I used to smoke suckers. I ran with some folks when I was in my late teens-early 20's who made a big event of the annual spring sucker run, netting them with big boom supported drop nets with weights around them.
We'd cut off the heads, gut the fish and cut them into sections about 6" long. For brine we simply added enough kosher salt to a clean bucket of water to float an uncooked egg. Let the fish soak overnight and smoke slowly at a low temp until the right texture was reached.
I've also done smelt that way, which wasn't very good and was with my then BIL when he scored a bunch of smallish bullheads for smoking. The bullheads weren't too bad, but the best I ever had was when I smoked a 12lb steelhead some years ago. THAT, was delicious.
I haven't done any fish smoking in quite a while, but I think I might have to get back into it. When I do, I'm definitely going to try adding brown sugar to the brine mix. That sounds tasty.
