Squid Fishing on Freelance, Newport Beach 6-8-2007

[Sea Hag]

By special invitation from my friend Hawk, who's son Damon is one of the captains of the Freelance and also runs the Bongo's boats, I ran down to Newport with a couple of friends Friday night and hopped on the twilight trip on the Freelance.


We had 78 people on the boat (yah, that's a lot...) Damon suggested we set up in the bow, and once we boarded we staked out a few spots in the pointy end for ourselves. It certainly turned out to be the right place, as we really had a good amount of room, considering the load.


Long story short, we left at 7:00 PM, were bit and bent by 8:00, and given the order to quit at 9:30. 525 squirters on the boat, it took the crew nearly 4 hours, sitting on anchor outside Newport, to fillet them all! I got home at about 2:30. (That's as in AM...)


I landed 4 of them quickly, and quit. Got bored waiting around, and went back for just one more. I also learned if you take your foot and sort of pry the head off it's easier to get them in your sack... I came home with well over 20 pounds of fresh calamari steaks. Mmmmmm... Yummy!

Here's a picture of one of the beasts.

[Sea Hag]

Oops heres the picture

[PADavid]

WOW - that is some inker

Calamari steaks??? - that looks like Tuna bait to me!

[Sea Hag]

Tuna Bait?! Big tuna, maybe! ; )

Actually, I hear they're drawing in threasher sharks, that feed on them. I don't generally target sharks, but I guess if you did this would be pretty exciting.

As far as steaks, it seems that's about all they keep to eat. Never asked anyone why, maybe the tenticles are really tough, but they cut off the pointing end, remove all the guts, head, etc., and the "tube" piece that's left is flattened out and pretty much all we kept.

Good stuff, though!! I cooked some using a veal parmesan recipe, and another in a spicy Chinese sauce. I just finished that for lunch today, and oddly enough it seemed to reheat pretty well in the microwave. I thought it would get tough but it came out just fine..!

[PADavid]

Great Tuna bait - cut into long strips and troll with a Jet or Bubbler head

[PABassman]

the only Calamari I get is when I go to the Olive Garden ....

Nice report and I like the pic .... dont see to many of those thanks for sharin

[texasbasser]

WOW thats a huge squid! Do they fight good?

[Sea Hag]

Actually, yah, they pull pretty hard.

They're kind of unusual around here. We had an infestation two years ago but they only stayed for a month or so, in late winter. Late February and into early March.

This year they've been here a lot longer. They arrived again late February, but they're still here, been biting on and off pretty good since. They'll show for a few weeks, disappear for a few, and come back.

The run of them we've had off Newport now the last few weeks has been amazing. Boats are bringing in 1000's of them (all together) every night.

I kept some scrappy pieces to use for catfish bait, but I imagine the tuna would go for big strips of them as well.

We jigged for squid on a 13-day trip I was on... we only got about 8 pieces, but they were about a foot long. We floated those out as kite bait and they got bit pretty good. But the fish had no trouble eating the sardines and macks we had, either...!