It’s a warm August evening and I’m running up to the fish shack with my still shiny new fillet knife in hand. I was going to finally learn how to fillet a fish, a goal I had set at the beginning of summer. 

Turns out that was a more difficult goal than I thought because the first step to filleting a fish is to actually catch one big enough to fillet. Something I have yet to figure out how to do, and to my (loving) annoyance James had spent his whole summer casting bass lures. Even after reminding him we can’t, or rather I refuse to, make a fish fry out of bass. Luckily, I was able to catch my share of bluegill and crappie to eat and fillet during a week-long fishing trip at a cabin with James’ father as our guide.

Back in the fish shack, where our catches of the day are laid out on the table, I am watching James’ father demonstrate how he fillets fish. Although I believe he thinks that I already know how to do this, seeing how swift his movements are. After watching him once, and with a lifetime of experience watching my own father fillet fish, I make the first cut down the dorsal and out through the tail. My cut turns into cuts, and the fillet is mangled by the end. But, I am making progress with each attempt. James is there beside me, brushing the hair out of my face, offering me sips of beer, and encouraging me, like a boxer’s cornerman between rounds.

The next day, James and I get off the water early and I immediately run up to the fish shack to start filleting. Getting to enjoy the peace, as I listened to the other boats come off the water, and the voices of family bouncing off the lake. I start filleting with the confidence of an old pro but the fillets still show otherwise. It takes until November for me to get home and remember to ask my Dad about filleting fish. We were enjoying a fish fry that was caught and filleted by him and my brother. As we sat there, sipping on a few old fashioneds, my Dad finally got to explain to me how he fillets fish, gesturing to illustrate his process, and it finally sank in how to do it right.

Seeing how patient and eager everyone was to show me how to not only fillet fish but catch them makes me want to someday be able to teach this skill to someone else— although, you have to give me a few more summers to get good at it first. But I can end this with the key piece of advice I learned to get the perfect fillet.

You got to flip it twice.