An Easy Cure For Great Lakes Salmon

By Kyle McClelland | 08/28/2013

I’m excited for the river king salmon season to come. And, while I like to throw cranks my best producer for kings is using big pieces of skein. The curing process I use is a simple, basic cure. I don’t do anything fancy. It’s great for guys just getting into curing skein and works everywhere in the Great Lakes.

I use FireCure on my skein. It’s really easy to use. I pretty much stick to one color because it’s so easy. I use either red or pink FireCure and haven’t experimented with mixing colors.

A lot of the rivers that I fish where I use skein have stained water, which is why I use the pink or red so it shows up better. Some of the guys use orange when the water is clearer, but I stick to pink or red and usually go with chunks about the size of a golf ball. I’ve always found that’s the best size for kings. Kings like big bags, big skein and big cranks.

My Easy Curing Process

Step 1: Butterfly

Take blood free skeins and lay them out on paper towel. Then butterfly the skeins.

Step 2: Sprinkle Cure

Sprinkle the cure on the front side of the skein. Make sure to expose all the eggs on the skein.

Step 3: Flip & Repeat

 Turn skein over and sprinkle cure on the other side. After I add the cure on both sides, I’ll put them in a Ziploc and massage the eggs. If I see parts of the skein don’t have cure on it I’ll apply a little bit more to cover those portions. I don’t want to use too much. As long as the entire skein is exposed you’re good to go.

Step 4: Cut Golf Balls

Cut the skein into golf ball size chunks.

Notes:

A lot of people wonder how soon you can fish these eggs after putting FireCure on them. If I cut the skeins that morning and I’m fishing that night I’ll try to at least let my skeins cure for about six hours. If I have the option to let them sit for a day or two I’d rather do that. You can fish them same day if you want to. Sometimes we run out of eggs and need to cure more while we there so we fish them that same day.

If I only let them cure six hours I might only get a few casts of out them before they turn white, whereas if I let them sit for a few days they’ll last much longer. They just don’t milk as well if you cure them for shorter periods of time. It’s always better to cure them longer. You’ll get a much better egg.

Editor’s Note: For more information on McClelland please visit www.chromechasing.com.