I'm an old fisherman but new to salmon fishing. I am lucky to live very near some of the best salmon fishing in the nation in upstate New York. I have found this site very informative. My question is when you make an egg sac rig, what do you do about the end opposite the hook? Do you tie a loop so it can be connected to a swivel on the end of the pole? Do you tie a barrel on the end? Do you tie it directly onto the line? Not quite sure what to do here. Also, do any of you make up a few of these rigs ahead of time and carry then with you or do you just make them up as needed?

Thank you

out here in the wild west, we cure our eggs so we don't have to use netting and they last longer. check out the video on this site that shows how to cure eggs. there's also a book with egg recipes by pat haugen.(amazon) I'm surprised that the east coast guy's haven't picked up on this or maybe they have. good luck

I think your asking how to attach an egg loop rig to your main line. If so, all we do is use a barrel swivel on our main line and tie the egg loop rig to that. Many people do make up these rigs ahead of time. We do not as we mostly fish with floats, so we don't loose much gear. I hope that helps. If you still have questions, you can look at our video tutorials, I'm sure you could find the answer there. What rivers are you fishing? I grew up in PA and used to make the trip to NY in September to fish for salmon in the Salmon river and the short river there that comes out of the power plant, the name escapes me right now. Lots of fish in there.

Thanks for the reply. It answers my question. As for the areas that I fish, it's the Salmon River and the Little Salmon River. The river you are referring to is the Oswego River, also a great placed for salmon. This year there has been record rain the prime time for the salmon run making fishing very challenging to say the least.

I saw some pictures and video of the Salmon river after this last storm that you guys got. People were fishing in there yards. It looked pretty crazy.

Yes, it was pretty interesting up there. I'm going out tomorrow morning and going to try to find an area that is less nuts. Maybe less fish, but a lot less people also.

Getting back to my original question, What type of leader material and test do you guys use when making an egg sac? I use spinning equipment (want to eventually learn fly equipment also). I have 14lb. mono on my spool. It seems very hard to make a decent egg sac knot using this line. Also, how long of a leader do you recommend? Most of my fishing is casting then letting the rig drift a bit then reeling in. Sorry for the ignorance, but I don't have much experience in this type of fishing. Most of my experience is from a boat going for walleye or a canoe for Northern Pike.

We use anywhere from 6lb to 12 lb fluorocarbon for steelhead and 12lb to 25lb for salmon. You will need to adjust your leader for the conditions, lower clear water use lighter line.

When I fished Oswego I used 20lb. What size hook are you using? It could be too small and that could cause trouble when tying the egg loop.

i don't know if we're talking about the same thing, but when i've made egg sacs, i either use sewing thread or stretchy thread to tie them up and not leader material. it's a lot more manageable. i still think you should try curing up a batch of eggs. you can still fish them in a sac. they give off a great scent trail. there like candy to the salmon out west.

I'm using a #6 hook. I bought a spool of fluorocarbon and it did the trick Thanks. Dew, I'm refering to the egg sac knot, not the egg sac it's self. I plan to cure up some eggs ASAP. Thanks.

That's a pretty small hook for Kings. I would recommend at least a 1/0.

archer wrote:That's a pretty small hook for Kings. I would recommend at least a 1/0.

Guess ine are really small then. I was catching Stellie and Kings today and use sz14 Raven Specimen wide gap. Then again they wernt 40lb Chinook only 8-20lb

When i use roe bags I fill the spawn net with cured or uncured roe and a hunk of shrimp. I also cure my roe with borax. Tie the bag with spider thread, then tie a bait knot.
Hook though your bag at the tie point and slide up my hook then take my bait loop and hook around my bag. I run a 2' ish 10-12lbs test leader tied to a swivel.

I never thought of adding some shrimp in the bag, I bet that's a pretty effective add on.

Shrimp is a nice add on! but if I dont have any shrimp in the sac I would rather use roe done in plain borax, I think it gets more fish than a bag. Also takes less time to make, and when cured right it will outlive any bag.