SportFishing and Charters Forum - best knife type for making bonita strip baits

I have been using scissors / regular fish filet knife...but I can never seem to make a nice smooth one stroke cut. I have tried it on frozen / partially frozen and fresh bonita.....yes I have a sharp blade....

just wondering if there is a better type of knife to make the strips with? shorter / less flexible? what type of tip? rounded or point?

Also is it best to put skin skin down or up when cutting?

I like my strips to look perfect.....

Please only people who cut their own strips / or who have first hand knowledge reply.....I want the hard facts from people who actually do it....thanks

Tom

i always do skin down and a standard stiff blade knife, not as flexible as your typical filet knife.....you usually have to pres pretty hard and the filet knives collapse from side to side...maybe try a LONG one to help with the one stroke cuts.

Scissors sometimes work well, but you won't get as smooth of an edge. You can work them into any shapes you want though. sometimes if you put a curve in one side you get more wiggling action, if thts what you want.

Tom, you're not alone when it comes to having difficulty with cutting strips. I'm always "butchering" a few when cutting strips. ;)

I just use a whole fillet sliced down the middle to make two strips... what are you guys trying to do with scissors?

My issues come when I try to make them thinner.

You mean cutting some of the meat off? I would think that would work better with a frozen bonito and a serrated blade, but either way it would still be hard.

To thin the strip place your hand flat on the meat side to compress and fillet with a thin blade that is properly sharpened is best.

To thin the strip place your hand flat on the meat side to compress and fillet with a thin blade that is properly sharpened is best.

Bingo. SHARP, that is the key. I make strips constantly and there is no secret, get a very sharp knife and a good sharpener.

Everyone has a bit of the answer. When I started as a mate on chartermen (back in the Stone Age...) cutting and properly rigging strips was a basic skill (and I wasn't very skilled at all). One of the captains I worked for was kind enough to show me a few tricks that I never forgot. First off you need a sharp, stiff blade - and most so-called filet knives just don't measure up. What I was taught to use was a cheap carbon steel boning knife that you can still find in many grocery stores, the brand is "Old Hickory", and you want about a seven inch blade (and once again it needs to be a stiff 'boning blade'. They're a bit hard to sharpen but will take and hold an edge very well but they rust very easily so the blade is kept oiled and never used for anything else....

Next you need any good smooth surface for cutting on or you won't get nice clean edges on your strips... I like fairly new soft pine boards (and never kept one on the boat - it was kept in or on the dockbox).

Cut your sides away from a fresh bonita (little tunny, correct name), then lay each slab skin side down and carefully filet the meat away from the skin until you have no more than 1/4" of meat left, then scrape away the meat using the edge of the blade (going with the "grain") until you're left with about 1/8" or less of red meat still attached to the skin, then make an outline on the meat with the back edge of your blade to get the shape you want, then turn the blade and make your one time cut on each side at a slight angle (so you end up with just a bit less meat than skin in every strip) and you're done.

Nothing trolls like a properly cut strip but that's another story entirely. Bonita strips helped me win my first (and only) big tournament as a mate back in 1973. They're still an essential tool for anyone dragging dead baits for anything that swims....
p.s. I haven't cut a strip in years and years since I'm no longer out in blue water.