Squid fishing in Spring

Spring is one of the Eging for Squid team’s favourite times of the year as the variation in what they can catch, especially land-based from shallow waters, is greatly improved! Jun Park, Rudee Lim and Ben Tupaea suggest the most difficult bit is deciding what to target on the days when there is a good weather window…

While the calm, crystal clear waters stare at us and laugh at our internal agony, do we focus more on eging, snapper fishing or topwater fishing? What a dilemma!

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Squid fishing at night is still our preferred time but fishing during the day is also enjoyable as it offers the extra visuals that night time doesn’t. You get to watch the slack line slowly tighten up, which feels like a tug on the rod, as a squid holds onto the jig and makes a runner; see multiple squid seemingly appear out of nowhere while following your jig in close; and watch as they dance at your feet (if they are not spooked). These experiences continue to draw us to day-time squid fishing. Up north of Auckland is generally where we go to target squid during the day as the water is much deeper and clearer. Ben has experienced consistent success with each outing in this area, catching solid feeds and some good-sized spring squid.

Sunrise and sunset is generally when we find them to be the most active. Sometimes, you can see some activity on the surface at this time of year with the scattering of small mullet. Thinking it might be kahawai on the hunt, a small hex wobbler was thrown amongst the commotion but not a single hit was experienced, despite multiple cast and retrieves. So instead, we changed our approach. We threw out a natural jig that looked like a mullet and slowly swam the jig near the surface by slowly retrieving the line, which was quickly followed by a big tug – it was squid on! All that commotion was in fact caused by this one squid. It’s not often that you see squid hunting in the open like that as it goes against everything that a master of camouflage and hiding typically does, so that was a memorable experience.

Natural colours, especially jigs with a shiny gold under-foil or pilchard imitations with a silver under-foil, have been working particularly well. When the shine effect wears off, more modest, non-shiny and clear-bodied/glow jigs in natural colours can trigger the bite again. We found that a slower action was the key to catching these mature squid. Many squids will have eggs inside them as this is the period when they are breeding. Getting into this action involved using slower-sinking jigs to provide more hang time and leaving the jig on the ground for longer (although this increases the risk of snags) after imparting the initial big whips to start off. We presume that as they prepare to breed, energy conservation will be key, so slower prey may be more attractive to their eyes. This is exactly how Ben fished up north, although it cost him a couple of jigs here and there due to snagging on the seafloor – but the good haul of squid made up for this!

Squid fishing in Spring

Using the right coloured foil (in this case gold because it was extremely sunny, providing maximum reflection) can make a big difference to your results.

This is also a fantastic time to catch and deploy the squid as live-bait if you are targeting fish as well. We also recommend keeping some for bait. When cut and prepared right, so many baits can be produced from a single squid, especially from a decent sized, thick specimen. We like to prepare the squid as an envelope and then cut them into roughly 4cm by 2cm pieces. This is the perfect sized bait for the size 7 circle hooks that we like to use for surfcasting. We pre-prep the baits, stowing them in a snap lock bag once they have been cut and then leaving them in the freezer. As we like to travel light, this method saves a lot of room and it is much cleaner too. The best part is, should we have any leftover bait, we just simply refreeze and use it again next time.

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Squid fishing in Spring

The rig used to efficiently translate squid into yummy fish.

Using this method, Rudee and his little brother, Mateen, went surfcasting off the rocks at one of our favourite local spots. They took a simple surf-casting set up with a spike sinker and a longer leader tied to a single circle hook. Each equipped with two surfcasters, the waiting game began after the baits went into the water. Rain, shine, wind: all types of elements were experienced. The bite was slow but once the tide turned, it started to warm up. The baits and the set up proved to be lethal with countless snapper, mostly in the pannie range, caught in a couple of hours. As many were hooked just in the corner of the mouth, catch ‘n’ release could be practised rather easily and only a couple in the 40-50cm range came back home for a tasty feed. A thresher shark also couldn’t resist the piece of squid, which was landed and released. An eagle ray also joined the fray, helping itself to a piece of squid too.

Squid fishing in Spring

Sometimes it is hard deciding what to target!

With so much variation in what we can do during this period, finding the free time to catch these tasty critters and potentially turn them into bigger fish is an absolute priority. As the squid season is coming closer to its end, this is also the best period to try your hand at catching the elusive kraken or 1kg+ squid. Only the biggest and/or smartest squid will survive to breed amongst the increasing activity of predators. Don’t forget to retrieve the squid in quick as other nearby predators will have a go at nabbing them.

The world is your oyster and we cannot wait to see what the rest of the season will bring!


November - 2019 - Jun Park, Rudee Lim and Ben Tupaea

New Zealand Fishing News Magazine.
Copyright: NZ Fishing Media Ltd.
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