Huntfish -one of the other guys here- and I had a Squidding session last
night at Waikawa.
We started at about mid outgoing tide. I attempted to show Huntfish how it is done - but
only gave demonstration in how to lose a really expensive flash Egi Jig...ahhhh nooooo!
Huntfish nailed one pretty early on - we could see them but they weren't playing the game.
He wasn't able to do an all nighter as he had an early date with a concreting job the next morning.
Still cool that he got one and saw them swimming about.
This is Huntfish's Squid.
After he left it got very quiet - but it started picking up again at dead low tide.
The bait fish turned up and a couple of schools of squid started blatting about
but they had a look at the jigs but weren't really interested.
I put on one of my Bic jigs that I made last night and proceeded to flog the water to a foam - but I really thought that at that late stage it was pointless...dun dun dun !
I just happened to look down and this reddy brown rocket flashed close to the surface
and dissappered vertically down and absolutely SMASHED the Bic jig !
The line streamed off...say what - this is supposed to be squid fishing...this isn't meant to happen!
I tightened up the drag - and it took off again then doubled back and zoomed under the floating dock...damn...panic and amusement - woo hoo !
Then it decided to go out the marina...stuff this for a joke - I wound the drag on even more.
It came to the surface and it wasn't happy - I wasn't either as my ancient trout rod and reel couldn't lift it out of the water - OK grab the line and on to the jetty with it ...Woo hoo baby!!!
Holy Moly...I ain't touching that angry pissed off cephalopod !
Flashing colours and waving it's arms about .
The wind soon started up and it was home time.
OK now it is time for a biology lesson...
The three species of Nototodarus differ by the number of suckers on arms I (over 120 suckers in N. sloanii, 56-100 in N. gouldi, less than 60 in N. hawaiiensis) and the morphology of the distal third of the hectocotylized right arm IV
So there we have it ...a male of the species - Notododarus Gouldi ...or as it is really
known at my home - a potential plate of yummy crispy Calamari...LOL!
So it looks like that there could be two breeding cycles here - with resultant
hatchings in November and later on in Febuary/March.
So a cool night all round...woohoo!
(A message to my teenaged Son ) - See what happens and what you miss out on when you stay home playing games on the computer...LOL!