So you found a way to move around enough and finally sat atop that group of voracious tullibee with all your ice fishing gear. If you really hit them hard you might have enough to fill the back of a pickup truck! Odds are you have at least a dozen or so for your efforts and now you are faced with what to do with them now that you have them sitting on the ice or in your bucket at home. If you are like me you have cleaned many fish over your lifetime, but never had the reason to try and clean a tullibee. Thankfully they aren’t that hard to clean and the rewards can be quite impressive as they are great table fare.
The easiest way and most common method is simply to slit their stomach and gut them. Before you freak 
out, realize that the reason for doing this is for smoking them. And the majority of people out there absolutely love to have smoked tullibee so this is the most common method of cleaning them. It is quite simple. Start at the rectum and insert your knife. Take the knife and slit all the way towards the front of the fish until you can move it any longer. This will open the stomach cavity and you simply take your hand inside and remove all the innards. Use special care to make sure that you have them all removed. At this point simply place the insides in the garbage can and set the fish aside. Once you have completed this for all of the fish take them to a set tub or similar and wash the stomach cavity out with water to remove the remaining blood and similar. At this point you have a set of fish that are ready for the smoker. Simply start your process or drop off at your local meat market.
Another method is to fillet the fish much like you would a walleye or northern pike. The process is very similar to that 
of a walleye. Start right behind the mouth and cut until you reach the backbone. Take this cut down to the tail and flip it over. If you didn’t take out the rib cage do so at this time. Now just remove the skin by placing your blade between the meat and the skin and you are set. One final thing needs to be done at this point. There is a set of bones that don’t come out when you fillet them and you now need to cut these out. I simply remove that small part of meat on either side and throw it away. Now you have a great fillet ready for your favorite tullibee recipes.
The fun doesn’t have to stop once you have landed all of your tullibee for the day. Many people wait all year to get a group into the smoker to enjoy the great taste for the remainder of the year. There is a relatively small time to target tullibee, so I would suggest you get out there and put on your ice fishing tullibee shoes while the action is fast. There are few things on the ice that are more fun that a good tullibee bite.
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Cleaning Tullibee should be cut down the back, not he stomache. If you cut them down the back bone and leave the belly intact. It makes the meat more smokeable and easier to smoke. If you cut the fish in the belly, the meat of the fish doesn’t get smoked. If you cut it down the back bone it smokes the meat more evenly.
So, cut the head and the tail off and then cut the fish down the backbone and leave the two halves connected instead of cutting it in two pieces.
Wash the fish well and put into a brine of water and salt, (enought to float an egg) Let soak for 12 to 24 hours, the longer the saltier flavor. Rince fish well. Dry fish off and let sit for at least an hour to dry. Put in smoker at 190 degrees and depending on size of fish and how well done you like smoked fish it should be 3 to 8 hours.
Good luck
I have heard of people doing this, but it seems like a lot more work than simply gutting them (as I will assume you are also gutting the fish as well as cutting down the back). I have had good luck with simply gutting them out and smoking them.
The next time I go I will try to do a couple as you suggest and then when I smoke them up I will compare results.
Thanks!