sooner lake slime

I fishedd sooner lake last night from about 08:00 p.m.until 2:00am caught a flat head a channel cat and a drum. Had several other fish on and it's tough getting them out of a rocky channel so I broke the line off.and I found out why people call catfish slime, kept them live until it was time to go and threw them on ice. They had a very thick slimy filmand while filleting them I had to constantly wash my hand to avoid putting slime on the meat,I like eating catfish but cleaning them is quite a slimy chore

Nice catfish! Yeah, they're slimey little critters. Good eating though.

Nice drum Sparky! Did you cut the rocks out of his head?

Thanks ! Rocks?

The " rocks" make the grinding sound and look a bit like flat pearls. Several u tube videos detail the harvesting process. Big drum = big rocks.

Nice catch. You bring back horror stories of my grandpa's farm in Coffeeville as a kid. I'm not to found of the taste of fish but my grandpa used to make us clean everything we caught and shot. I HATED cleaning my catfish.

Sparky. Recirculate your water frequently. When the water temp is up it is worse. Refresh the water before you go home and plug livewell. We will take a ice chest with us and only put them in there if they die. Make you some heavy steel hooks to hang them up chest level. With them alive cut the tail off high enough for them to bleed and let them bleed out. Outline, skin, and fillet hanging. Meat will be pretty white. Have done several thousand. We will wash the meat thoroughly for all fish. Cut out what ever red meat we want out. Pat dry and place in a ziploc bag with the air removed. They will last almost two weeks in fridge if you don't store them in water.

Keep on ice overnight, lots easier to fillet cats (or any fish) after it is dead and cold/almost frozen. Very little, if any, blood and the flesh cuts better. As for the cats, they always have some slime, but wiping them down with a paper towel before filleting is pretty easy. I fillet from tail to the rib cage, then just the meat above the rib cage. Too tough trying to cut through the rib bones and keeps the guts in the body.

Nice drum, actually better tasting than most cats if you put it on ice alive. Again, tough ribs on big ones, so may be worth just taking the loin and the meat between ribs and tail on a big one. Does Sooner really have lots of drum? I think they are great, fight a lot harder than bass and taste much better as well.