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[riptide]

3 parts borax
2 parts sugar
1 part noniodized salt

Mix the 3 ingredients together in a container

Start with clean blood free eggs
Cut each skein into either 3 to 6 manageable pieces depending on size of skein and place on butcher paper
Sprinkle eggs with light coating of cure , rolling them in the powder making sure all surfaces are covered
Dump all baits in a glass bowl and place in the fridge
During this stage, juices will begin to form, gently mix eggs to encourage reabsorption if needed
Add scents or dyes after 24 hours
Keep eggs curing in the fridge for 3 days, they are good to slay, put in the remainder in the freezer.

This is a very durable cure that holds up well in all conditions and milks out nicely.
I use this recipe as my main go to, but I always hit the river with at least 3 cures
An excellent book on curing is Egg Cures, Proven Recipes and Techniques by Scott Haugen, it has over 25 recipes in it, well worth the purchase price. The recipe above is Buzz Ramseys personal called 3:2:1 Buzz
Good Luck out there

[243Pete]

Maybe next season I will try these recipes, thank you guys for giving up some opinions and input on this.

Question for those who do a DIY/ natural cure. Is it a bad idea to add food coloring? Reason I ask is cause a friend was using a more "pink" colored roe and I was using the darker red color, darker red seems to have been the key for myself this season or maybe I was just lucking out this season. 

[riptide]

Food colouring, koolaid, jello, Beau Mac Instant bait colouring, Pro-cure dye, take your pick

[243Pete]

Food colouring, koolaid, jello, Beau Mac Instant bait colouring, Pro-cure dye, take your pick

Hmmm... I'll try a varying of each, the jello has me interested cause of well... jello.  "Everyone loves jello! Even the salmon!"

[Silver]

Just Procured this roe. I'm happy with the consistency and don't want it any drier.

1) Can I rinse the skeins to make them less staining?

2) how do I store them...if I put them in borax won't they turn into jerky?

[Fish Assassin]

Just roll them in borax and freeze.

[BCfisherman97]

Do not put them under the tap. Just borax them and store. Make sure the borax gets into every crack of the skein (I like to dust each skein individually and get every piece coated with a little bit before I put into a lot of borax for storage).

[Stevejet]

How well does fresh roe,  uncured roe packed  in a roe bag will do for Coho?
Does it work just as good as a cured (procure, borax)?
Anyone out there use fresh roe?

Thinking of trying it next time.
If it doesn't work I can always use this bait for Sturgeon.
I hear sturgeon love fresh roe.

[Animal Chin]

This is how I store my roe now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smd-o47REQM

Except, unlike in the video, I don't air dry it at all before freezing.

I find once frozen, the skeins get a touch tougher. Depending on where and how I'm fishing, I either put it in borax the night before, the day of, or not at all. If I air dry at all I do it after it's been thawed.

Just roll it in borax before fishing if you don't want it messy. I don't think it's a good idea to rinse it.

Don't know, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but the last time I stored my roe in borax it came out too dry. Positive I didn't overcure my roe. I just figure you can always make it drier but not the other way around.

BCfisherman seems to catch a lot of fish, so whatever he's doing seems to work.

[243Pete]

A friend who fishes for steelies on the East coast ties a lot of roe sacks, works really well for him over there. I tried doing the same a couple years ago but it didn't really work well for me but that might have been because I was mostly fishing the Cap, not to say it didn't work as I hooked one big steelie in there but none of the coho would take. I'll give it a whirl next season with both cured and uncured, watched some videos of how to treat single eggs so they stay nice and firm in the bags.

Saw the same video Animal Chin, I was debating on buying a vacume sealer attachment for some mason jars as I've heard that some people have had bad experience using vacume bags and crushing their eggs.
As to the last convo we had about frozen eggs, I took a batch that I froze in all the juices and it became a giant "clump" or ball, unfrozen it the day before and it was still in good shape, eggs still round and unbroken. Did the same with the boraxed roe but the eggs seemed a little tougher after they were defrosted, still fished good as it's what the only coho I hooked into today slammed.

[Animal Chin]

I've heard that some people have had bad experience using vacume bags and crushing their eggs.

As to the last convo we had about frozen eggs, I took a batch that I froze in all the juices and it became a giant "clump" or ball, unfrozen it the day before and it was still in good shape, eggs still round and unbroken. Did the same with the boraxed roe but the eggs seemed a little tougher after they were defrosted, still fished good as it's what the only coho I hooked into today slammed.

Good work on the coho. Yeah go with whatever works. Didn't mean to freak you out..haha.

It definitely is nicer to fish with a firmer egg, you don't have to constantly re-roe. That roe I perceived to be too dry actually looked really nice after being in the water and lasted for many drifts, it's just most of the coho I've caught while floating roe has always been on gummier stuff.

No expert though, hence following this thread.

I bar fish with roe a lot and experiment because you can use two hooks and know with that particular dry batch I had no luck compared to wetter roe. Not exactly definitive though, with roe there could be a lot of factors at play (maturity of fish, blood etc).

I'm trying not to overthink here, but I'm trying to get a consistently good product for bar fishing purposes. It's easy to compare results of your roe while bar fishing, while floating roe in the Vedder and how well it works is a lot more complicated to determine.

Yeah I just cured up some chum eggs and was thinking about giving the vacuum bags a try again. It would be really useful to be able to just have small packs of different roe to take out with you instead of a whole jar...reusing the stuff from the last outing etc. The last time I tried it, I only pre-froze it for 24 hours (it looked and felt frozen), but I think because of the cure it wasn't completely frozen..gooey mess the result.

If you try to vac seal them in bags, let us know how you made out.

Just wondering if you guys have a lot of liquid left over after curing with firecure? I have almost none.

[243Pete]

Good work on the coho. Yeah go with whatever works. Didn't mean to freak you out..haha.

It definitely is nicer to fish with a firmer egg, you don't have to constantly re-roe. That roe I perceived to be too dry actually looked really nice after being in the water and lasted for many drifts, it's just most of the coho I've caught while floating roe has always been on gummier stuff.

No expert though, hence following this thread.

I bar fish with roe a lot and experiment because you can use two hooks and know with that particular dry batch I had no luck compared to wetter roe. Not exactly definitive though, with roe there could be a lot of factors at play (maturity of fish, blood etc).

I'm trying not to overthink here, but I'm trying to get a consistently good product for bar fishing purposes. It's easy to compare results of your roe while bar fishing, while floating roe in the Vedder and how well it works is a lot more complicated to determine.

Yeah I just cured up some chum eggs and was thinking about giving the vacuum bags a try again. It would be really useful to be able to just have small packs of different roe to take out with you instead of a whole jar...reusing the stuff from the last outing etc. The last time I tried it, I only pre-froze it for 24 hours (it looked and felt frozen), but I think because of the cure it wasn't completely frozen..gooey mess the result.

If you try to vac seal them in bags, let us know how you made out.

Just wondering if you guys have a lot of liquid left over after curing with firecure? I have almost none.

All good, I just done this with a lot of pink roe this season, lots of it sitting in my freezer still from the summer and I was planning on using it for steelhead this winter. And thank you!

Firmer eggs seem to stay on much better especially with longer drifts through faster water, I found that when I used the straight up fire cured roe (wet egg method) that the eggs only lasted maybe 3-6 drifts before all I had left was skein on the loop. With the Boraxed stuff I can get almost 15+ casts and it retains most of the eggs even with harder casts and drifts into fast water.

I haven't done much bar fishing this year as most of my friends rather hike the Vedder, but I get what you are saying about a more consistant product for fishing, but with the results I'm having this year I am happy.

I'll try the vacume bags but I am sort of hesitant due to how much pressure is put on the eggs in a bag... its almost like crushing them cause when I've done this with peas it has split and crushed more than a few. I'll post up with my results with a test batch.

Liquid... maybe about two table spoons or less depending on the quantity of roe being cured, but usually not very much so I just throw my borax in and let it absorb some of that scent.

[BCfisherman97]

Just wondering if you guys have a lot of liquid left over after curing with firecure? I have almost none.

How long are your eggs in your cure? Typically, you shouldn't see any juice or very little if you're letting them soak for a decent amount. The chemicals in the liquid of the cure is soaked back up by you're eggs after a while and that is what you should be aiming for, depending on your fishing situation that is.

[BCfisherman97]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlzAawP_jsM

[tworivers]

This video reminded me of why I now use latex gloves when processing and handling cured roe.
Besides scent control, who wants obsorbtion into the skin of who knows what kinds of chemicals that are formulated in today's commercial cure mixtures.
The only draw back to the use of latex gloves on the river, is that my friends seem to keep their distance.
I'm guessing its the baby blue latex gloves I use that reminds them of their annual Doctors visit.