Pautzke Nectar Review

By Terry Wiest | 10/06/2010
Many years ago when I was a kid my favorite trout bait was Pautzke’ Balls O’ Fire. Never a question as it always produced trout. Always looking for an advantage though I noticed the “egg goo” they used to sell which was a large jar of the egg runoff and broken eggs. It wasn’t legal to chum in any of the lakes I fished so I could never figure out how to use it to my advantage.

I soon got out of fishing for trout and concentrated solely on salmon and steelhead. Balls O’ Fire didn’t even enter my thought process when it came to fishing for these species, after all, it was trout bait. What a dork I was, after all, they do say “Salmon Eggs” on them do they not?

I turned a Pautzke fan many years ago again, but not for the Balls O’ Fire, no, now I was loving their cure for putting up my own eggs and also shrimp. Now Pautzke comes out with a new idea, put that same goo I always wondered how to use as a kid, and put it into a form I can use for both salmon and steelhead – Pautzke Nectar.

The nectar is derived from the world famous Balls O’ Fire eggs but is strained much better than that of 30 some years ago, and put into a thin liquid. Think of it as a bait enhancer. We all know those perfect eggs we cured up stay together but also “milk” out. Not, whatever we put the nectar on will have that same effect because essentially that’s what it is, the “milk”.

There are many ways we can use the nectar but my favorite is a shrimp cocktail. Before when I’ve made a cocktail I combined a piece of shrimp with some cured eggs. It can get a little bulky especially when fishing for steelhead when I want a smaller presentation. Now, by soaking the shrimp in the nectar I have the shrimp, the shrimp scent, but now it milks out like there are eggs as well. It comes in two colors, blue and purple, I prefer the later.

This is actually very simple. Just purchase some frozen shrimp at the local store with shell on. Soak the shrimp over night to absorb the nectar and you’re in business. The finished product looks like a purple haze colored shrimp that emits a trail of egg milk.

Another alternative is to cure the shrimp with Pautzke Fire-Cure, then either soak them in nectar or inject them. Either way you’ll have a winner with both shrimp and egg scent and something the fish don’t see going by them time after time.

Of course you don’t need shrimp. Soak your cured eggs in the nectar or soak any presentation in it. Corkies and yarn now turns into an awesome scent leaving presentation. Each time you’re moving to another location just let your presentation soak. Killer!

Use herring? Prefect – inject it. I found a smaller diameter hypodermic needle works better for this application than the traditional scent injector. It’s a think liquid compared to the more gel type scents on the market. Now you have a herring leaving a milk scent trail. With the smaller needle you can also inject multiple times without tearing up the skin.

Thanks Pautzke, you’ve done it again!