Another is, the fresher the fish, the easier it is to scale or filet. Those who clean a lot of fish will tell you the easiest and most satisfactory way to prepare fish for cooking is to filet them. I am one who holds with that contention also. Even smaller catfish, in the two or three pound class, I find easier to filet than to skin and then prepare. With the prevalence of catch and release, in our Texas lakes, for black bass, there are many anglers who fish only for the sake of fishing, for competition in one of the many weekly tournaments held on most lakes, and trophies.
Trophy fish require different handling than fish for food.
It is necessary to make sure there is no physical damage done to fish when caught and landed. One of the common mistakes made by anglers, who have mounting a trophy in mind, is bringing in a fish that is too green . The idea is to play them until they are too exhausted to put up much of a fight when landed. Netting seems to be the accepted practice for landing most fresh water fish, but the trophy hunter may want to consider taking them out by hand. Taking them out by hand can help to assure the skin and fins remain as pure and clean as possible, by not allowing even the most played out bass to flip around and possibly get hung up in the net or hit the side of the boat boat during landing.