So, the last several times I've cured eggs, they've ended up smelling funky, and I think it's because they've got fish slime, etc. from the body cavity on them.

I try remove the eggs from the hen without touching them with my skin, I don't rinse the eggs (since everyone says not too), and I do my best to squeeze any residual blood out of the veins in the skein before curing.

Since I don't rinse them, they always have some fish goo on them when I sprinkle on the Pro Glow or whatever else I'm using, and I think that's why they've ended up not smelling as good as good eggs should.

How do you guys make sure your eggs are clean or otherwise prep them for curing?

fishem! your over thinking it buddy.

Eh, I'd have more confidence fishing dick nites or something else compared to smelly eggs.

I agree, they should be fished. If you don't want them, I know someone who does

It sounds like your are setting yourself up to not fish smelly eggs and thus not catch anything in them.

I'm no egg guru but I just rip them out, butterfly the skeins, throw them in a gallon bag, and sprinkle some cure on them. Put in refrigerator and swish/flip the bags around a few times over the next couple of hours. Sometime within the week, I'll pull them out and usually air dry them for a few hours. Put in open freezer bags, freeze, then seal. Cut the bag open before thawing. Probably not "the best" eggs but they work.

Since nobody has asked the fish what they like, all we can do is present them with an opportunity and see if they are good or not. I've caught fish on old freezer burned eggs, dried out eggs, moldy eggs....you name it. I actually did OK on last year's moldy eggs on springers this year. Most of the scents and egg cures are marketing gimmicks that fool fisherman. It's what's in the egg membrane that counts.... fish em!

I do something else that others would think is a huge mistake. after curing I run all the eggs under the city tap water till cure is rinsed from the eggs. then air dry. have never noticed any ill effect in fish intrest. kings, silvers and steelhead all like city water.

I make a bigger deal out of curing my eggs to fish well. The firmness to last a bunch of casts is more valuable to me than having them juicy or smelling right. I just want to keep them in the water and not fuss around re baiting.

I eat them but after reading this thread, I'll be looking for hooks.

I lay out my eggs on cardboard in the old fridge to drain the blood overnight, then butterfly and let drain some more in the fridge. It was smellier before I had the extra fish/beverage fridge/freezer as I dried out in the garage under a fan. Borax is a fabric softener and helps deodorize besides drying them out. Stays good in the freezer and I can thaw out in a bag with salmon cure and water or fish straight up for steelhead.

I'm with Aaron. Fish em'.

Cut em' out ASAP and place unwashed into a gallon bag. Repeat catching hens until full (or not). No cutting or washing, whole skeins. Leave em' alone once out of the hen. Add seasoning of choice to bag. Turn 1 - 3 times a day for 2-3 days. Take out and dry on cookie racks. Or don't dry and leave with juice for a wet egg. IMO - I like dry eggs. Water makes them wet or so I'm told. Once dry, place 1 - 2 skeins into small tupperware containers. No lid. Freeze. Once frozen, vac pack into daily allotments. Solo days = small vac packs. Party boat = many big packs. These last 5 years in the freezer or as long as your vac pack holds out. Cut to size on the river per species.

Also Brewer is right. I've added too much seasoning in the bag and have been forced to add tap H2O to dilute and poor off. In some batches, this has made a better finished egg. Fish em'.

You can pat them off with a paper towel before curing. If you want them to smell better, add anise a couple hours after adding the cure.

My normal thing is to cut them out of the fish while gutting and gilling on the river and put in a ziplock. When I'm home, I lay them out on paper towels, butterfly, and cut into salmon bait sizes. Then I'll sprinkle on cure and put in a small mason jar. I'll keep turning and shaking them every couple hours while sitting at room temperature. After about 6 hours, I'll squirt in some anise or sandshrimp scent. After about 12 hours, I'll put them in the fridge to re-absorb. After about 4 days, they get frozen in the jar and vacuum sealed.

Hey:

Lots of good advice given......if still un-sure, go to YOUTUBE.COM.....there are LOTS of videos that take you step by step.


This is a good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5hnkamp-9c

Good luck....

Just for fun, I'll tell you all about all the no-no's I committed while curing some eggs last week. In fact, about the only thing I did by the book was to promtly place the eggs in a ziploc bag immediately after opening up the fish. Made sure to keep the water out, too.

After that, it got a little ugly. First, I put the bag with the eggs in the cooler with the cleaned carcass (which, of course, was on ice). As all ziplocs eventually do, the bag eventually leaked, allowing one of the skeins to be completey soaked with freshwater, removing much of the natural orange color. Not a good start.

After that, I gently butterflied the skeins and set them on newspaper. Then, I added some anise scent, some salt, some sugar, and some borax and placed the eggs in front of a fan to air dry overnight. Next morning, I went to work without putting up the eggs, so they spent another day "marinating" at room temperature. When I got home, I found that the eggs had hardened up nicely and smelled, well, like fish eggs. As an added bonus, the Smelly Jelly I had used to scent the eggs, along with the brown sugar, had restored the color that had been lost in the leaky ziploc incident. Satisfied, I threw the skeins in bags and rolled them in more borax, then went straight to the freezer. Will they catch fish? We'll see....

I guess that was my long-winded way of saying "Fish 'em." Good luck. I predict fish will eat them, even if it's not the fish you are after.

Wait wait wait...FF02 uses bait...I was just about to ask you for your eggs. Guess not. lol

Bleed your fish immediately upon catching. Should remove most of the blood from the skeins.

I always rinse mine in very,very cold bottled water...then pat dry with paper towels. bleed don't bonk.............remove with rubber gloves into zip loc...........push any blood out of skein before rinsing. Good luck,

SZ

Artesian Voss water to be exact...

I always rinse mine. I either shake the water out, or might pay dry with a paper towel if I feel like it.

I used to bother taking out the blood, but don't think it matters.

I cure my eggs in glass as plastics leach nasties in the eggs. May not make a difference, but I just use gallon glass pickle jars.

Once cured, I transfer them to glass quart jars to freeze or use.

me either, waste of time and another overkill useless procedure.

I've noticed there seems to guys like to put themselves into elite status and share their overkill procedures. then they share it on BBs. then others think that's "new" rule.


speaking of another "urban legend" it's a huge mistake to lay eggs on newspaper.... come on really?! this again falls under insecurity. for 50 years the old timers(vedder) ALL used newspaper! my fatherinlaw to this day has never used a chem cure for eggs. he only uses non iodized salt/borax... dries his eggs on what? newspaper.

fish are quite stupid creatures, never let them out think you

People still have newspapers?

Good question, Swifty. I live in East Grays Harbor County, which means I get a copy of the East County News weekly. More fit as an egg drying medium than a newspaper, but it's printed on newsprint, so I guess that makes it a newspaper....

newspaper recycling bins are a gold mine!

Well heck I guess I'll fish 'em. I think I'll rinse the next skein I get too before curing and see if that makes a difference.

I generally do my best to transfer straight eggs to bag. I have also salvaged skeins in the river from snaggers. honestly have witnessed no poor effects from them.


I once had a deep freezer go a month unplugged. everything was lost. my entire egg supply was vacuumed packed. I was very certain the eggs were ruined sitting a month warm.... I kept them any ways. all jars when opened had a fishy funk to them. caught kings on every jar!!!

fishy funk can be good...

Smells like fish "It's a dish" Smells like "Cologne" leave it it alone..........Good luck,

SZ

I just realized I never posted my process. I am no expert and I cured my first eggs 5 years ago and only fished my friend's or store bought eggs before that. The mention of overkill procedures made me want to post this because I was reluctant to try curing eggs after hearing about all the steps and dos and don't and the whole process seemed like it would take a while to get right. So here is my process and it is based on the fact that I fish eggs 1/4 of the time for a lot of different species in many different fishing environments. If I fished eggs a lot more I would probably go deeper but at this point I do as well as anyone I see fishing the places I fish and to blame my eggs for some guy getting lucking on back to back casts or whatever is definitely a stretch.

1. Sulfate cures catch salmon and non sulfate borax based stuff catches salmon in a lot of circumstances but definitely is the main choice for steelhead.

2. An undyed and borax cured egg can be made into a dyed and a sulfate laced milky egg on the day of fishing with the addition of "juice" like fluids. I add these to the eggs at the river sometimes, sometimes the night before. So borax cured eggs are always more versatile which is a valuable feature

3. When fish is caught I bleed at river on leash while it is alive by cutting the gill in just one side of fish and "take the dog for a walk".

4. Once fish is bled you have a choice. If and only if I have a clean ziplock bag do I carefully cut eggs from body at the river and put them in the bag minimizing contact with anything including fish's bodily fluids and river water. Ideally scein should look kinda dry in the ziplock and enclosed by membrane. If I don't have a ziplock I keep the fish cool and leave body in tact. With proper bleeding and chill the eggs should be safe inside the fish. If the eggs are loose when I cut open the fish I don't bother, I hate dealing with loose eggs and would only do this in an absolutely need to basis which hasn't happened yet.

5. Sceins are butterfly cut as said before in this thread, and sprinkled for a minimal coating of borax or borax o fire type stuff. If eggs are wet a while later I rotate more and maybe add more borax and repeat if still super wet. Better eggs for me offer durability while fishing and are often less wet after the addition of cures in my experience.

6. In the end you should have a nice gooey product that can be used any time anywhere, altered to be a springer catcher or left alone to catch those picky low water winter steelhead. It shouldn't smell really bad, if that is the case I would check your fishing handling and egg handling procedures.

And again, I am no expert but that is my current system.

All you ever need to know about curing eggs.

If it looks like bait and smells like bait, it's bait and fish will eat it, salmon and steelhead alike.

Slow water and fishing stationary bait on anchor are two possible exceptions where scent plays perhaps a more significant role than appearance, and in those instances one formula can certainly out-perform another.

My experience would seem to say that as long as you do a half decent job of curing bait and do the same half decent job of putting it in front of fish, you'll catch a few.

Too bad sthlhdr1 stopped selling the "ultimate egg cure" a few years back. It truly was the ultimate. These days I buy Pautzkes in pink, orange, and red.

Just added some bottom of the bags tuna oil/juice/blood to a quart jar of berries being cured up. These will be smelly and fishy.............Lol. Good luck,

SZ

that will be a funky mess! expect some major success.

I have one gallon bag of UEC left. I'm not parting with it. This is the "old school" recipe that was made before Stldr1 had something similar bottled up for a while. Also only have 2 quarts of frozen UEC eggs in the ready. One will get used up next week.

This cure is flat out money on salmon. Sometimes.

I've seen those cured eggs shine in places that were awfully dark and gloomy....and I've seen them go cold as ice when good old ProGlow/ProCure eggs lit up the place.

For salmon, it's always a good idea to have more than one type of cured eggs on hand.

For steelhead - as long as your bait is red or pink, don't think it matters too much. Just put it in front of their face and they will bite it.

Agreed.Good luck,

SZ

just in case you didn't read between the lines:


paker doesn't catch enough fish to actually have eggs to cure, but, if you take him out in your boat and he reels in a fish, he'll cure the eggs and bring them the next time you take him out on your boat. you might get to use them, or not...

Now that the divorce is nearly final and the youngen has turned 3, I'm going to get back into the egg cure world... Looking to launch a 2nd recipe as well, one that I've held tightly too for my own use..

As to the smell of the eggs in this post, how long were the eggs out of the fish before cured? How many days did they cure? What temp did they cure at?

My guess is you've got a good batch going, that smell of "snake-piss" can't be beat in the egg world, the kings go nuts over it!

Keith

I'm down to my last 1/2 bottle of UEC so this is great news. Let us know when it becomes available again!

Let me know when you are back in business Keith and put me down for a case

For sure. I'll put a post up on the board here when the day comes... Plus email/call the hundreds that have requested it over the last few years...

Keith

I'll +1 on some of that UEC when it's available.

two words 20 mule team & smell is your friend