Pautzke crosses into Canada

Pautzke Crosses Into Canadian Territories

As the days become shorter and the September nights cool the shores of the Great Lakes, anglers begin getting the itch to hunt Salmon and Steelhead in the Northeast.  Anglers become their own mini weathermen, looking at the weather conditions on a daily basis, checking the flow gauges and hoping for those first autumn rain showers to fill the rivers and creeks.  Team SAA takes our annual trip north of the border into the Ontario territories to seek out the King Salmon run. 

This annual trip to Ontario signifies the start of our salmon/steelhead fishing season.  This trip to Canada allows us to reconnect with resident Canadian friends and enjoy a few days of salmon fishing.  Harvesting a few females to restock the bait lab fridge with fresh roe is a bonus!

Tactics for King Salmon consists of using a 13’6” rod and a centerpin reel.  Running 16 pound monofilament hi-visibility main line, paired with a fluorocarbon leader and a size 6 egg hook.   Drift fishing the creeks and streams using a float are a common technique.  When salmon are running, the action can be hot!  The eggs this year were cured in Pautzke’s latest product Fire Brine.  I use a unique curing process that has been working great in Steelhead Alley this past year.  I throw a second stage cure of BorX O’ Fire on the eggs to kick it up a notch.  I then takes these cured loose eggs and tie them into spawn sacs of a variety of colors.

A friendly challenge was issued among all of us angling friends.  Your homebrew cure vs. my Pautzke cure.  I loaded up with over 300 spawn sacs in every color of the rainbow.  My cure of Brine/BorX O’ Fire combo was ready for the challenge.  It took me just a few drifts to hook into my first Chinook salmon.  Mind you the fish were in very thick and we were all hooking fish on a pretty consistent basis.  Where the cure began to shine was when the salmon would shutoff and get lockjaw.  I would hook on a fresh spawn sac.  

Anglers were amazed at the amount of scent that was being put into the water.  It looked like a jet trail commonly seen in the sky from a commercial plane. There was so much egg milking going on, the fish couldn’t resist.  I would notice fish moving towards my bait versus veering away.  It didn’t take long and I was filling containers with spawn sacs for a fellow angler to use as he wasn’t having luck with his presentation.    

Anglers that were not yet believers would quickly cast behind me to get into that scent trail though.  The challenge of homebrew cure over Pautzke was never officially settled among us friends, though by the end of the trip when I would get a fish on I would hear chants from my fellow angling friends of “Got it on the Pautzke baby.”  By the end of the trip we had eggs to cure prior to coming back to the states.  One angler decided to cure all of his roe with Pautzke BorX O’ Fire Natural with a dash of powdered krill.  He will be hammering fish in Steelhead Alley soon with his freshly cured eggs.

We returned to Ohio with fresh roe and are looking forward to targeting our home waters for steelhead trout this season.  We continue to perfect the curing process for eggs meant to be run in spawn sacs.  The Fire Brine and powder cures have been working great both here and abroad. 

Until Next Time…

Fish Hard…Fish Often…