Choosing a Fillet knife

We get many calls and emails asking what is the best fillet knife. Of course we are going to answer “Dexter”. But the real reason we get the question is customers who are new to filleting fish need help in choosing the size of the fillet knife. 

We have fillet knives from 6 inch to 9 inch. All these fillet knives are designed to give you the flexibility the average or advanced person needs to fillet fish. Now I know that we have customers with many, many years of filleting experience. I know that they may have an opinion that one of our other knives works better than another. But this information on selecting a knife is for the average person needing some guidance.

Size?

This is the big question and it’s not difficult to answer. If you only want to buy one fillet knife for all your fish, look at what the size is of the average size fish you catch. If it’s mostly smaller panfish, trout, perch and mostly smaller freshwater species a 6” or 7” fillet knife will do the job. If you're catching larger freshwater species and larger saltwater species you should be in the 8” or 9” size range. If you're catching both small and large fish you probably should have two knives to cover the size range. If you only want to go with one fillet knife go with shorter if a majority of the fish are small or larger if the majority of fish are larger. The reasoning for this is that when it comes to skinning the fish after filleting, you will have enough blade length to reach across your fillet.

6" Fillet

7" Fillet

9" Fillet

Out of all the fillet knives we sell, our most popular is an 8” fillet. Many of our customers use it on multiple species and sizes of salt and freshwater fish. When using this length on smaller fish only the front part of the blade is used. This may take some practice with smaller fish since you hand is further away from the fish and control is a little less than a shorter blade on a smaller fish.

This is by far our biggest selling fillet:

8" Fillet

Handles?

Our most popular handle is Dexter’s SofGrip as show above. The SofGrip has a soft to the feel almost rubbery surface covering a polypropylene handle. It’s great with wet and slimy hands. The Dexter Sani-Safe has the same shape and features a harder polypropylene handle; Sani-Safe is Dexter’s biggest seller. The Dexter V-low handle fuses the soft comfort of Santoprene with the firm control of a polypropylene core. It has Dex-Tex Armadillo texture for a secure grip. The SofGrip, Sani-Safe and V-low knives are NSF certified knives. This means a seal is formed between the blade and handle to avoid any bacterial build up. These three lines feature DexSteel, a proprietary blend of high-carbon, high-alloy stainless steel for enhanced sharpness, edge holding, corrosion resistance and ease of re-sharpening. Caring for these knives is easy. Wash and dry by hand. Keep them out of the dishwasher. The heat and powerful detergents can damage the handles and blades. Bouncing around in the dishwasher will dull your knife.

Sharpening: 

The best way to always have a sharp fillet knife is to maintain it. This means using a maintainer prior to use. A simple device for this is the Dexter  Edge 1 sharpener. This inexpensive sharpener is easy to use. Just follow the instructions on the package; taking care not to apply too much pressure, you can also use butcher steel at a 20-degree angle. A good maintainer and sharpener is a   Diamond Sharpener When light amount of pressure is used it acts as a maintainer when bearing down harder, it removes metal to form a new edge.

A few other things to keep in mind, your fillet knife is for doing the job of filleting. It can’t cover all the jobs you may have fishing. It’s not meant to cut bait, cut line or pry something open. One thing that dulls a fillet knife is cutting through skin and scales. We recommend a serrated or scalloped knife to make your first initial cuts. This saves the edge of your fillet knife.

Buying a Dexter Fillet knife, maintaining sharpness will result in perfect fillets with some practice.

Please feel free to contact us if you would like more information.