Brine Your Way to Salmon Success! 3

With saltwater salmon fishing firing up along the West Coast now is a good time to talk about herring brines.  Brining herring before fishing it helps to toughen it up and can produce a more vibrant and shiny herring that catch more fish.  If your herring is soft and mushy it will either fall off the hook on its own or the first whack from a fish will take it right off the hook.  If your bait is tough enough to take a few wallops from a salmon before it commits to the bait the odds of hooking that fish go up substantially.

John Posey from Lamiglas Rods hooked this 48 lb Chinook with me after it played with his bait for almost a minute.  Had the bait fallen off on the first smack from this fish I’m sure the result wouldn’t have been the same!

Here’s a simple brine that I use to brine between 12 and 20 cases of herring each and every summer in Southeast Alaska.  We burn thru a ton of bait in our Alaska charter operation and since we buy the highest quality bait possible all we need to do is toughen it up a bit before fishing it.  The herring will begin toughening up within about an hour of adding them to this brine and I usually cut up between 4 and 6 dozen baits first thing in the morning before we leave the dock and add them to this brine, adding more bait as the day goes on.  This solution is good for about ten to twelve dozen herring before a new solution will need to be mixed.  I keep a large plastic jar with a water tight screw-on lid full of Canning and Pickling salt, so that the salt stays dry and doesn’t clump from getting wet.

Simple Bait Brine:

One gallon sea water
-No oil slicks, scum, or pollutants
-Take clean sea water from outside the harbor
Two cups non iodized salt (canning and pickling salt)
-Rock salt works, but it doesn’t dissolve as fast as granulated salt
Add two tablespoons of garlic, anise, or Pautzke’s Liquid Krill if desired

This is a more advanced brine that works great for low quality baits that have been thawed and refrozen several times or for baits that are going to be trolled.  This brine will keep ten to twelve dozen herring cured for up to a week in the refrigerator.

Advanced Bait Brine:

2 ½ gallons of water
3 tablespoons Mrs Stewarts Liquid Bluing
4 cups non iodized salt (canning/pickling)
1 cup powdered milk
2 tablespoons of pure anise or garlic
UV Liquid and/or Pautzke Liquid Krill

70% of the salmon that come back to Puget Sound are from hatchery origin.  The primary protein source in hatchery fish food, and in the ocean, is krill and many hatchery pellets also contain anise.  Something to think about when you’re targetting Puget Sound salmon or any salmon for that matter!

Rob Endsley