I have a technique for curing eggs that works, but I've found that if you bomb the same thing at the same fish day after day; generally they grow immune or wise or whatever. If anyone has a technique that works, the variety may help to keep the fish dumb to what's going on.

I dry the eggs for 24 hours (longer for large scains)with a very light amount of salt and a heavy coat of sugar. The salt aids in drying and the sugar turns the eggs red. Cut the eggs into usable pieces. Heat water (enough to cover the eggs when dipped) and a half cup of sugar on medium heat. Stir the mixture until all the sugar is dissolved. Dip the eggs piece by piece with a spoon into the sugar/water mixture for about five seconds each and lay them separate on paper (newspaper will stick to eggs). Sprinkle lightly with more sugar and allow to dry. Roll cut and cured peices of eggs individually in borax and put them into your container.

Kings love it, but, as with anything, they get wise after a while. If you've got a technique you don't mind releasing, let me know.

Thanks

Kings are very "moody" biters. They may prefer a cure one day and want another one the next day. They don't get used to, thus tired of, good cures. The most successful egg fishers for Kings have egg flexibilty as a strong ally. The way you describe curing your eggs has worked fine for a lot of years, but it is far from the most productive cure for Kings anymore; it actually sounds better for steelhead egg clusters & fishing; they are less reactive to chems. You need to broaden out into chem cures for sure, and maybe brine cures as a better way of what you're trying to do with your heated mixture. - Most guides & good fishers are very reluctant to give out their egg cure secrets. I used to be extremely that way for many years, especially while I was full-time guiding. Even now I won't give out my top homemade custom cure that's taken so many years to perfect. But I will be honest with you in revealing that it is not the silver bullet panacea (because of the finickyness of Kings and cure preference moodyness, there is no such thing). Modified OTC cures often will outfish my favorite cure, so I usually bring my 3 favorites, along with some chem & oil variants, to the river to adjust for fish preferences. I will give you a very good broad spectrum cure for eggs to be fished for river Kings, along with some variants to have along; which will get you into the ballpark you want to be. First of all, the best cures for Kings are chem based and processed to re-absorb most of the egg juice and enhancers back thru the tiny sac membranes into the eggs within about 48 hours. Use the following dry chem cure formula (which will give you enough to cure up 4 large King skeins out of 2 large hens): 5 T. natural white Quick-Cure, 5 T. natural white Pro-Cure (the original, not the Wizard version which is pretty good by itself but shouldn't have additives- it already has nitrates for example), 2 to 3 T. of Pro-Glo Red Coloring depending on how strong of red color you want (use only the Coloring, not the Cure, which looks dark purple when in the package), 1 T. sugar, and 1 T. of MSG (Sun Luck brand is best). Shake together very well. After cleaning blood off the egg skeins with plain white paper towells with gloves on (or thoroughly washed hands), lay the skeins out on waxed paper (I don't think newspaper ink is one of the King's favorite scents - but it isn't a big deal). Filet out each skein into quarters layed flat and use a large holed shaker to sprinkle the cure to cover both sides of the egg filets (should use around 1 to 1.5 T. per pound of eggs). Put the sprinkled eggs into seperate large clean glass jars or the largest heavyduty ziplock baggies. Rotate the eggs upside down about every half hour for the first 2 to 3 hours at room temperature. They should get real juiced up in about an hour. In some of the containers put in the freshest possible sardine filets (good thawed frozen ones are fine too). This has a double advantage in that some of the sardine oil will reabsorb into the egg sacs along with most of the egg juice reabsorbtion which occurs over 48 hours in the fridge; turning them upside down each morning & evening. Use these chem egg juiced reddish sardine filets to wrap on Kwikfish bellies for the most deadly productive lure combo their is for river Kings! They also will love both the sardine enhanced eggs and the ones w/o, but somedays one will outfish the other. After most of the juice has been reabsorbed back into the eggs take them out and put them on paper towells. For real good tight skeined eggs don't air dry them- they will milk out better, longer, and look & feel more natural to finicky Kings than eggs that have lost some of their juice or been dried too much! For looser or mushier eggs, do let them air dry for a while and then pack them in borax to lengthen their fishing time usefulness. For the better ones, just pack them moist into jars and vacuum pack by lighting a small piece of waxed paper on top of the eggs & then quickly screwing the lid on tight before freezing. - Take the eggs out and thaw slowly before fishing. Cut the size clusters you want (about the diameter of a 50 cent piece for springers and a little larger for bigger fall Kings). Very lightly sprinkle half of them with sodium nitrate (not sodium sulfite which is already in most cures) the night before going fishing. If the fish prefer those as usual then you can sprinkle the other clusters while out in the boat. Research where to get good sodium nitrate; usually from quality meat processing plants or photo processing supply outlets (they use it as a drying agent during photo developement). Avoid breathing nitrate dust; it's caustic- but a real fish killer most times! -- I like the above drychem curing better than brine cured eggs. However, brine curing can work very well, especially to combo thaw/cure frozen uncured egg blocks. Use the same balance of ingredients as above with about 1 part cure to 4 parts distilled water (to avoid any tapwater chlorine concern). Add a little extra Pro-Glo coloring. After thoroughly stiring it add the egg skeins overnight. You will use about 4 cups cure to 1 gallon water, so save the brine all fall season, kept refridgerated, to cure up eggs from several fish. Try experimenting by putting in some fresh herring in this brine, to saltwater troll or mooch some metalic red looking plug-cut herring (as an alternative to rocksalt & bluing brine). Good luck. Let me know how you do with this fall's eggs cured this way. - Steve Hanson