Fishing for Giant Squid

By Dave Braun?

The 1997 Southern California fishing season will go down in the record books as the best year in decades. El Nino seems to be in full swing . The sea temperature is at least 5 degrees warmer than normal and the exotics have been within one day range since late May.

I have been watching the local Newport Beach giant squid counts in the paper and as soon as the bite got HOT the commercial boats come in and wrap the whole area. I missed the first week long opportunity and I promised myself that when the giant squid started jumping on the jigs again I would not miss it. My fishing buddie Jeff Buck and I wanted to stack a couple dozen smaller sized giant squid in the freezer for swordfish bait. I also wanted to try a few different ways to cook them. We decided to do a mid-week twilight trip on the "Freelance" out of Davies Locker. I found a discount coupon in the Western Outdoor News and I called in our reservation.

Jeff and I met at the landing and we made sure that we wore our grubbiest clothing. We knew it was better to catch them on a party boat than make a big mess on Jeff's sportfisher. We brought a minimum of rods but we made sure to have a 40 lb. jig stick for the squid. and a 15 lb. bait stick for catching bass and cuda's while we waited for the dark of midnight. The boat left the dock promptly at 6:30 and motered up the line to fish the "Huntington Flats" right off Seal Beach. We had a pick bite on the cuda's and the sand bass really were not on the chew. The cuda's started eating fly-lined anchovies on light line. I caught a few on bait, but I kept on crankin the blue and white light weight jigs hoping for the J.P. (Jackpot) fish to swim by. I had a huge cuda trail my jig a couple of times but I could not get the big one to stick. The skipper called in another boat named the "Sport King" over to take over our chum line when we were ready to head back to Newport for the giant squid.

On the way back down the line the skipper stopped on a good meter mark and we got a dozen giant squid on the first drop. Many of the anglers had never pulled on big squid before and didn't know what to expect. While the light line seemed to work fine for these squid I have had bigger squid bust me off before. I brought a 40 lb. outfit so I could get the job done without having to fight them in.

The tackle is simple and the squid seemed pretty dumb. I always keep a couple of different size squid jigs in my tackle box because you never know when you get a shot at the giant squid. This is the first time that I ever caught them within sight of the beach. I tied a small regular size squid jig on the top and a larger glow in the dark model in the middle and a blue and white Salas 6X Jr. on the bottom for the big ones. I only caught one on the 6X Jr. and they seemed to like the bigger glow in the dark squid jig when it was charged up by the deck lights. The smaller jig caught it's share but it got it's bristles a little bent out of shape.

The giant squid would grab on to the squid jig's bristles and they would stay on as long as you kept a bend in the rod and a steady wind on the reel. You don't "Set the hook" because you just would be tearing their flesh and letting them go. As soon as you get them to the surface it's a good idea to lift them mostly out of the water and let them squirt out the first quart of water and ink out while they are still over the rail. This keep you and your buddies from getting drenched as you lift them on the boat. I still get a kick out of watching some poor bystander get drenched with a blast of sea water. I think it's fun to catch these squid. I would love to bring the kids out on one of these trips but it's real messy and I don't think they could stay awake that late.

Jeff caught 8 giant squid and I caught 9 of them. I put them on ice as soon as the boat got backto the dock. When I got home, I froze five of the small one's in individual one gallon bags. The others would only fit in two gallon ziplock bags. The real big ones I cleaned and peeled and cut up into slabs for dinner. Everyone that tried to get the squid caught some it seemed when a wave of squid charged the boat the hoots and hollers would get everyone excited. I have never caught a big giant squid over twenty pounds, but I have had a one drag me from the stern to the bow only to get busted off on the anchor rope. I like the jet propelled gush, gush, gush fight and watching them change color when you first catch them. The best part of the trip was when we were able to walk off the boat and leave the mess behind for the deckhands to deal with.