Employee Knife Safety

Everyday at Cold Springs Trout Farm, our employees (you), will be using knives whether to gut or fillet. We provide the gutting knife, as this is a custom knife we have designed with a shorter blade to help protect employees as they work.

We ask that you provide your own fillet knife and use proper care for it. Keep your blade sharp and clean. Mistakes that lead to an employee cutting themselves, are more common with a dull knife. As you practice, we encourage you to take your time, become familiar with the knife and the process before increasing speed. As you increase your speed, please do so with caution so that you are not putting yourself in a situation that is unnecessarily risky.

Proper care and Handle of knives

Below you will find tips for proper care and handle of knives:

• Wash your knife with warm bleach disinfectant water.
• Dry your knife with a soft towel or fillet rag.
• Store in the knife block provided or in your own personal sheath.
• Each of our knives look very similar please put an identifying marker on it to ensure you can distinguish between yours and another employees knife.

The fillet knife most of our employees use is a Rapala brand fillet knife that has a 4″ blade. The most important thing you can do is buy a 4″ blade that is flexible. You may own longer blades, however, at our farm you will mostly be filleting fish under 16″. The 4″ blade is ideal for working with this smaller size of fish. I Personally use a Rapala Superflex 4″ Blade.

Sharpening your fillet knife

Here is a video done by the owner Neal:

** It is hard to sharpen your knife, as you are learning please ask a shift  manager or Tarah for help. Remember, it is better to fillet with a sharp knife rather than a dull knife.**