Boning and fillet knives
What is the difference between a boning knife and a fillet knife?
Close cousins. A boning knife is stiffer and made for meat and poultry; a fillet knife is thinner and more flexible, built to skin and bone fish.
They look similar on a shelf: both are narrow, both curve up to a point, and both are sized around six to nine inches. The difference is in the blade's thickness and flex. A boning knife has to lever around joints and through gristle, so it is stiff. A fillet knife has to follow a fish's ribcage, so it bends.
Using a boning knife on fish works, roughly, and wastes meat along the ribs. Using a fillet knife on a chicken thigh is a good way to bend or snap a thin blade.
If you only buy one and you fish, buy the fillet knife.
Electric fillet knives are a third category and they are worth considering if you clean numbers of panfish. They cut through ribs rather than around them and turn a bucket of crappie from an hour's work into fifteen minutes, at the cost of a little more waste.
Hold the blade by the handle and press the tip gently against a board. A fillet blade curves noticeably; a boning blade barely moves.
Where this comes up
The guides that use boning and fillet knives and show it on real gear.
Last reviewed . Boning and fillet knives is one of 222 terms in the fishing glossary.