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[zap brannigan]

can add some egg cure or pautzke nectar to them to add some colour and flavour aswell, i keep mine in a little zip lock with a little rock salt.

shrimp/prawn works well on jigs but the squid adds a little action along with flavour and scent plus its quite rubbery therefor a lot tougher and lasts longer on the hook.

[canso]

Canso: Are you float fishing these 3/4 oz jigs under a float, or twitching them without a float? IMO 3/4 is heavy under a float I find 1/4 best.

Yup, a 30gram float with a split shot directly under the float then swivel and 4-5' of leader depending on depth of water. I like to be a ft off the bottom.
I always fish with deli shrimp.
5/0 gamy with rabbit, marabou, whatever is around, they look ugly but work great.
I save the cute little jigs for winter steal.

[Spawn Sack]

can add some egg cure or pautzke nectar to them to add some colour and flavour aswell, i keep mine in a little zip lock with a little rock salt.

shrimp/prawn works well on jigs but the squid adds a little action along with flavour and scent plus its quite rubbery therefor a lot tougher and lasts longer on the hook.

Fish Assassin: Thanks man next time I'm in Superstore I'll check out these tentacles!

Zap brannigan: just to clairify...do you mean you use egg cure or Patzuke nectar on tentacles...or shrimp? And what's the deal with this nectar stuff...any good? To add some color/scent to prawns I've tried adding a tsp or so of powder cure to a half glass of water and then tosing frozen prawns in there for 3-5 min. Gives them some nice color and scent. That being said I used plain raw prawn as well with as good of success.

I've heard a lot of ppl do well for steelhead making up small egg sacks with salt water hardened eggs (3-5 eggs) and adding a little bit of prawn/shrimp to the sack.

[Spawn Sack]

Yup, a 30gram float with a split shot directly under the float then swivel and 4-5' of leader depending on depth of water. I like to be a ft off the bottom.
I always fish with deli shrimp.
5/0 gamy with rabbit, marabou, whatever is around, they look ugly but work great.
I save the cute little jigs for winter steal.

You only use 4-5 inches of leader? I normally run a min of 12 inches up to 2 feet if the water is slow/deep/clear. And holy crap a 5/0 hook?! Well, as long as it's working why not?! I like #1 or 1/0 (I use more) for chum. I haven't straightened a hook yet but I hammer my hook sets so hard on the chummies the hook is normally burried right down to the bend and often poking through the top side of their beak. I've tried several brands of jig hooks and I like B/R sickle hooks the best. You do have to get a good hook set though or they risk bending out. Definitley no good on a noodley rod!

[canso]

4-5 ft. of leader. the only weight is directly below the float. I only do this for jigs with chums.

[Animal Chin]

I just use cooked shrimp cocktail to tip my jigs..one big/jumbo shrimp cut into 3 or 4 smaller pieces. When I'm fishing in faster water for steelhead, and because it's cold, I sometimes use spider thread to tie on chunk. It never falls off.

I've caught chum, steelhead and coho with the cooked shrimp (though coho seem to prefer sparse jigs with no prawn as others have mentioned). Raw shrimp has worked too, and I did experiment with pautzke's fire cure in bag with shrimp, but it stank, was messy and I didn't get a sniff that day steelheading. In the end, I like cooked shrimp the best because it's the cleanest and has caught me the most fish.

I personally think it works better than raw shrimp, but it may be because I use cooked more often.

I know Rod Toth of Bent Rods only uses raw and Cody at SeaRun likes the firecure in baggy with raw shrimp chunks, and both are excellent fisherman who catch a lot more fish than I do .. but my personal experience/experimentation yields greater success with cooked prawns.

YMMV.

Though, in the end when chum are on the bite I don't bother and just get my line in as fast as I can. And with steelheading, speaking from my limited experience, it seems to me what others have said often is true: you just have to find them, and it doesn't matter what you use, just present it them half decently.

I'm not sure how much it matters to tip or not. It just makes me feel more optimistic..

[fishman254]

I personally think it works better than raw shrimp, but it may be because I use cooked more often.

Sounds like it works great for you. No need to change then.
I have, in the last few days, seen/read multiple experts claim that UNcooked ones catch more fish than cooked ones, however. In general the closer to "fresh" any bait is, the better (except for curing/coloring/brining), but not always of course.

Bait guru Scott Amerman says "Pre-cooked/boiled prawns don’t have the scent that un-cooked prawns have."

Maybe the cooked stay on the hook longer, I really don't know, in which case it can be argued cooked is best.

[zap brannigan]

Fish Assassin: Thanks man next time I'm in Superstore I'll check out these tentacles!

Zap brannigan: just to clairify...do you mean you use egg cure or Patzuke nectar on tentacles...or shrimp? And what's the deal with this nectar stuff...any good? To add some color/scent to prawns I've tried adding a tsp or so of powder cure to a half glass of water and then tosing frozen prawns in there for 3-5 min. Gives them some nice color and scent. That being said I used plain raw prawn as well with as good of success.

I've heard a lot of ppl do well for steelhead making up small egg sacks with salt water hardened eggs (3-5 eggs) and adding a little bit of prawn/shrimp to the sack.

No water just straight firecure powder, nectar works aswell just pour it in the bag, with my shrimp I sprinkle them with firecure no water then put them in a ziplock with rock salt and keep draining any liquid, they come out real tough and last a long time on the hook.

As for bags I use whatever roe scraps I have and any leftover krill or shrimp pieces and cured up corn, garbage bags work great.

[Spawn Sack]

4-5 ft. of leader. the only weight is directly below the float. I only do this for jigs with chums.

Oh, wow, ok 4-5 FEET of leader. You must be fishing some pretty deep water! Not knocking it by any means if it's working of course. Where I fish primarily, the Vedder, the water is usually less than 5-6 feet deep, and I find my jig at least a foot off bottom seems to work best for chum/coho. I've never caught a steelie on a jig so maybe I need to get it down deeper right in their face. I remember Rod Toth telling us in his seminar (assuming I rember correctly) that he advises to not exceed 2 feet of leader. However, if you're using a 3/4oz jig then it has enough weight I imagine to keep it down without it needing to be near the extra weight provided by the lead above the swivel.

My typical setup is 1.5-2 inches of 1/4 inch pencil lead above my swivel, then 12-24 inches of leader to the jig. I've been using a non-slip loop knot on my jigs for the past year or so and IMO it gives the jig better movement/catches more fish.

[Spawn Sack]

Animal Chin: good tip on the spider thread! I'm going to try that this s/h season. The longer I can keep my gloves on and hands warm the better. I hate having to remove gloves and fart around with bait repeatedly on a freezing cold day. PRetty much why I rarely use skien roe in the winter it's just too much hassle/mess. Speaking of with I need to buy some single eggs and get tying up some sacks!

Zap B: I persoanlly like raw prawn and am going to stick with that as I have the most confidence in it, but I AM going to try this tentacle idea out this winter!

So, just so I'm 100% clear on these damn tentacles...do you need to cut them to length at all? I'm guessing you want the end/tip for sure and just cut some of the shaft off if too long? Then put in patzuke nectar (paticular scent you'd go with for these?) Now do you LEAVE them in this nectar or take them out after a while? Do they keep long in the fridge? Would you just cure up a small batch and freeze the rest...then take out more as needed? Sorry many questions...new to the tentacle scene...

[zap brannigan]

with nectar it dosnt matter if you leave them in or not dependson how messy you like your hands, cured with firecure they last longer because of the sulfites and they keep quite a while in the fridge in rock salt, cut them to whatever length you want really i like about 2 inches or so, if you get the bigger tentacles rig them up like a pink worm.

[Spawn Sack]

Thanks good info! I think I'll try some just as is (unscented) and some with this Patzuke nectar I've been hearing about. Also like the idea of fishing a longer tentacle threaded like a pink worm. Got 2 nice containers of single chum eggs from Fred's today. Gonna do some assembly line style roe sack making on the days off. This steelhead season I'm not messing around!