As you can see, the flesh is a nice color, especially for a Lake brown trout.
 You can fillet a fish with your bare hands, and that method will be shown in a future article.

 method shown here results in six absolutely boneless trout fillets, for use in grilled trout recipes. Three fillets are cut from each of the two sides. If you intend to fillet fish for smoking, just stop after step 3, leaving the flying ribs, fins, and gill collars on the fillet sides, without cutting them into 3 pieces (each side) to remove the flying ribs. 

Related Recipes: Grilled Trout Fillets | Hot Smoked Trout | Trout Casserole  | Chapino Italian fish Soup

1. Pierce the skin near the dorsal fin and close to the backbone. Keep the knife blade as close as possible to the backbone, and cut through the 'flying ribs', but do not cut through the ribs of the trout's body cavity.

 

2. Continue to slice the flesh away from the backbone and, aft of the final body cavity rib, push the blade through to the belly side of the trout, and cut off the tail section of flesh.

 

3. Lift the flesh up to expose the body cavity ribs, and simultaneously slice and manipulate the flesh away from the ribs.

 

4. On the flesh surface, find the exposed, cut end of the smallest flying rib and, aft of that flying rib, cut the flesh away from the skin, to produce the first boneless trout fillet.

 

5. Reverse ends of the fillet, cut a hole through the skin to get a better grip, and slice the remainder of the flesh from the skin.

 

6. Cut along the ventral side of the flying ribs, using care not to cut any of these little bones, to produce the second boneless trout fillet.

 

7. Carefully cut along the dorsal side of the flying ribs, slice out the flesh containing the flying ribs, and discard that piece, leaving the third boneless trout fillet. The thinner belly flesh, covered with mesentery, has been discarded from the fillet shown here.

8. Cut out and discard remaining fins, and their connective cartilage.

9. Repeat steps 1 through 8 for the other side of the trout.