That's My Story

My client was in freespool dropping down the heavily weighted jig into the early morning waters lightly feathering the line as it spun deeper and deeper.

“Deeper?” he asked.
“Yea, you got a bit to go, ” I responded.
“How deep do I need to get down? I have about half my spool down already,” he said looking up at me just watching him with a bit of a bemused smirk.
“Oh, you’re just about there. I”ll tell you when,” I said knowingly.
“How about now?” was his anxious reply by now his 4/0 two-speed well into the spectra.
“OK…that ought do it. Now. Stop and slowly jig and wind up.” I think he caught my wink but he smiled and dutifully did what I suggested anxious to get into something.
Two cranks. Lift. Three cranks. Lift. Four cranks…”WHOA! Dangit, I’m hung up on the bottom!” he complained as the thick meat stick almost went parabolic and his hand froze in mid-crank.
“The bottom is 800 feet below the hull of this boat and when was the last time, the bottom pulled drag?” I laughed.
It suddenly dawned on him that his rod was abruptly pinned to the rail and he was straining mightily to fight whatever it was that had the end of that line. Arm and neck muscles bulged and he looked at me with a mixture of confusion and resignation.
“You said you wanted to catch some giant squid, amigo! I told you that even with your two-speed these critters are beasts!”

If you ever get around a fat-chewing session with some Baja fishermen, nothing with maybe the exception of man-eating sharks, seems to grab everyone’s attention like the topic of giant squid. Like sharks, there seems to be something inherent in our collective psyche that draws us to them. One man’s myth is another man’s monster; is another man’s bait; is another man’s dinner.

Whether your first encounter with them is playing with them in the bait tank; seeing them under the lights; finding them washed up on the beach or eating them with garlic bread and wine, there’s simply something intriguing about them. This is especially true of the giant squid that has mesmerized those of us on dry land for eons or any little boy who read Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Architeuthis (ark-ee-TOOTH-us) is the scientific name for the big critters and perhaps part of the fascination is that we really know so little about them. Most of our knowledge basically comes from the smaller ones that are caught and the larger ones where we can only speculate by examining tentacles or carcasses washed up somewhere or recovered in the ocean. None has ever been raised or kept in captivity. Where do the live? What do they eat? How do they feed? How big do they grow?

In fact only recently in September 2004, Japanese scientists were the first to photograph an animal estimated at 25 feet long 3000 feet below the surface as it attacked a baited jig in the northern Pacific Ocean. Reported in National Geographic http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0927_050927_giant_squid.html, the photos are downright amazingly spooky if you consider the power of a giant parrot-like beak and tentacles that have grasping (not suction) cups long them. Using basically, the same methods used by squid fishermen around the world, the Japanese researchers were amazed at the animal’s predatory abilities as well as how tenaciously it fought when hooked. (Obviously, these guys weren’t fishermen.)

Previously, they had thought squid just “hung out down there” but now conjecture that these bad boys can HUNT. During the struggle with the hooked squid, one of the longer 18 foot tentacles was broken off and brought on board. (A squid has both long and shorter tentacles.) Based on that measurement, they speculate the owner of the arm was about 25 feet long, but “caution” this assumes the tentacle was broken off at the base near the body! For the records, the longest recovered squid was measured at about 59 feet long.

In my professional career in Baja I’ve caught a lot of squid from 12 inchers to 80 pounders. They’re a lot of fun. I’m also a professional diver and although I will fish for the squirters, I can’t think of too many other professional divers that will take clients diving with squid. I have no problem diving with sharks, but if squid are around I’d rather we all get out’ve the water. There’s a saying that there has never been a recorded shark attack in the Sea of Cortez, but there have been a number of deaths related to squid attacks especially among the squid fishermen in the middle areas of the Sea of Cortez and the Baja.

I look over at my client who is now 20 minutes into his squid. Beads of sweat are running down his face and his t-shirt is already sweat-stained in the early Baja sun. He’s learned that an easy grind beats the “lift-and-wind-down” method used to fight fish. But this squid is kicking his butt.

“This is incredible. I had no idea these things were such fighters. I’ve caught 5 pounders off California, but this is like dangling a small refrigerator over the side of a building with a piece of string!”

“These things are usually further down…waaay down,” I tell him. However, the last few weeks, they’ve been at 200-400 feet so we’ve been fishing them because it’s fun and most guys have never seen anything like this. Plus they make great bait when chunked up or trolled.”

He’s still going to be a few more minutes judging by the bend in the rod, so I tell him I’ve been hooked on small tuna or bonito that swam through a school of squid and had the squid just rip the fish off the hooks. I mention to him that I’ve read stories of divers that have been attacked and nearly drowned and hacked by squid. I heard a story from one diver who saw a blue shark swim through a school of squid and come out with some orange-sized chunks missing from it’s body and about some underwater divers who went down in a cage to do some photography of the squid and had to wrap that yellow plastic police mesh around the cage to protect themselves from attacking squid. I tell him that just last month, some spearfishing free divers near Cabo San Lucas had to leave the water when giant squid came after them near the surface.

“How big do these things get?” he says between grins and huffs.

I tell him mostly we see 20-40 pounders, but that squid up to 80 pounds have been caught recently. Most are about 3-5 feet long. I tell him that unlike an octopus that has a small head and long arms, the squid has tentacles that are about a third the length of it’s body, i.e, a three-foot squid has arms about a foot long.

“About a month ago, I came across a 6 foot tentacle floating on the surface with birds diving on it,” I recount. If my ratio of 1:3 is correct then that arm was connected to some 18 foot creature, right? Even more intriguing, I’d sure hate to run into the beast that tore that 6-foot-arm off!” I said with emphasis like a camp counselor telling a fireside ghost story. I’m not lying, but I sure love this stuff and watching the reaction.

I can see his eyes widen with each story. Somewhere in his head, he’s thinking, “We need a bigger boat!” like that scene from the movie Jaws. He’s breathing heavily now… a combination of the squid’s power and too many beers last night in the cantina. He’s whupped but so is the squid as it comes darkly to the surface and we stick a gaff in it. We leave it on the side momentarily to protect ourselves from jets of water and ink that can hit you like a firehose when shot from the body of a 50-pound mollusk. It’s then lifted into the boat and into the fish box.

“Oh my gawd!” says the client sitting himself down in resignation. “That was incredible. Holy…I’m beat!” he adds exhaustively as I toss him a cold one from the ice chest.
“Well, we need 4 of those big things for bait to go chase the tuna today so drop down again!” I tell him with a laugh.

“You’re kidding, right?” he says as he reaches for his rod again and starts the process over.
“Nope. No bait no fish.”

Well, we do need a few more for bait, but these things make great calamari salad and fried squid rings too and whatever isn’t used for bait is coming home to my casa for a bath in some garlic, beer batter and hot oil! One man’s bait is another man’s dinner. Mine. I love my job. Ole!

That’s my story!

Jonathan