catfish/cat

[Grant Barrett]

I'm not supporting the catfish derivation of "skinning a cat" one way
or the other, but skinning a catfish is difficult, so I could see how
it might be the origin of the phrase.

For a big cat (like the channel cats), you hammer a nail through its
head into a heavy board or table-top, then you make knicks near the
head and a perforation all the way around, just below the bony part of
the head, like the line of the top of a sock on a leg. With one or two
pairs of pliers or vise-grips, you grab the sides of the top of that
skin-sock, and you pull it with some force back towards the tail. If
you've used a board instead of a table, someone else has to hold the
board. Catfish skin is tough like leather, so it takes muscles, and
you've got to avoid the whiskers, because they can still get you if the
fish is dead.

Grant