Being new to salmon fishing I have been trying to learn all I can...started fishing commercially cured eggs, then stumbled accross some info that guides and those in the know have secret ingrediants that you will not find in comercial cures or commercially cured eggs...this was news to me, anyone have any tips on what to start experimenting with??

I have a dark secret for you. Follow the basics. 95% of guys that cure their own eggs don't follow all the basics. And that includes me. I forget to follow basic principles of good bait handling. Usualy out of laziness or poor preparation.

Scott Haugen has a neat little book with all kinds of recipes and ideas.

Link to book


Things that I need to remember:

1. Bleed out fish right away
2. Remove skeins promptly
3. Wear gloves when handling skeins
4. Remove blood from skeins as soon as possible. Use your thumb to squish blood out the ends of the veins. Rinse quickly.
5. Keep eggs cool/on ice. Don't let them get soggy and wet. Use a ziplock bag.
6. Use your favorite cure. Do this before you freeze them.


Thanks for your post. It reminded me to bring home some gloves.
My personal experience also has given me a couple rules to live by;

Don't sit your bait out in the direct sunlight. Keep it covered and cool while your fishing.
I had a bucket of roe actually ferment by the end of the day. Peeeuuu, total gross. Smelled worse then a busted colostomy bag.
Tie up roe balls the night before you go fishing. It will make it easier to change out old bait. I have a habit of not wanting to change my bait if I have to make a new bait ball.
In fact I am going to have children just so I can make force them into bait ball slavery. Mow the lawn and make bait balls or no pudding for you. How can you have any pudding if you don't make me bait?
Sprinkle some Slamola powder 2-3 hours before you get out on the water.

Great tips vhawk! Good post.

Something else that may help is when butterflying the skiens open before putting on the cure use a dull serrated steak knife. This opens the skien without cutting to many of the eggs.

Something else I do is let the eggs air dry for awile before starting the curing process.

Wear gloves and rinse in cold bottled water.Try and use less cure and more dye @ times so you don't burn the egg's.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

For many years some of the top rods used nothing but borax. I know bill Herzog still does to this day. Nick Amato and I have spent years trying to learn Clancy's secret cure. I do know that he changes his cure with the species of eggs he has, the species he is targeting etc. i agree that 95% of it is to handle the eggs carefully and not to use too much cure.

I have a brine cure that Paul Buprea taught me years ago. I seldom use it as it’s a lot of work, but the eggs sure come out pretty. I know that Clancy sometimes brines his eggs as well. I will dig through my old puter files and see if i can find the brine recipe.

One last thought – the real old time steelheaders often used fresh eggs. When steelhead were abundant they would kill the first hen they caught and then fish fresh eggs the rest of the day

A story on cured eggs vs. borax

I was fishing a coastal Washington river last fall with my Amerman cured eggs. There were a couple other guys fishing close by. I pull out my bright red Amerman eggs that I carefully handled and cured with great detail. The other anglers were in awe of my fabulous looking eggs. Their jaws dropped when they saw what I was using.

Then one of them pulled out his eggs from a mason jar. They were the some of the worst eggs I've ever seen. They were stringy, falling apart, and real messy. I asked what he cured them with. He said just borax.

Well, over the next couple hours, that guy outfished my beautiful Amerman cured eggs 3 to 1! I caught one mesley coho while he put three big Chinook on the bank. Go figure. From that, I learned that the only opinion that counts is the fish. I don't eat cured salmon eggs but they do.

The point is always have more than one cure with you, including one that includes borax.

Here's another thought:

I was reading one of the Frank Amato books/publications, and the author made it a point to NOT throw away your old stinky eggs. He claims that he's effectively used and seen used the old stinky eggs (e.g., stuff that has been in the fridge too long) to outfish cured fresh eggs.

I tried the Ammerman eggs and I was NOT very happy with the money I spent on them, I didn't even get 1 fish with them and will never throw money down the drain for them again; instead I use J E L L - O and the jello eggs out fished the Ammerman eggs by far.

im with stam on this one, straight borax, and if im feelin crazy ill dump a little anise oil in with them

Herzog rocks! He could probably catch a fish on belly button lint so the borax argument doesn't hold up when talking about Herzog.

Sorry, Vedder, you ain't no Herzog..........


Hahaha, just kidding Vedder.....you rock too! I don't know if Todd told you, but I actually think very highly of you, Mr. Vedder, and can't wait to meet you..........even if you are a float fishing goatroper!

Justin

The Borax/Salt/Jell-o cure is simple, and works great.

I mainly use strawberry and raspberry, and have been experimenting with a couple of bright color add-ins this fall.

Hopefully the new colors will work as well if not better than just the Jell-o alone.

I've now heard it all.

are amermans eggs "cured" out of the jar or do you have to do that yourself? thanks

Justin: That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.!!!

That was some serious "hang-time," Dave. you must be slowing down in your old age.

Sorry Sol, I was busy building a new rod rack.

Dave, you remind me of the media by quoting the partials. Here is the good part:

Borax has been the best way to keep eggs ready to fish for 40 years.
The only way to make it better is to use a little Beaumac red dye and salt in a plastci bag and let them sit for a day in the refer. They will turn into goo and then re-absorb all the juice. Rinse and put up with Borax and you have eggs that will last a long time in the river and even longer in the Freezer because the egg sacks will not freeze hard and there will be no ice crystals inside the eggs to pop them. You cna freeze them and then take them out and they will bend like rubber until thawed.
I am fishing 2001 eggs that look as good as the day I put them in the freezer.

I must be missing something. I used straight borax (Sporto's fishermans borax)and the only thing my eggs did was get a powdery coating.

Someone help me with this issue. The ready made cures work fine for me but the borax did nothing.

Dr. E-

I usually cure my eggs by the skein... meaning I don't cut them up into bait size pieces. What I do, is butterfly the skein down the middle as to fold it open. Then I sprinkle powder all over, carefully coating between all the rows of eggs. When I have everything coated to my liking, I pack them in more of my Borax/Jell-o/salt mixture in a ziplock, push the air out of the bag, seal it, and throw it in the deep freeze. The evening before a fishing trip, I pull what I think I will use out and thaw. I leave the skeins fully intact until right before we launch the boat. I use scissors to cut the skeins into bait size pieces, layering the pieces on papertowls in my bait box. I only cut what I think we will use in a few hours time, and when the supply gets low, I cut some more. Maybe the way I do all of this is bass-ackwards, but hey, I copied this method from a very successful guide from Forks

Also, can anyone tell me if the "fisherman's borax" (like they sell @ Sportco) is different than the "20 Mule Team" Borax they sell in 4lb boxes at the grocery store? I use the stuff from Safeway, it works just fine and its much less expensive. Is the "fisherman's" stuff a finer grain or something?

Hope this helps.

PS- Here's a link with pictures on how to cure eggs... the only difference is I dont cut them up before curing. Have fun.

Borax Egg Curing Process with Pictures