Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Bay-Harbour » Getting Inked
Getting Inked
By Luke Smith
With the increasing popularity of squid fishing, more and more anglers are starting to target these tasty cephlapods. There are several species of squid, with the most sought after being the southern calamari. They are available around the bottom half of Australia, with Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria being the hot spots. In the following I will focus on tips and techniques that I use to catch them in western Victoria and Port Phillip Bay from a boat. These methods are adaptable and can be used anywhere squid are found around Australia.
Southern calamari can be caught year-round, however in Victoria they are more prevalent over the summer months as they come into our bays to breed. They find sheltered weed beds, in which they can lay their eggs. This makes them predictable and the same spots will usually produce each season.
Port Phillip Bay is a hot spot as the calm bay waters provide plenty of suitable breeding grounds, along with enough food sources to keep these voracious predators fed. Squid live less than a year, with the longest recorded life span at 291 days. In this short life squid must eat a considerable amount each day to sustain their growth rates. Some studies suggest up to 30% of their body weight each day, which explains their eagerness to eat artificial jigs.
Calamari squid have been caught over 4kg, with hood lengths over 60cm, however these are extremely rare. They are more commonly caught around 600g, with hoods around 30cm, at the start of spring. By late summer the average drops down to 400g and approximately 25cm hoods. A squid measuring 40cm is classed as a trophy size to the average angler, however for the few that have them dialed in this can be achieved almost every trip.
When trying to find squid the first step is to look for shallow, broken ground with plenty of weed beds. Whilst the bigger squid are often caught in water around 5 metres plus, the best place to target the numbers is in water from 2-5 metres deep. If fishing a new area, I will usually use my Navionics mapping and check to see if there are any reefs marked along the shallow flats. This gives me a really good starting point as it indicates hard bottom. From here I will slowly idle around the area, inspecting the bottom and looking for colour changes in the water. When the water is clear it is quite easy to see the weed beds giving way to clear sand patches and this is some prime ground to begin casting. Squid will use the weed beds as cover from predators and ambush baitfish as they pass by over the sand patches. If the water is cloudy I will either use the sounder to determine the bottom or begin a drift, using the trial and error method.
The best way to determine if the area holds squid or not is to start casting. Usually after 5-10 minutes of casting a squid will be caught, if they are in the area, however be sure to try different colour and size jigs, and mix up the retrieves during this time. Whilst squid can be very easy to catch at times, they can also be very fussy.
Once an area has been chosen it's time to get the jigs wet. I always run two rods, one to cast with and the other as a drift rod. The drift rod is simply cast a very short distance behind the boat so that the jig drifts along behind the boat, without being deep enough that it can foul the bottom. The length of line out is dictated by the depth and drift speed. This rod quite often accounts for half the squid caught and some old fellas even drift along with multiple drift rods and don't bother casting.
Once this rod is set, I begin to cast forward of the drift. I try to make long casts as the monsters can often be shy of the boat. When directing my casts, I try to fan them around to cover as much new ground as possible, however once a squid is hooked this changes and I will focus my casts to wear the squid are being caught.
Squid are a schooling species and will often be in large numbers together. However bigger squid are commonly caught in pairs. As soon as we hook up, another jig is cast right behind the hooked squid and usually the second squid will eat it on the drop, if there is one there. It also pays to watch closely when removing a squid or jig from the water as squid can be very curious and will often follow a jig or their friends right to the boat. When this happens it's a matter of trying to get the jig back in front of the waiting squid as quickly as possible. To keep them interested a hooked squid can be left in the water.
When working a jig I prefer small hops, with plenty of pauses. The idea of this is to keep the jig in the strike zone for a long as possible and with squid this is as close to the weed beds as possible without getting snagged. A handy tip is to free spool a jig over a sand patch and count how long it takes to hit the bottom in a certain depth. For example, if a jig takes twelve seconds to hit the bottom in three metres of water, then its sink rate is four seconds per metre. By knowing this info I can make a cast and accurately estimate when the jig is almost on the bottom and begin my retrieve. Another popular retrieve is to use larger, more aggressive rod lifts and pause for longer in between.
Alright, I hope these tips and techniques hope you get stuck into a few... it's time to get inked!
Gear List
Fish Inc. Egilicious Squid Jigs
Okuma Inked Egi Special Rod
Okuma Epixor XT Spinning Reel - EPXT-30
Okuma Helios SX Spinning Reel - HSX-30