Jeff, here's how my grandmother cleaned (and cooked) bluegills.
Scale. Remove head and guts. Coat with seasoned flour (black pepper to taste was mixed with the flour and a bit of salt). Fry in Crisco. Peel off skin and pull out fins, peel meat away from skeleton. Eat.
She (and I) can have a fish skeleton that looks like one in the kids cartoons.
If I filleted them she would say that I was wasting too much meat.
That's how we did it when I was a kid also. My mother still likes them prepared that way. I filet what we eat here, but fair warning, I prefer to filet our bluegills while still alive. I will not freeze fish, and nothing fresher than consuming them right after catching. Matter of fact, if a fish dies before I filet it, it gets tossed.
