The Q I most often have gotten since I retired from guiding is what's my favorite egg cure. You need more than one. For King/chinook fishing you need flexibility! They are much more finiky & scent preferential than steelhead & silvers. Start by modifying OTC cures. Some good ones are Pro-Cure (both reg.& Wizard), Sure/Quick Cure (almost identical), & Pro-Glo Cure. Add a little sugar to reg. Pro-Cure to balance it's PH, due to stronger sodium sulfite content. To some add a small amount of MSG. To others add a light sprinkling of powdered nitrate (such as Slamola- although experimentation may produce better ones) the night before you fish. I have a favorite custom cure I call MC Hammer- never for sale. If you want to have a "favorite" for most of your King cures use the following: mix equal parts of natural white Pro-Cure & Quick Cure together. To 10 T. of this add 2 T. of red Pro-Glo coloring (not cure), 1 T. of MSG, & 1 T. sugar. Shake thoroughly. Then put into a shaker with holes atop for chem. sprinkle curing of your eggs. Put on clean vinyl gloves. Pad off any blood from the skeins with white paper towells; or if dark bloody, cut them into quartered sections & rinse them in almost frozen distilled water before padding (they won't milk out in that or have chlorine involved). Lay the quartered skein filets out on waxed paper. Sprinkle cure on both sides; 1 to 1 1/2 T.'s of cure per pound of eggs. Put them in a CLEAN gallon jar or largest heavy duty ziplock baggie. Leave them at room temperature for a couple hours, turning them upside down every half hour. They will juice out quite a bit. For most of your curing leave all this juice in there! From a few skeins save the redish egg juice to soakcure sardine filets for wrapping Kwikfish, for curing uncured prawns, & for making scent combos. Put the juiced skeins in the fridge for 2 to 3 days, turning them upside down each morning & evening. The egg juice will almost entirely reabsorb back into the egg sacks, providing a better & longer milking egg cluster- this once was a guide secret to success & is a very effective broad spectrum cure for Kings. Vacuum seal the skeins in jars to keep frozen. Take them out the day before fishing to thaw. Cut the size clusters you want & lightly sprinkle half of them with nitrates before going to bed- to see which one the Kings are more in the mood for.- Some people do very well with brine cures. For this add to one gallon of distilled water 2 cups of non-iodized salt, 2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup sodium sulfite (or 1 cup borax), 1/2 cup red Pro-Glo coloring. Soak eggs for a few hours then drain & pad. This is a great way to thaw & cure purchased blocks of frozen eggs at the same time.-- This is a long post so I will add steelhead fishing cures in a follow reply. - Steve Hanson

[This message has been edited by Backbouncer1 (edited 03-06-2000).]

Steelhead egg curing.- Steelhead are not as finiky as Kings. However, they do not like as strong of chem.'s as in King cures (although I have caught many steelies on my Chinook eggs with salmon cures, in smaller clusters- see above). I prefer either hatchery Steelhead or Silver eggs for steelies. As above, use vinyl gloves to keep human scent off the eggs. Clean the skeins as mentioned in my above egg cure post. Lay them out on paper towells & sprinkle them with non-iodized salt on both sides. Then shake them in a bag of colored borax (I like hot pink); then jar them with plenty of the borax to freeze.- The brine cure I posted above is also very productive for Steelhead. Use only the borax variation; not the sodium sulfite. You can also squirt some shrimp oil into the brine for a variant. Cover in white borax for freezing. Good fishing. - Steve

[This message has been edited by Backbouncer1 (edited 03-09-2000).]

something you might try,I did and it seems to work well.I use pro glow,when the eggs get all that juice in the jar, I squrit some pro cure egg scent or shrimp scent in and shake it all up before the juice gets sucked back in the egg it seems to suck up the scent too and when you go fishing your bait is all ready scented.It works honest!!

------------------
Bob Dawson

Thanks Bob D.- I have tried this in brine curing but not in the chem. egg juicing process. Great idea. Should give the clusters a slow milk out of egg/shrimp combo scent. Sardine oil should be good too.- RT

Backbouncer1- A couple of years ago I was getting ready for a fishing trip late in the evening. I had some fresh eggs from a friend who is fortunate enough to be able to fish during the week. I'd already buterflied the skeins and lightly salted them with non-iodized salt. I reached for my bottle of ProCure and found out that I was almost out. I sprinkled what was left on the eggs and then of all things grabbed a packet of cherry jello out of the cupboard and sprinkled it on thinking it would give the eggs more color. Those eggs worked fantastic for the kings. I just thought that we'd hit the river on a really good streak of luck and we were in the right place at the right time.

Reading some of your posts on cures and scents is making me wonder whether I didn't accidently stumble onto something with the non-iodized salt in combination with the sugar in the jello. Not to mention that the jello gave the eggs a great color. Have you ever tried anything like this? I may have to try it again this fall and find out if it was just a fluke.

m.g.- What you stumbled on used to be the hot way to go a lot of years ago. It's a funny thing about technology, whether it be the latest fishing tackle or the latest golf clubs or whatever. It tends to make you think ya better have the "new & improved" or you're not gonna hang in there. With some things that's true but with many it's not. The 'ol non-iodized salt & cherry jello curing, & storing in borax, worked great back in the 70's. I sure don't think fish have evolved much so it's gonna work now. However, it probably wouldn't make my top 3 favorite cures. One guy I talked to swears a killer way to go is with any red jello and a liberal sprinkling of Johnny's Seafood Seasoning (it does have salt, MSG, & garlic in it- haven't tried it yet).- A similar thing has gone on with our Discussion Board down here in NW Oregon. Remember how well the old Lure Jensen Oakie Drifters worked for Steelhead (& 'nooks)? They were put into extinction by the popularity of Corky & egg combos. A couple guys posted that they came upon a box of them from an elderly guy who quit fishing & had great success with them on both Fall 'Nooks & winter Steelhead this season. They put out a notice that they wanted to buy any that people still had (I have a few left- think I will put some jello eggs with one & hammer some fish!). Anyway , they started a letter writing campaign to Lure Jensen to start making them again.- Another interesting thing is what a broad spectrum of lures Steelhead will hit!! Wiggle Warts & Pink Worms used to be though of as only Bass lures many years ago! I think people should start experimenting with other Bass lures, such as a spinner bait or spinner hoochie with a spreader- lots of things. Interesting. Later, Steve Hanson (Reel Truth)

[This message has been edited by Reel Truth (edited 03-12-2000).]

Good cure posts Steve. For the nitrates I suggest guys check out meat proccessing plants or photo developing supply co.'s. They do enhance the King bite sometimes!