Post-Lockdown Squid Action

Jun Park, Rudee Lim, Adam King and Ben Tupaea wasted no time getting back to the water’s edge when lockdown Level 2 came into effect. What they found was some prime squid fishing and the opportunity to learn something new. They explain...

Whether the reduced angling pressure during lockdown had an impact on the squid population is a subject of debate, but nonetheless, the squid fishing action has been red hot since the moment lockdown lifted! The boys made sure to make the most out of the calm weather that followed. For us, the action peaked on the first full moon after lockdown, which coincided with crystal clear water and calm conditions.

It was 11pm on a Thursday night, the fatigue was setting in and with a dozen freshly-caught broad squid in the chilly bin, we were ready to call it a night. On our way out, we decided to have a look at a platform we had walked past earlier. Under the bright, glistening moonlight, we could make out a small silhouette hovering gracefully, moving up and down in sync with the current. It was sitting just in front of the weed bed protruding from the rocks beneath our feet. There was no doubt that it was a friendly broad squid! We were just mesmerised. We have been eging for years now but moments like these are still special.

The squid was on the smaller side, probably around 200g or so. A small 2.2 size, natural-coloured squid jig was immediately cast just behind the squid. Lo and behold, the little silhouette made a beeline towards the jig and grabbing on, squirted a plentiful amount of ink into the water. It always surprises us how much ink they can produce in comparison to their little bodies.

During the full moon, we like to use natural colours or metallic colours such as silver/gold underbodies as they provide good reflectivity when there is a lot of ambient light. If the squid are shy, red/purple coloured jigs are great choices as these are more subtle. Squid have amazing eyesight, so lumo squid jigs do not always have to be employed, especially not on bright nights like this one where we could navigate around the rocks without our headtorches.

Jun with a nice specimen which could not resist a bite-sized, natural coloured squid jig. Smaller jigs are great for getting even the shy squid to bite.

The excitement gave us a second wind and we spread out, walking along the edge of the platform to look for more squid. Over the course of the next few hours, we walked back and forth around various platforms and found individual squid wandering here and there. Using the same tactic, we managed to nab another handful. We even found them swimming in knee-deep water at times. They are immensely curious creatures and quite fearless too, coming right in to the point where they appear to beach themselves to feed.

Interestingly, we came back to the original platform about half an hour later and found a school of young squid moving around in a group on the sand – many of them were even smaller than our pinkie fingers. They seemingly appeared out of nowhere. For fun, we threw a jig down. They were cautious but interested, taking turns having a prod at it before realising the jig was too big. As they moved away, we would lift the jig slightly and let it drop a couple of times and then they would come back again. After playing with them for a little while we were ready to move on, but out of nowhere, a good-sized squid, probably around the 500g mark, appeared out of nowhere and violently grabbed the jig. Into the net and then the chilly bin it went.

Using a net makes landing squid far easier, especially if they are caught on the jig by just one tentacle.

At another part of the platform, we saw a squad of about eight squid in varying sizes. As soon as we flicked a jig out, one squid violently squirted ink everywhere, scaring the rest of the crew into the depths. We cast into the general direction that they headed, and, squid on the drop! The action was almost instantaneous with the jigs getting smashed as soon as they hit the water.

This trip had provided us with a big learning experience. We thought the walking back and forth tactic only applied to daytime fishing as squid are more likely to be stationary in their hiding spots, and therefore, we’d have to actively search for them. On the other hand, we believed that squid are more active during the night, and if we stayed in the same spot, they would eventually swim past our jig. But the results indicated that being on the move is perhaps the better way to fish. We are still trying to ascertain whether this only applies to those brighter few nights leading up to and after the full moon when the squid are very active. Regardless, we will now be employing this method during our night-time fishing far more often. On this night, this tactic dramatically increased our catch as we ended the night with 33 squid, 22 more than we were initially going to leave with. The next day, we could definitely feel it in our legs!

Daytime fishing has been very productive as well. A solid week of easterlies made the water rather dirty in many parts of the east coast, but that didn’t deter Adam and Rudee. They took a trip up to Tawharanui to fit in a quick squid fishing session and found success fishing a promising-looking weed bed. Although there was probably less than a metre of water to work with, the rich and dense weed bed network looked too good to resist.

A cast resulted in a healthy specimen in the 400g range, which nabbed the jig on the drop. They opted for the bigger 3.0 and 3.5 jigs but in the shallow variant, taking into account the limited water depth. Daytime fishing is a whole new experience. The boys saw the slack in the line tighten up as the squid grabbed hold, counted to three, and strike, squid on. Fishing this weed bed resulted in just shy of two handfuls of squid in a very short span of time.

Rudee with a very nice daytime squid caught using a natural coloured jack mackerel-design 3.5 jig.

It’s been an exciting season so far. It’s still early days, but the squid sizes are decent and numbers plentiful. Make sure you get out there, use those legs and cast, cast, cast everywhere, because that’s exactly what we will be doing!