I had the same idea yesterday. I took my daughter out and planned to keep a few and try to fry them whole. The last time I had that idea, I was cleaning a limit, and after about five minutes of scraping scales, I went inside and got the electric fillet knife. This time, I figured we'd just keep about 10 and try it out.
We fished about three hours and caught one nice bluegill and and an accidental crappie around 12". I guess we'll try whole fried bream another time. LOL.