edgecombe

Maybe it was a girl fish and it broke off of her tampon.

I kill them instantly before throwing them in the cooler. This is done by making a small cut on the top of their head (where the soft spot is) & then using a wire, in my case a clothes hanger with a homemade handle, and run it into their brain. Kills them within 3 seconds.

If anyone is thinking about trying this make sure you thrust your wire in backwards motion towards the tail.

I was trying to look up a video for you on youtube. I couldn't stand it because they were filleting them alive! Please tell me you kill them before you start filleting them? I did read something abut removing the "blood line" or mud vein.

Anyway, my fat don't have red strings running thru it!

OC if you haven't ever seen anything like this before when filleting catfish, just throw the dang things away.

Old School knows what he is talking about.....Take his advise

Morgellans disease. I hope you didn't get infected.

Internal worms are white.

if it looks like this its just fine http://imgur.com/F3xOgfr

You need to cut all the red (fish fat) off of all fish. It won't hurt you but it makes the fish taste very strong. Fat in a steak gives the lean meat flavor, Fat in a fish gives the fish flavor too, but too much. Especially big catfish, you need to slice all the dark colored meat off or it won't be fit to eat.

id throw it away and DO NOT eat it. its a worm of some sort. ewwwww

However, if it were me, I don't think I would want to eat them if I had never seen that particular thing in catfish before, even with all the cooking and freezing, don't think I could eat them. I would probably throw them away.

I've been googling some stuff (I'm really trying to help) and most of what I've read says "if in doubt whether or not the fish is sick...don't!!" On the other hand, one thing I read says a sick fish will not bite the hook, and that if in doubt and want to eat them anyway, make sure they are thoroughly cooked at 140 degrees for 5 minutes or frozen at 0 degrees for at least 48 hrs. before cooking. It also said that most parasites in fish cannot be transferred to humans.

Another link: scroll down to "Can I Eat A Diseased or Parisited Fish"

http://www.seagrant.umn.edu...asites#eat

I really don't know, OC, but I saw this:

https://www.google.c...channel=sb

I'm really paranoid about what I found, considering taking the whole batch I filleted and trashing them.

Oh lord...OC, it was its main artery! (NOT)

I was filleting some catfish yesterday & noticed when I was filleting the skin of a big fillet there was a red string just underneath the skin, some sort of parasite?

I threw the fillet away because parasites are a phobia of mine, anyone have any idea it might have been?