fish in saltwater so I'm continueing the family tradition ... they said something about curing but it doesn't effect the flavor of the fish if you don't use saltwater to set them in overnight. Maybe someone reading this can explain why the oldtimers did this.