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Most of this advice comes from Steve (Reel Truth) Hanson.
You can visit Steve or read his advice on iFish's
discussion board.
Get some medical rubber gloves. They are thin enough that you can feel
what you are doing but keep your scent off of the eggs. (it also keeps
your hands from smelling like fish eggs for the next day or so.) I have
even found these at Safeway in the medicine aisle.
Make sure that you don't touch the eggs with your hands.
Lay the skeins out on something that won't react with the
cure or the eggs. Clean plastic or wood works but avoid newspaper and
cookie sheets as they will change the flavor and scent of the eggs. You
are better off laying them on a towel you have washed in plain soap. (I
am lucky in this regard as we don't use a detergent that has perfumes
in it. We use Soapworks laundry soap (from Trader Joes) which is just
plain soap, it does not have any funny dies or perfumes and it gets things
clean.
Cut the skeins into walnut sized pieces making sure to leave the thin
membrane intact as you cut. If you are paying attention you will notice
that the eggs are in rows and are all attached to a thin membrane.
To them sprinkle on your cure.
Here is Steve's cure. 1/2 & 1/2 Quick Cure/Pro-Cure natural
white mixed with the Pro-Glo Red coloring (not the cure), then sprinkle
lightly with Slamola for the MSG & nitrate.
My method. I have become a big fan of the cure made by Pro Glo.
It is super simple. It comes in a sprinkle jar and you just sprinkle a
little on each of your egg clusters, put them in a jar, seal it, put it
in the fridge, (in an hour put on shrimp oil) turn it 8 hours later. Then
within 24 -48 hours of putting them in the jars they will have soaked
up all of the juice and I put a vaccuum seal on the jar and put them in
the freezer. I don't dry them, I don't borax them and they hold up well
to drift or under a bobber.
When the eggs are at their juiciest about 1 hr. after chemcure, add this
mix
(per 2 average size skeins from a 'nook),
2 T. of Pro-Cure or Mike's Shrimp Oil with 15 drops of Dr. Juice "Salmon"
concentrate mixed together (or 1 T. of regular strength) into the egg's
juice and gently mix around with vinyl gloves on.
The oils & egg juice will reabsorb thru the tiny egg sack membrane
holes in about 48 hrs. The advantage is that the proper combo scent will
milk out slowly rather than having too much or too little oils squeezed
on. Also try putting in sardine filets for their oil emission (better
than Over the Counter sardine oil). The filets will also get a great cure
for Kwikfish wraps.
To get the best sodium nitrates, research availabilty at photography suppliers
and meat processing plants. Use it very lightly on half your eggs the
night before fishing (don't breath the dust!). Sometimes the 'nooks don't
want real chem.'ed up eggs, but when they do, have some sod. nit. with
you to sprinkle the rest of the eggs. Pro-Cure Slamola has both MSG &
Sod. Nitrate but when using it you will lose a bit of chem ratio flexibility.
Of course being out on the water all the time helps to dial in on fish
preferences.
Some like to dry out the clusters or roll them in borax which are both
fine, especially for extending usability. But I like to "wet pack"/vacuum
seal mine so the clusters will flutter & feel natural to finiky fish.
If you gently remove quality eggs w/ gloves on to keep human scent off
& follow my instructions in these posts you will be right in there
with most of the better guide's eggs. Good fishing, Steve
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How
to Cure Eggs