Not sure what is going on in your particular instances...but I have 2 american anglers,a mister twister,and a rapala. They all work,the american angler get hotter than the others but have a little more power. Larger crappie and white bass etc are tougher to clean than small ones. That's why I only catch the little ones LOL>

I do like my shark blades for the heavier boned fish...those skinny blades are wicked. I keep a rat tail diamond sharpen my own blades it's easy. I think plastic boards dull them faster than wood.

As far as fixed blade knives... The steel varies quite a bit in them. Seems like most of them now don't have enough carbon in them now for my taste. I hear a lot about the Dexter blades but don't own one. I have cleaned a lot of fish with the Rapalas.

My brother in law bought me a hand made ,custom made one that a guy makes from I think chisel plow or disc blades? Been a long time can't remember. But anyway I use to clean spoon bill below Kentucky Dam with it. We use to draw quite a crowd back in the day watching us. A man walked down the rip rap one day and ask me to show him my knife. He said" I just had to see it,looks like your just waving that thing at those fish and they fall apart." It was the most flexible,thinnest,sharpest thing I ever had. Course I didn't tell him I wasn't cuttin through any bone. Anyway,left it on the rocks one night in a hurry and lost it. Made me sick....showed me what a fillet knife could be though....