Last time out I bought two dozen sand shrimp but only used about 10. Rather than toss the remainder, I decided to cure them in salmon egg juice left over from curing Chinook eggs last fall. The shrimp turned out a nice red/orange color.

My question is whether I need to freeze them or I can leave them in the frig (the one in the garage......) for a couple months without having them spoil? I plan to use them in May for spring Chinooks.

You can try and freeze 'em or try and keep 'em in the fridge (sounds like an extra-fun experiment; BTW are you married? BTW you won't be!). Most of the time I like to keep 'em at room temp uncured under a boat seat or in the back of my truck. I know some guides who treat 'em that way as soon as they get 'em and claim they actually catch fish on 'em! Yum!

Do whatever you can think of to them if you want. Experiment if you must. Sooner or later you will do the only sane thing and "feed the smolts" with any leftover sandshrimp you can't give away at the end of a day. Much better than dealing with the inevitable result of stinky, mushy critters you would never want to use anyway. I'm sure someone has a "magic cure" and will refute this. Must be a pretty smart fisherman (or someone who has lost all olfactory sense).


Lots o' us been there, tried that.

Give 'em away or toss 'em before you leave the river. Drop the empties off at the nearest receptacle before they too begin to emit a punishing odor!

GS

What GS says.....

they dont cost enough money to make it WORTH it to put up w/ the stench :-/

lol

~MATT