the lost art of fish dissection

I believe it to be an art form anyway, even if no one else does.

We should have taken it to our local fishmonger and asked to fillet it, I feel this would have been more embarrassing but far quicker.

We set up on the kitchen table (I know...food poisoning any one?) To make it feel like a proper lab, we used some of the hospital kit we had left over from a trip to the scrapstore.

It took eight or nine attempts for Od to slice down the spine of the fish, it was slippery and small and there was more than one occasion that the whole container shot dangerously across the table. Eb was quick to warn Od not to get "manky fish juice" all over the table. I think he was being haunted by his owl pellet experience once more.


So, we took it apart, and we also identified it. Turns out it is actually a rare fish in these parts, a Millers Thumb, or a Bullhead. I am glad that instead of being eaten by another animal, it got to come home with us and become a minor celebrity within our home, and as an added bonus we got to tell the Rangers that they have a species of fish in their streams they did not know about. We just hope he wasn't the only one....

Od surpassed herself, managing to do the whole procedure without gagging, and taking on quite a business like air about the whole thing. She will make a great surgeon, or fishmonger.

I am quite sure there are plenty of people wondering why we did this, my own Mother included. I like to think of it as a first hand experience. We know how tough the fish skin is to slice through, how small the bones are, how smelly and revolting the innards.


I don't doubt for a moment that our attempts would appear clumsy and awful to a professional taxidermist, but it was interesting and, I think, I successful first attempt.

Now though I have a new worry. Od is scanning the road verges for suitable road kill to bring and home and extend her repertoire, and she has added this book to her wishlist.

This is the face of quiet revulsion