Late Ymiden, Arc 702
”If you want to eat a fish, son," the hunter said, "it's not enough to catch it. You have to clean it, too, and usually scale it as well.”
In one of the man’s large hands squirmed a bass, perhaps two pounds; in the other he held a knife by the blade, pommel poised over the fish’s head. ”As you can see, it’s still kicking. So first you need to fix that. Your first step is to stun it, and you do that by hitting it right at the base of its skull.”
Oram pointed curiously at a point right behind the fish’s eyes. Oleg shook his head, and tapped with the knife pommel at a point near the back of the gill cover. ”A bit farther back. You see the cheek?-Whoa!” The bass seemed not to like that, and began to squirm with some vigor. Oleg’s grip on it did not slip, however. He shifted the pommel over the top of the fish. ”Follow that line from the back of the cheek right there,” he continued, undeterred by the creature’s protesting movements, ”to a spot right about…here!” A dull thud sounded as the pommel struck sharply. The fish stopped squirming.
Oleg pointed to the tail. ”See how the tail is curling a little bit? That’s how you tell you’ve really knocked it out. If you’ve done it right, the fish won’t move even while you gut it.”
The boy frowned as he regarded the inert fish. ”Does it hurt if you gut it like that?”
Oleg shrugged. ”If it does, it’s not for long,” he answered. ”The fish will be gutless and headless in a manner of moments.” He flipped the knife deftly to hold it by the handle, and tapped on the ventral base of the fish’s tail with the point. ”See that? That’s the anus.”
Oram peered. ”Is that where it poops?” he asked.
”It is. And its where you push your knife in.”
The boy wrinkled his nose in disgust. ”Ew!”
Ignoring this, Oleg slid his blade into the fish quietly. ”You stick it in with the edge towards the head, and the blade angled forward slightly. Then you slide it forward right along the fish’s belly, until you hit the point of that v where the gills come together.” All these things he did just as he described.
The hunter slid the knife out and set it down. ”The next thing you have to do is remove the head. For a fish this size, the easiest way to do that is to just to do it by hand. Fish spines aren’t that tough. You stick your thumb in here, right under the gills where you stopped cutting, then grab the head and twist it off.”
The snapping, tearing noise was quiet, but it made Oram shudder. Oleg noticed and looked at his son sharply. ”What’s wrong, son?” he demanded. ”If you want to eat fish, you’re gonna have to put up with hearing that sound. You’re gonna have to put up with *making* that sound.” He held up the head and offered it to Oram. ”Take that and throw it in the water.” Holding the fish head once removed didn’t bother Oram for some reason the way the sound had, so he took the head quickly and threw it. After the boy had done that, Oleg continued.
”Okay, now’s the fun part. You scoop the guts out with your fingers.” He held the now headless bass towards the boy. Oram looked and made a face. He pointed at a brownish streak towards the back end. ”Is that fish poop?” he asked.
”Yes, Or, it’s fish poop. Now stick your fingers in.”
Oram hesitated, looked at his dad, who looked back with determined firmness. Gulping, the boy reached out hesitantly and touched the soft viscera. ”That’s it,” his father said encouragingly. ”Stick your fingers in deeper until you touch the spine. You’ll know it when you feel it.”
Reluctantly, the boy complied. The fish guts were a bit warmer than the outside of the fish, but only a little. Sticking his small fingers in to most of their length, he felt the tip of his middle finger touch the tiny bumps of the spine. ”I feel it,” Oram said, pulling his fingers out quickly.
His dad gave him a knowing smirk. ”If you don’t like that, you’re gonna hate what’s next,” he warned. He stuck his own fingers down the neck of the fish and plunged them deep into the guts, sliding his hand down the length of the fish and scooping out all the insides. The slurping sound was almost as bad as the tearing sound. Oleg flung the offal into the water as well, then handed Oram the gutted fish. ”Now you rinse it out in the stream.”
Oram took it and did as told. At least the insides of a freshly-dead bass didn’t smell that gross. And it didn’t feel any different in his hand than a freshly-caught one, either. Which shouldn’t have surprised Oram, yet for some reason it did.
His father nodded his approval when he brought it back. ”Good, now we scale it.”
