Where I grew up in Maine we went white perch fishing in general. For those of you who never knows perch, you need a way to try to find it. You need to go fishing, or have a friend, not because they are not marketed. It is a spiny fish, but the bones much less than the more common yellow perch in the Great Lakes captured. Maine usually throw back in yellow perch as a fish bin.
I grew up my perches are easy to clean and fried. This isto make really simple and fast. Just use a knife to remove the scales folding against the grain of the scales. Then cut off the tail, dorsal and ventral fins, and then his head. Then cut the belly, away from the hole of the ventral fin on the left to the area where it was beheaded. Then use your thumb to scrape the intestine. Wash the fish in the lake, and take it to go into the bucket of fried cornmeal. Yum.
Then, a few years after my uncle Roycetaught me how to fillet perch. This results in a slightly smaller amount of meat to eat, but the food is Persian White quickly and easily as all the bones are gone. The key is a very sharp knife. Start cutting the tail and head. Then through the skin on the back of the fish from head to end back near the dorsal fin cut to order. Now take back the skin on the head with either pliers or a knife and thumb (be careful here, do not cut your thumb), take the skin,first one side, then the other.
Next use the sharp fillet knife slice along the side of the spine to remove the main fillet of flesh from the spine. Carry this incision all the way down to the ribs. Repeat on the other side. Now slice off the ribs, and you're left with a fillet of the perch flesh. Discard the rest of the perch. You're left with two modest sized fish fillets. It takes several of these to make a meal, unless you have been lucky enough to have caught unusually large perch. Fry these with cornmeal batter, and they rival trout or catfish for great taste. Enjoy.
