February 2005

Friday, February 25, 2005 - Marty had cabin fever and invited me to fishing. No one else was interested in going. We debated going after Albacore, which are 60+ miles out or giving the squid one more shot. We opted for the squid, since it was going to be just Marty and me. We left the slip at 4:30pm, got to the inner 9 mile bank where a Mission Bay boat was already set up for squid. We drifted until dark with no bites. The Mission Bay boat moved north, I suggested going back out to the Outer 9. After making the move, it only took a couple of minutes, and I was bit. We were in 800 feet of water by ourselves and had a steady bite going. In the beginning, the bites were a little different than the other trips. It seemed like they were zipping past the jigs, hitting them but not getting hooked. Eventually that stopped and most bites were solid hookups. We picked up 24 squid, with only 2 of them the larger ones week got on prior trips. The rest were probably 20 pounders. When i cleaned them, they had 'red stuff' inside, which I didn't see when I cleaned the squid from the prior trips.

Marty had his "1st Rat of the year" flag flying. I suspect it will be there all year	Marty's Report	This is a pretty good setup. There are 2 cross lock snaps on the same end of the swivel. The light and jig are put on separate snaps.

Friday February 4, 2005 - Marty Morris (Marty's report) wanted to go for the squid again, so we met at the boat the KEN-DAN at 4:30pm and headed for some numbers we got from Bob Vanian of 976-BITE. The ocean was mild compared to last week and the sunset was beautiful.

Dave Thomas and his friend Devon were along for the adventure. When we stopped on the numbers, we were by ourselves at the south end of the 9 mile bank. There were about 20 boats up at the middle of the 9. The mild Santa Ana winds caused us to drift south east, paralleling the ledge. The skies were clear, no moon visible and high tide change was at 5:25pm.

	Marty had a spotlight over the side and we had flashing/beeping lights on several of the rigs. I made up some rigs from some squid jigs I ordered on the internet and some I purchased locally. They worked very well. I had 30 pound Spectra on a Trinidad 14, 20 and 30. All worked well but I preferred the Trinidad 30. Dave had one rig with a Shimano Tiagra 16 and he was able to put some real pressure on the line.

I was the first to get hooked up, so I called Devon to take the rod. That kept him busy for a while.

We drifted about a mile and a half and continued to catch squid the whole way. Several times all four of us were hooked up. When Marty, Dave and Devon were hooked up, I would pick up the camera to take the picture of the three of them, and would get hooked up while I was taking pictures.

Sometimes the squid were deep then they would come up to the boat and we would hook them close to the boat. I found that if it thought I was too deep, if I slowly cranked up, I would usually get bit once I was in the right zone. Occasionally, they would pick up the jig and then drop it. Most of the time if you kept your rig in the same zone, you would get hooked up again.

There seemed to be a lot of little pieces of wood in the water and Dave said he heard that it was from the tsunami. Hmmm... then at one point, a 3' long piece of bamboo floated by!

At one point, two boats got into a yelling match over how close one boat should be to another. 'Can't we all just get along?'

At 8:30 we called it quits. I was bringing my rig to the surface and as I was within 20 feet of the boat, a shark hit my line, cutting me off above the light.... On the way back in, Dave and I got the boat in order and ready for squid cleaning. Devon hit the sack.

We ran to the harbor and tied up to the bait docks to clean the squid. What a messy job. Marty, the surgeon, was able to function with rubber gloves. I still need that sense of touch to get the membrane off. I wanted to take more pictures of the process, but it's so messy, it was too hard to stop in the middle to take pictures. I managed some at the end. The Pelicans made a meal of the smaller pieces and several sea lions went after al the larger pieces, At one point, a large bull attempted to get on the swim step and snatch a squid slab. I went after him with the filet knife and he backed off. My pictures are a little blurry because there was a mist the whole time.


Cleaning basically involves cutting the head and tail off. Then creating a slab by cutting it the other direction. If you find the spine you can cut it off one end. Cut in a couple of inches from the end the head was on. This will give you a 'handle' for pulling off the skin. Then pull the outer dark layer off. Scrape and junk off, hose down, then cut into 5" (approx) squares.

	We asked Devon to hold up the squid for a picture. His response was 'I'm not touching that thing!' :-) We ended up with 38 squid on this trip. I weighed one of the larger ones and it came in around 32 pounds.



January 28, 2005 - Squid Report

Humboldt (Jumbo) Squid
more Humboldt Squid

Recipes

British Columbia Humboldt Squid
Ocean Planet - Giant Squid

Marty's Friday (1/28/05) Fish Report