Few subjects in Great Lakes steelhead fishing generate more opinions than salmon egg cures.
Ask ten salmon anglers what they use, and you might get ten different answers. Borax. Sulfite.
Commercial cures. Homemade recipes. Wet cures. Dry cures. Some guys measure everything to
the gram, while others have been dumping ingredients into a bucket by eye for 30 years.
And they’ll all tell you their cure catches fish.
Here’s the thing: they’re probably right.
The better question isn’t Which cure is best? It’s what is the cure actually doing to the egg—and
what do we want that egg to do once it hits the river?
Why Cure Salmon Eggs in the First Place?
Fresh salmon eggs are naturally excellent bait, but they’re also fragile.
Toughens the membrane so the egg stays on the hook or inside a spawn bag.
Preserves the eggs so you can store them.
Controls how quickly the eggs release scent and color.
Changes the texture of the egg.
Allows anglers to add scents, colors and other attractants.
That last part gets most of the attention. But durability and the way an egg fishes may be every bit
as important as what’s printed on the bottle.
Borax vs. Sulfite
Most salmon cures ultimately revolve around a few basic ingredients.
Borax-based cures tend to produce firmer, more natural-looking eggs. They’re simple, dependable
and have caught steelhead for generations.
Sulfite-based cures create a stronger chemical reaction with the eggs and can produce extremely
effective baits. Sodium sulfite and similar compounds are common ingredients in many commercial
salmon cures.
Then some cures combine different salts, sugars, sulfites, dyes, and preservatives. That’s
where things get interesting. Change the chemistry, and you change the egg.
My Two Favorite Commercial Cures
Over the years I’ve experimented with plenty of different cures, but if you ask me which commercial
cures I personally reach for most often, two have earned a permanent spot in my egg-curing
arsenal: Last Supper and Pro-Cure Wizard Red Hot Double Stuff.
Both have produced fish for me, and that’s ultimately how I judge a cure.
That doesn’t mean they’re magically going to outperform everything else every day on every river.
Steelhead don’t work that way. But when you’ve repeatedly caught fish on a particular cure, you
develop confidence in it and confidence matters.
Last Supper and Wizard Red Hot Double Stuff are my two favorites because they’ve proven
themselves where it counts: on the water.
Don’t Overlook the Salmon Eggs You Start With
We spend a tremendous amount of time talking about cures and sometimes ignore the most
important ingredient: the eggs themselves.
Egg maturity matters. Freshness matters. How the fish was handled matters. How long the skein sat
before curing matters. Whether the eggs were rinsed, frozen, or contaminated with water matters.
You can have the greatest cure recipe ever invented and still end up with mediocre bait if you start
with poor eggs. Whenever possible, I want clean, fresh eggs that have been handled properly from
the beginning.
Water Is the Enemy Until You Want It
One of the biggest mistakes anglers make is allowing freshwater to contact uncured eggs. Salmon
eggs react quickly to water. Once that process begins, the texture of the egg can change
dramatically.
Keep your eggs clean and dry while processing them. That doesn’t mean wet cures don’t work. They
absolutely do. The difference is controlled moisture versus accidental moisture. That’s an important
distinction.
More Cure Isn’t Always Better
This is another mistake I’ve watched anglers make for years. If a little cure works, more must work
better. Not necessarily.
Over-curing eggs can make them excessively hard, rubbery, or chemically loaded. Remember what
we’re trying to create: bait, not a marble.
For spawn bags, I want an egg tough enough to survive casting and drifting but still capable of
releasing scent into the water. That balance matters.
Color Matters but Maybe Not the Way We Think
Red. Orange. Pink. Natural. Chartreuse. Steelhead & Salmon anglers could argue about egg color until the
river freezes.
I’ve watched one color absolutely dominate one day and get ignored the next. Water clarity, light
penetration, fishing pressure and the natural food available in the river can all influence what fish
respond to.
That’s why I don’t believe in carrying only one egg color or cure. In dirty water, a brighter presentation may
help fish locate the bait. In clear water, something more natural or subtle can sometimes be the
better choice. Let the fish tell you.
Don’t Forget About Milk
One thing I pay close attention to is how an egg or spawn bag begins working once it’s underwater.
Put a cured egg in a glass of water sometime and watch it. Does it immediately dump color? Does it
slowly develop a cloud around it? Does it barely release anything? How long does that continue?
That little experiment can tell you a lot about what your bait is doing during a 30-second, 60-second
or two-minute drift. Steelhead & Salmon don’t read cure labels. They’re responding to what’s actually entering
the water.
Scent: Helpful or Overdone?
Salmon, shrimp, krill, anise, garlic and countless other scents have been added to eggs. Can scent
make a difference? Absolutely. Can you overdo it? I believe you can.
Sometimes the best scent an egg can have is salmon egg.
Instead of automatically loading every batch with additional scent, experiment. Cure part of your
eggs naturally and add scent to smaller batches. Then fish them against each other. That’s how you
learn what actually works instead of simply repeating what somebody told you.
Keep Records
This may be one of the most overlooked pieces of the entire process. Write down exactly what you
did.
What cure did you use? How much? How long did the eggs sit? Were they refrigerated or frozen?
What color? What scent? What species of salmon supplied the eggs? Then record how they
performed.
After several seasons, you aren’t relying on memory anymore. You’re building your own database.
And your own results on the rivers you actually fish are worth more than somebody else’s opinion on
the internet.
Confidence Still Matters
I’ve fished around enough great salmon anglers to know that almost everyone eventually develops a favorite cure. Part of that may be chemistry. Part of it may be presentation. And part of it
is confidence.
When you believe in the bait you’re fishing, you fish it longer. You pay closer attention. You make better drifts. You aren’t changing baits every five minutes wondering whether something else would
work better. That’s difficult to quantify, but it matters.
My Approach
I don’t think there is one magical salmon cure that suddenly makes every steelhead in the river lose its mind. There are good eggs, properly cured eggs, and poorly cured eggs.
Start with quality eggs. Handle them correctly. Understand what your cure is doing. Don’tautomatically assume more chemicals, more dye, or more scent means more fish. Experiment with small batches.
And most importantly, test your eggs in the water and let the steelhead decide. Because ultimately, they’re the only ones whose opinion counts.
Fish longer. Experiment more. Pay attention to the details.