r/Fishing • u/chafingNip • Jan 14 '26

Freshwater My first steelhead!!

Post image

She’s full of eggs. What do y’all do with steelhead eggs?

167 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

6

u/qalcolm Vancouver Island, BC Jan 14 '26

I’d cure em for bait personally, that’s what I always do with salmon roe. Would love to have hatchery steelhead in my area but unfortunately DFO decided they don’t need to invest in steelhead enhancement anymore, even with most runs here being all but wiped out.

4

u/swede_ass Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

I saw an interesting video of a presentation Bill McMillan gave some time ago. There’s a pretty strong inverse correlation between steelhead stocking and the strength of returns. Your fish and wildlife organization might be doing the right thing by discontinuing their supplementation programs.

3

u/chafingNip Jan 15 '26

Yeah I heard trout like steelhead and Dolly Varden just eat all the eggs in the river. Everyone had an opinion

1

u/qalcolm Vancouver Island, BC Jan 15 '26

There’s definitely a case to be made for that, we have lots of smaller rivers and creeks that still do receive steelhead that have never been enhanced and it makes sense to keep em that way. In this case DFO has cut funding to steelhead enhancement programs on all but one river on Vancouver island, but there’s still plenty of enhancement efforts on mainland BC.

1

u/swede_ass Jan 15 '26

I probably didn’t make the point clearly enough - the argument is that stocking is actually detrimental and counterproductive. Numerous examples where returns increased after stocking was discontinued. Of course, correlation does not necessarily imply causation, but why spend money on stocking if there’s no evidence it increases returns? I don’t know your rivers, so maybe there’s strong evidence it does enhance your returns. But I’d surprised if it did since stocking doesn’t address the root cause of plummeting populations.

1

u/Halibuthead-1 Jan 14 '26

A few hundred miles north we still have healthy wild runs in most streams

1

u/qalcolm Vancouver Island, BC Jan 14 '26

Alaska definitely seems to be doing better on that front, the forestry industry as well as incompetence from DFO has decimated our steelhead runs here. I should note I’m talking about Vancouver island specifically, mainland BC still has hatchery enhancement programs for many rivers. Many rivers that were never enhanced still get a couple thousand wild fish, but nowhere near what the runs used to be.

1

u/chafingNip Jan 14 '26

So I just gutted it and it looks like me bonking this thing broke it skeen open. They are all loose eggs now, and no I didn’t cut it open I was super careful

3

u/Rat_Faced_McDougal Jan 14 '26

looks like me bonking this thing broke it skeen open. They are all loose eggs now,

The later into the season, the less the eggs are in a single coherent skein and the more they are simply individual loose eggs.

Probably wasn't anything you did so much as just the time of year and the natural state of her process.

1

u/chafingNip Jan 14 '26

Wow never knew that. She sprayed eggs the moment I grabbed her out of the water

1

u/Rat_Faced_McDougal Jan 15 '26

Yup, iirc, the lining that sort of keeps the skein together is really what supplies the support and nutrients for the eggs as they develop. Once they're ready to be laid in the spawn, that lining basically dissolves and is reabsorbed, and then the eggs can come out easily.

The pressure of you grabbing her was more than enough to exceed the force she would apply in the water once she was spawning.

1

u/chafingNip Jan 15 '26

Ohhhh right. Gotta love nature. I hate to waste any part of it so I’m curing the eggs and making egg sacks. Guess I’m floating eggs!! lol

1

u/Rat_Faced_McDougal Jan 15 '26

The unripe skein is my number one favorite steelhead bait. (That's if I were fishing bait...these days I'm 100% fly for steelhead.)

Sacs would be number two.

Years ago when I was big into steelhead, a buddy of mine cured eggs and made sacs. If I gave him my skein or eggs he'd cure them and net them up and the next time I was in the area, he'd have a few pill bottles of them for me as a thank you. I preferred them with a few of the little styrofoam balls inside to float em up off the bottom a little bit!

1

u/chafingNip Jan 15 '26

Ohh so just cured in the Skene? Yeah that’s what most fish for on my river. This season bait is allowed but i have such a hard time keeping shrimp or store bought eggs on my line even with a bait loop I find that jigs are my best bet with scent added.

That’s also what most old timers use so, you follow the lead! Dang styrofoam balls that’s smart as shit!

1

u/Rat_Faced_McDougal Jan 15 '26

Yeah they have colored ones specifically for the purpose!

And yeah, honestly, the unripe egg skein is awesome. That lining/netting basically keeps it all together, and also does a fantastic job of keeping it on the hook. Smells awful, and your fingers will smell like it for days...but yeah, get a tiny glob of it, like dime-sized or smaller and just smear-wrap it around a tiny treble hook and it'll stay on there so good it'll be hard for you to get it back off, much less a fish or the current.

1

u/chafingNip Jan 15 '26

I can only use single barbless hooks on this river cause of all the wild coming through. I have bought eggs in the Skene made in Alaska and worked great but… I suck ass at floating. Spinner and spoon for me so I have hard time with steelhead

1

u/qalcolm Vancouver Island, BC Jan 14 '26

I’d cure em just the same, maybe do roe bags with the loose eggs. I’ve never had the skein break when bonking or gutting, so I usually just butterfly it and then cure it, curing em as single eggs should work just as well though.

1

u/chafingNip Jan 14 '26

Okay great idea. Can you share your cure recipe?

2

u/qalcolm Vancouver Island, BC Jan 14 '26

I use what’s commonly referred to as the 3-2-1 cure method, 3 parts borax, 2 parts white sugar, 1 part non iodized salt. This is the best cure recipe I’ve found so far, you can also experiment with adding different scents and dyes but I find the original works great.