How long do you think...

[kemper]

I harvested some brown trout roe on the weekend, before you jump all over me first know that the fish was not going to make it, had rolled itself gills first into my lead and was bleeding profusely when I landed it. Yes it did come home with me... the WHOLE fish

 

I have a way of freezing my roe that usually results in quite a long shelf life with little to no chace for freezer burn but I just had no time to do it this weekend as I had to get back to school, and I am quite sure my mother did not want to cure my eggs for me.

 

What I did was airdry the eggs for 45 minutes and then froze 15 or so spoonfull batches in seperate ziplock bags (5 of them) and sucked all the air out with a straw. I then double ziplocked them and sucked the air out of the second bag as well. The five double bagged egg batches were then all bagged in one BIG ziplock, air sucked out again and wrapped in a towel and the whole kit and kaboodle was placed into a big tupperware and put into the freezer.

 

I have only ever frozen small batches of roe without doing anything to it (I normally use a VERY light cure) and used it quickly after freezing. I did these up in seperate batches because I know that if its fresh I only get to freeze it once, after that it gets goopy.

 

What do you guys think, does this roe have a chance or am I risking wasting it? It would really be a shame as its enough to last me the entire winter or more.

 

thanks

 

kemper

Edited November 11, 2008 by kemper

[GoneFishin]

I do my roe the same. I use to cure but I don't any more. I usually air dry them for about 1-2 hours then make 16 roe bag portions. Then I cut up plastic bags into squares and tie the roe up in them. As long as there's no air they should be fine next year.

[GbayGiant]

Your good for a couple years at least and even then rotten dirty stinky roe works good too anyway, but your fine, I use to pre tie hundreds of bags and freez them and use them 2 or 3 years later and never cured eggs ever, it takes the smell, color and texture away.

[kemper]

Cool, I hardy cure mine usually, a quick rinse in a brine mixture that I make up. Im not sure it really makes any difference at all in regards to curing the eggs but I never have just frozen a huge batch like this before and wanted to make sure I wasnt wasting them. They were stream cured to harden them up too.

 

Sounds like I have about a years worth of brown trout roe. Which means a years worth of crack-hungry steelies!

 

(I dont care what you say, it DOES work better! Drifting the mouth two weeks ago I was hitting fish at a rediculous rate until I ran out of brown roe and went to salmon roe. Same sized bag, same colour, NO fish.)

[solopaddler]

They were stream cured to harden them up too.

 

In your initial post you didn't mention whether it was loose mature eggs or skein that you scraped out.

Interesting, I've never in my life air dried mature eggs, only skein that's been scraped.

Always just water hardened with river water, then blotted on paper towels and frozen.

 

That being said you should be just fine. The process you described (minus the air drying) is exactly what I do with my eggs.

 

(and you're right brown eggs do tend to work better imo)

[kemper]

Guess I did forget to mention that they were loose eggs. Beautiful ones too, after being stream hardened you could pretty much bounce the suckers.

 

Too bad I dont get to float them until the 21st. Ugh.

[kentooley]

.....

Edited November 13, 2008 by verminator

[kemper]

I checked the time of your post and you obviously didn't take part in any Remembrance Day activities. You should be ashamed of yourself!!!

 

Love my steelhead fishing but there are some things that are more important. Sorry kid , but I had to say it!!!

 

 

If you have a personal problem I would appreciate if you kept it to PM.

 

 

 

tightlines,

 

kemper

[spooner_jr]

I checked the time of your post and you obviously didn't take part in any Remembrance Day activities. You should be ashamed of yourself!!!

 

His post was at 12:08pm, minute of silence is at 11:00 am; what's your problem?

 

Not everyone works for the bank or the government and gets the day off to go to a ceremony, and most of those don't bother either.

 

Don't be a dick.

[kentooley]

WE WORKED IT OUT BUTT MUNCH!!! THE NEXT ROUND IS ON YOU!!! :lol: