Curing eggs for Sacramento River Kings!

Achieving the perfect egg

The Sacramento River in Northern California will have an excellent King salmon fishing season in 2020, and it goes without saying, hundreds and hundreds of King salmon will be caught drifting and back bouncing cured salmon eggs once again this year. Its not a new technique, but modern science and decades of industry leading experience has brought forward some unprecedented egg curing formulas for curing absolutely perfect eggs. The Pautzke Bait Company has been developing advanced bait curing and scent products in recent years and has brought forward some of the most effective bait curing and scent products to ever be available to the public. The Pautzke Bait Company has clearly remained in the top position of the industry and is a leader in producing next level egg curing products and scents nationwide. I’ve been using Pautzke products to cure my eggs for years and I’ve found that the following methods will cure highly effective eggs, every time.

Egg harvest and preparation

A quality egg starts at the point of harvesting a fresh caught female salmon. Upon doing so, its is paramount to properly bleed the salmon so that no blood remains in the fish or the egg skeins that are contained within. The best method for bleeding a fresh caught salmon is to immediately cut the gills and place the salmon back into the water, whether its in the net, fish box filled with water, or in a water water bucket capable of holding a salmon upside down for a short period of time. Keeping the salmon vertical, with its head down, helps with effectively bleeding the fish and getting all of the blood to drain internally from the skeins. Egg extrication is an important task, just be mindful when cutting the belly of the salmon. If the knife penetrates too deep, you will likely cut the membrane of the skeins and damage them before removing them from the fish. Once the skeins are removed from the fish, place them in a plastic bag and keep them cold! Once you’ve got them home, make sure all of the veins are blood free and keep them in the plastic bag in the refrigerator until you are ready to cure them. I recommend the eggs be cured within a few days.

Application of Pautzke egg curing products

Application of the partake egg curing product is by far the easiest part of the egg curing process. Pautzke egg curing products are potent in a sense that they have lots of smells, flavors, and bite stimulants that attract King salmon, but not in a sense that a little too much of any product will affect the outcome of the salmon egg curing process. A liberal amount of each of the four Pautzke egg curing products I use will do a fantastic job of curing the eggs and creating a very fishy end result. To achieve the perfect egg, I shake a light layer of Fire Cure onto the butterflied skeins, shake a light layer of Fire Power (Krill Powder) over the Fire Cure, and lightly message with my gloved fingers, the aforementioned powders into the folds of the skein making sure to cover all exposed areas of the skein front and back. I then place the skeins into a gallon plastic baggie and add a 2 second burst of partake red Nector and a two second burst of red Pautzke Fire Dye. I then close the plastic baggie and roll the skeins around for several minutes. I then place the plastic baggie in the refrigerator. Every few hours, or as often as time will allow, repeat the rolling of the skeins in the baggie to ensure full coverage of the eggs within the cure liquids. I like to leave the skeins in the plastic baggie refrigerated for 3-5 days. Once the 3-5 days have lapsed, I will either prepare the eggs for fishing or will place them in the freezer where I will store them during salmon season, until I am ready to use them.

Sacramento River Late Fall King Salmon

2019 Sacramento River “Late Fall” King salmon.

Late Fall Kings

The Sacramento River plays host to a long standing run of “Late Fall” King salmon that shoot upstream from San Francisco Bay and can be in the Anderson, Ca. area just days after entering the system. Beginning in early November, we’ll start to see these bright Kings showing in the Barge Hole where they will wait for rain before making the right turn up into Battle Creek where Coleman National Fish Hatchery is located. Coleman raises between 750,000 and a million “Late Fall” smolt to release every year into the Sacramento River and who will then out migrate to the Pacific Ocean where they will spend 3-5 years before returning to the Sacramento River as adults. This isn’t a huge run of salmon, but what they lack in numbers, they make up for in their quality as a sport fish. This is a special fishery with light boat traffic and a chance to hook one of the biggest King salmon of the year. Many of our clients know they are fishing for a potential trophy King and are just one bite away from realizing that dream every day they fish. It can be cold and wet, but its a trip well worth booking to many of our serious fishermen.

The Season

The “Late Fall” King salmon season on the Sacramento River usually starts around mid November and runs through December 31st. 2020 is a special year in that we have a season that is two weeks longer than has been possible in decades. Normally the Late Fall salmon season ends on December 16th, but this year it closes December 31st. The importance of the extension is that we generally see our best fishing in December and with two more weeks of fishing, we should be able to fish when there are quite a few Kings available in the Barge Hole this year.

Late Fall King Tactics

Late Fall kings enter the Sacramento River during the cold water months of November and December. Frigid water temps can be the coldest of the year making for some lethargic King salmon. Many mornings the water temps are in the high 40’s and the salmon tend to be sluggish under such conditions. This makes it challenging to use bait, which is normally a staple during the earlier run of the fall Kings. One of the most effective techniques for catching Late Fall Kings is to back troll large Brad’s KF 16’s plugs in the deep sections of the Barge Hole. Wrapped with fresh Sardine fillets, these large plugs can entice and aggravate these cold water Kings with both a scent trail and an aggressive action. When properly presented to holding Kings, these plugs can be the best presentation used to get hooked up with one of these big hard fighting King salmon. Some days these Kings can be caught on cured salmon roe, but most often later in the day when water temps come up a degree or two. These are the techniques we deploy daily when fishing for Late Fall King salmon on the Sacramento River.

Best Places To Fish

We concentrate our efforts on the Sacramento River in Anderson. Ca. where the Barge Hole is located. For most of the hatchery Kings, the Barge Hole is the last hole they will sit in before heading up into Battle Creek and into Coleman Hatchery. They could sit there for days or even weeks giving anglers access to them throughout the Late Fall season. With a wild population of Late Fall salmon also arriving around the same time, we can target them in the sections of the Sacramento River above the Barge Hole as well. The Barge Hole is the best place overall to fish for Late Fall King salmon in November and December without question.

How Do I Book A Late Fall King Salmon Trip?

Booking a Sacramento River Late Fall King salmon trip is easy and we usually have plenty of available spots to fill. Lots of people shy away from fishing in the winter for King salmon because it can be wet and pretty darn cold. That eliminates the fair weather fishermen and usually only leaves the die hards to fill our vacant dates. Thats makes for plenty of room to fish for these great fish in the Barge Hole, which is normally pretty busy from August through October. One point worth making is that we often have lots of hatchery steelhead in the Barge Hole area in November and December which creates an opportunity to fish for steelhead after the Kings stop biting later in the morning. Kings and steelhead, now thats a perfect day! If this sounds like a trip that you would like to put together for a small group, please give Jaynie a call at our reservation desk and she will help you book your trip. She can be reached at (530) 510-2925 between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm daily.