Cut above rest when it comes to filleting

For Ant Palmer, filleting fish is not just about readying a weekend catch for the frypan.

Mr Palmer can fillet a terakihi in seven seconds - and it's this speed, combined with his accuracy, that has resulted in him becoming the New Zealand fish filleting champion for the second consecutive year.

The fish filleting competition is held annually on Anniversary Day at the Auckland Seafood Festival with competitors from fish processing factories across the nation.

This week, Mr Palmer's name was again carved into the prestigious Golden Knife trophy, a repeat of last year's feat.

The champ played down his achievements but said winning the trophy reflected well on his workplace, Sanford Limited.

"It's good for our branch now that we've had it twice in a row. It [the win] is not too bad, considering the competition was strong this year," Mr Palmer said.

The showpiece contest involved nine filleters from fish factories in Auckland, Gisborne, Timaru, Whakatane and Tauranga.

Contestants were each given 10kg of terakihi to fillet, skin and bone. They were graded on combined scores related to their time and their recovery, or yield - the amount of fillet they recovered from the fish.

Mr Palmer's time of 7min 42sec for his 13 fish wasn't the fastest, but his yield of 3.88kg made him the easy winner.

His boss at the Sanford branch in Tauranga, Steve Keys, said the performance of his line manager was impressive, especially considering he doesn't often fillet fish anymore as a supervisor.

"You can get in there and tear it to bits - speed is one factor, the other is recovery, or yield. Some guys can go really fast but have a poor recovery. You have to find a balance. [Mr Palmer's 3.88kg] that's a good recovery. A lot of factories work at 3.4kg-3.6kg," he said.

And the secret to winning back-to-back titles? The man with the winning knife has a tried and true formula for his fillet preparation.

"I stacked the fish so the head was on my right side, because that's my cutting side. I cut to my left, skin to my right and then I bone to my left. I fillet it all, I change my knife to skin and then I change my knife to bone," Mr Palmer said.

He said the 1500-strong crowds at the shows, usually made up of recreational fisherman, are often mesmerised by the speed of the operation.

"You could say it's like watching a magician. I can do a fish pretty quick, [filleting] one fish in like 5-7 seconds.

"The whole process [per fish] would take about 35 seconds," he said.