How To Skin / Clean A Bull Frog

Whether you hand catch, gig, shoot, or fish for bullfrogs you’re going to need something to put them in.  I try to hand catch as many as possible and then gig the rest, not killing them at the time.  It’s usually late at night (or very early in the morning) when you get done, and I usually don’t feel like cleaning them right then.  It’s much easier to clean them the next morning when it’s daylight.  That being said, we take the bottom part of the leg from an old pair of blue jeans, sew up one end, and then sew some kind of cord or rope into the other end to be used as a draw string.  It costs next to nothing, is simple to make, and you don’t have to worry about the frogs getting out of it.

This series shows how to clean the WHOLE frog.  Some people will just cut the back legs off and throw the rest away.  That’s a waste of good meat.  Especially on larger frogs, there’s quite a bit of meat on the upper half of a frog, so why waste it?  Even if it’s a small to medium sized frog, it still shouldn’t be wasted.  It doesn’t take anytime extra really to clean, so utilize as much of the animal as possible. Now, you’ll need a frog (or several if you were lucky enough to get them).

The next step is to kill the frog.  I don’t want an animal to be alive when it’s being cleaned, so I’ll usually take care of this in the easiest way possible.  In the picture below, you’ll notice that I’m holding the frog with it’s belly up, over the top of a pretty good sized rock.  While holding the frog like this, you’re going to smack the frog’s head on the rock pretty hard, with a glancing blow.  Usually, 1 good hard lick is enough to take care of them, but I usually hit them 3-4 times just to make sure.  When you’re done, the frog’s tongue will probably be sticking out.

Start cutting right behind the ear (the round spot behind each eye).  Make a cut all of the way around the frog in this area.

After you’ve got the skin cut all the way around behind the head, stick your thumb under the edge of the skin at the throat.  You’re getting it loose right here to grab it with a pair of pliers.  You don’t have to use pliers, but it does make it easier and quicker getting the skin off.

Hold the frog up by the head (behind the jaws) and grab the skin with the pliers and pull back toward the back legs.  You may have to rotate between pulling on the belly side and the back side.  Pull the skin off to the front feet.  You can either cut the feet off now, or wait until later.  I usually wait so that I don’t have to switch between the pliers and knife.

Once you get the skin to the top of the back legs, there’s a point where the skin is  a little more difficult to get off.  Alternate between the front and back, working the skin a little at a time, and continue to pull the skin all of the way off of the back feet.

You should now have the skin completely off of the frog.

Now take your fingers and bend the tip of the front foot/leg (sorry for the blurry picture).  Where the foot bends at the tip (the wrist area), take your knife and cut the foot off, cutting from the side right in the joint.

Complete again for the other foot.  You should now have both front feet cut off.

Time for the back feet now.  The process is the same as the front feet.  Bend the foot, and find the first joint and cut through the joint from the side.

The picture below shows the joint of the back foot after you’ve cut it off.

Time to get rid of the head now.  Cut all of the way around behind the head with your knife.

Once you’ve cut around the head, grab the head and twist it around until it come off.  Pull the head off and any of the entrails that come with it.

Now split the rib cage.  Stick the tip of your knife in just above the back legs and cut all of the way up to split skin and ribs.

Once you get up to the ribs, hold on either side of the frog and apply a little pressure to the knife to get it to cut up through the breast bone.

Once you’ve got it opened up, spread out the frog and pick out any pieces of the guts that are left, and then rinse the frog off with water to remove anything else.

You’re done now!  Roll in some seasoned flour, fry, and enjoy some good frog legs!!!

Big58cal

For more "Critter Cleaning" visit www.gutpilestyle.com

Comments

[jerry mahaffey]

wow, i gotta try this . lots of good meat !

[paul larner]

will any frog do or does it have to be bull frogs

[aaron ball]

thank you sir, that was extremly helpful. i have always gigged catfish but never been able to find frogs until we were cruisin around lookin for a good spot and saw some eyes, thought it might be a big "lizard" but we got closer and realized it was a frog. it was at least 9 inches long. now i wanna know more, like what time of night, they're favorite place to hang, and maybe even some secret recipes

[Matt Morris]

The feet of the frog (after being fried) are crunchy and really good.. They are one of my favorite parts of the frog. Sometimes they are tough if its a big frog. But this was really helpful for getting more meat. Thanks!