I suppose that fishermen still have to content with it but, when I was growing up, fish had bones that you had to watch out for. Even fish that was purchased in the grocery store or meat market came with the bones, and they had to be carefully removed before swallowing a bite of fish, in the event that you missed one while putting it in your mouth. It has been many years now since I have had to contend with fish bones, and I eat fish fairly often. I don't catch my own though, but buy them in the store or order them in a restaurant.
I think trout still has the bones in it, doesnt it? I was pretty good at deboning a fish and I was the one that always did it for my husband and kids.
Spoonbills have more cartilage than bones. A friend had some and cut one up for me. I deep fried the pieces. It came out great.
Yep, filleting our catch was my job as a kid. I learned early on how to keep a razor edge on my filleting knife.
Ah, but no one yet has mentioned what to do with those bones that come from all of that fillet'd fish. Ya just have to, I do mean HAVE to put them and the heads in some water along with celery tops, onion skins, bell pepper cores / seeds, pepper corns and a touch of cayenne and salt. Simmer all of it for about an hour, strain it off and put the stock into an ice cube tray and freeze it. When you need a little fish stock for stir fry, gumbo, or ettoufe' you have it.
In my twenties, before I contracted sun poisoning, I did a lot of off shore fishing. We would have fish fries at least once a month for all our friends and neighbors. I fished so much that I had a big upright freeze just for fish. I would give fish to anyone that would take them off my hands. The fish were anywhere from 15 to 35 pounds, and mostly they were red fish, which is a mighty good fish from the gulf of Mexico. Even at that, I always has a surplus. Then I came up with the idea of burying whole fish in between the raised bed of my garden. In the spring and fall I would make the walkways the new veggy rows, and then bury more fish in the new walkways, I never needed to add fertilizers. I had the most proliferate garden around.
Most of our fishing was done in April and May before our flooding rains came. We have our freezer full and shared our catches with friends and neighbors. .
When we remodeled our kitchen several years ago I took the old sink a with the disposal and built an outdoor fish cleaning station, I filet the fish and grind the rest to put in the garden.
I have always loved fishing as well; but it was always done in streams, rivers, or lakes, and not in the ocean. I love the ocean, and when I lived in Western Washington, being able to drive to the ocean and spend all day on the beach was one of the things that I loved, and now really miss. I also buried leftovers from cleaning fish in my garden, and around my rose bushes and other plants. One time, my neighbor was all upset because he had to take his dog to the vet, and it turned out that the dog had fish bomes in his throat or stomach. The neighbor was mad at me for his dog getting sick (and the big vet bill); but the thing about it was, the pesky dog had sneaked out of his own yard, came over into my yard when I was gone, and then dug up the dead fish. Since the dog should NOT have been in my yard and digging up my flowers; I did not have any sympathy for the neighbor, and certainly did not feel responsible for his dog. It is not like the fishbones were just laying out there on the ground, they were properly buried. There is a little pond just down the road from where we live, and @Bobby Cole and myself have been talking about taking the fishing poles and going fishing there. They keep the pond stocked for people to fish there, and it is only a mile or so away.
One of the most popular fish in the markets here is the milkfish. It is also one of the best tasting fish for me. It is grown in fishponds with brackish water (semi-salty but not sea salty) with the fingerlings coming from the sea. So the milkfish is from the wilds and only cultured by the fish farmers. A drawback to the delicious taste of the milkfish is its bones. We have a saying that milkfish has thousands of bones that makes it difficult to eat especially for children. When I was young, my mother would have a different dish for us kids while the adults would be feasting on broiled milkfish - that is to spare us of the risk of the fish bones that may cling to our throat. Fortunately now, it is common for fish vendors to debone the milkfish. And they can debone while you wait. Would you believe that deboned milkfish is one favorite of our dogs? They love it broiled or fried.
Never had much seafood. Love all the fresh water fish and even frog legs,we have where I live. I have had shrimp, but didn't like it much. When I see shrimp and lobster, I think of that movie about Tom Horn, where he says he, "never ate a bug that big before".