A neighbor of mine fishes the Salt but does not fish the rivers. I asked him to save the eggs for me and he did. Only one problem, he froze them before he gave them to me thinking this would help keep them fresher. There are about 3 quarts of eggs and I would hate to see them go to waste.

Should I just toss them?

Should I thaw, cure and then refreeze

Or should I thaw, cure and refrigerate

I would like to thaw; cure and refreeze but have never done this and do not know if it will work

Any advice?

From what I have heard if you freeze them before they are cured, the water in them crystallizes and ruptures the membrane. Curing takes most of the water out. I guess this would be a good time for you to experiment. Hopefully you can thaw portions of these eggs separately, if so, thaw some and use them that day, uncured. If they don't turn to mush or milk-out instantly then you could try curing them.

I've taken frozen coho eggs, unthawed them a year later, cured and froze again and they were fine. I guess it matters how you cure them though. Of course it's optimum to cure while fresh and then freeze. However, don't toss them, they'll be fine as long as they're not sockeye eggs. Borax and air will cure these eggs. Refreeze if you wish.

I don't know about you guys, but I feel that sometimes uncured eggs will outproduce cured eggs, especially in really slow pools. Sometimes all they want is that natural smell of the eggs. If you thaw them out and they are goopy that is mint in my mind, just tie them up into bags. They don't last as long as cured eggs but are very effective. You can also air dry the eggs after you catch a hen, just scrape them out of the skein lay them in between two paper towels and wait till they get really tacky. They will be as good as new when you thaw them out.

ok thanks

I think I will try to cure half and the other half I will fish uncured.