ELECTRIC VS CONVENTIONAL - Which Fillet Knife is FASTER? 

Thanks Caleb, I enjoyed your experiment. A statistician would employ a t-test and very very likely tell you that there was likely no difference in your times between the 2 methods. I think that other factors should also be considered when deciding which is best for oneself: cost of knives, ease of operation (e.g., no need to charge the conventional knife), how strenuous on your hands, safety of both methods, cost of replacement blades, time to sharpen conventional knife, etc. We did a simple blind taste test of fresh walleye and largemouth bass fillets in my house. Four tasters, 3 samples of walleye and 3 of bass. For each bite each individual would have to assess whether he was eating bass or walleye. If you just randomly guessed, each person should score 3 of 6 correct. Person A had 1 of 6 correctly identified; Person B 2 of 6 correct; Person C 2 of 6 correct; and Person D 3 of 6 correct. So, for fresh walleye (from and 18-inch fish) and fresh bass (15-inch fish), caught from same lake and cooked side-by-side in a frying pan, these 4 people could not correctly identify walleye vs. bass. I concluded that walleye is over-rated as a food; OR that fresh largemouth bass is under-rated. I've considered labeling my packages of bass fillets that I give away as "walleyes" to see if anyone would notice. I had my son do a similar blind taste test on me with crappie vs walleye. He slightly mashed each cooked piece to obscure the texture. I incorrectly identified them . (Again, walleye might be over-rated.) I did a blind taste test on my wife; perch vs bluegills. She said that the taste was identical. She was able to identify them, she says, only because the texture of the perch was firmer. I'd love to see you do some taste tests comparing walleyes, bass, pike, bluegills, crappies, and perch with your friends/family. My hypothesis would be that for most of our local fish, people can't tell them apart, especially if texture is obscurred. Thanks for considering, Dave (Spooner)

I like the electric better. I never cut out the pin bone. I use the 7" conventional Bubba to carve them off the fillet because I can get much closer and save meat, but the pin bones seem to dissolve when I fry them. I've never tried grilled crappie but I'm sure they would not dissolve if grilled. In the early 80's I would fillet with a conventional knife, but when I found the cheapo Mr Twister I have used it since. Tried a Rapala 25yrs ago and hated it, but would like to try the bubba electric knife.

Great video man. Go with the electric, I watched nervously as you ran the conventional blade back towards your wrist and forearm.

I have the Bubba blade Pro Lithium & that's all I use to clean my fish & I know I'm faster with it than a conventional knife. I love my Bubba Blade Pro Lithium & I'll never go back to a conventional knife unless I have a break down with the electric. My opinion, I'm sure there are some that feel differently. Just giving my 2 cents worth!! Tight lines & be well!!👍👍 Danny W

Enjoy all the videos. You have definitely sold me on a Bubba knife as my next purchase! I had a question on the fillet table..did you make it yourself?

Another great video…… thank you

I feel like you have a good handle on the electric until it comes time to get the ribs out. Maybe that can be done well with an electric with some practice, but in the electric knife fillet videos I've seen on other channels, they use the electric knife to get the fillet off the fish and then use a conventional knife to remove the ribs and pin bones. That might save you a couple seconds per fish and give you cleaner fillets at the end.

I don’t know if anybody’s told you, but I just watched one of your programs. I’m using electric knife on crappie instead of going back to redo your pin bones. Take your cut there and just cut the pin bones and the Ribs right out the same time.

Another good video and demo. I’m liking the electric 👍🏻

To me if you can fillet a panfish under a minute that’s great👍I probably have filleted with regular and electric about the same mostly bluegills, crappie, perch. Bluegills way more and either way is good, I use electric more cause it’s convenient and no sharpening!!

Good stuff

leave the skin on to rib the fillet, WIll make ribs come out easier and cleaner. skin after ribbing. With practice you will be way faster with the electric. Its all I use now...

I have really come to like and prefer electric knives b/c the double serrated blades don't seem to need resharpening. I catch speckled trout (saltwater trout) and have fillet probably close to a thousand over the years and for most of that time i had one electric fillet knife with the same set of blades on it and they cut just as good years later as they do in the beginning and have never been resharpened. A regular knife you have to keep the blade sharp and you might have to resharpen while you're filleting a large batch of fish if it's a cheap steel. That's just one thing you dont have to worry about with electric knife and they are actually very low in cost usually - $20-30 for an electric corded knife.

I tend to cut through the back bone. Too much down pressure on smaller fish.😞

as someone in the food industry and a lifetime fisherman. I prefer a good conventional knife over an electric. more precise cuts. but with the electric I would just take the pin bones and ribs in one cut. same meat loss basically.

When filleting smaller fish the electric knife and regular knife are going to have results close to the same but when filleting larger fish like deep salt water fish that's where the electric knife is going to come out ahead by a landslide. None of the deck hands that fillet red snapper, triggerfish, etc at the end of a charter fishing trip use regular knives. All of them use electric knives. They can fillet an entire giant cooler of fish in a really short amount of time and the fillets are gorgeous. Electric knives have a harder time with smaller fish like crappie/bream.

It seems there is a bit more waste with the electric one, the filet with the manual one was looking better. With the electric one, there was no meat under the pin bones after you took them off. That’s why I prefer to take my time with a conventional one, it is more precise.

It is true, you get better fillets and waste less meat with a conventional knife. However if you have alot of fish to fillet, the electric knife will safe a whole lot of time, at-least for the “average guy”, crappie are also an easy to fillet fish. I think you would notice a much larger difference when filling other types of fish.

Electriv would be nice for cleaning 40 or 50 fish otherwise I would stick with the regular knife.

For quick, electric. Convential can really get more meat of the fillet. Choose whats important to you

Prefer the conventional knife. I tried an electric knife and it was brutal. Agree, you left more meat on the conventional knife.

Too much waste with electric. If you’re doing five guy limit at walleye maybe. I don’t like em.

What a waste