It really is cephalopod mania out there. Regardless of all the reports saying it’s slow. If this is slow, I really want to see fast. I went to a couple of less popular spots last night and this time came geared up for some catching.
I showed up at the first spot at about 9:30 and there were a dozen or more people fishing. One guy had a big light set up and that was enough for the whole crowd to work from. They were catching a few. The area was a little crowded so I took a drive down the road a little ways to check another area. It brought me to another pier that was a little darker. There was a guy fly fishing there.
I walked over to see how he was doing and saw a small bass splash in the corner of the pier and the adjacent bulkhead. I asked how he was doing and he said not great fishing-wise and appeared to have that look in his eye. That determined look. You know the one I’m talking about. Eyes glazed and focused. There appeared to be a good amount of bait packed in the corner so I asked him if I could shine my light in to take a look. He didn’t mind and when I turned it on he was as amazed as I was. There were thousands of 2 inch juvenile herring packed in swimming all over one another. I turned the light off and the small bass started splashing and feeding through the masses.
He was fishing a popper fly so I asked him why. He said that he was trying to mimic the splashing bait but it didn’t seem to be working. He cut it off and started looking for a sand eel fly. He didn’t solicit any advice so I didn’t offer it. I don’t like it when people I don’t know suggest how I should fish, so I left him to learn his own lessons. His buddy was down the way in the dark with spinning tackle. He caught a few.
I walked out the pier a ways where a large docked boat had its stern lights turned on in the water. A couple people were trying to catch squid but not having much luck. I looked out across the water, heard a couple menhaden kick there tails and something appeared to me on the edge of the light. It had the shape of an eel, about 14” long, but wasn’t swimming right. It came closer to the dock and I hit it with my light. A giant clam worm. Huge. Looked like and overgrown cigar. I think it weighed 800lbs. :)
I headed back over to the first place I visited and it had cleared out some. The guy with the light, as well as several others, was still fishing so I got my gear together. I haven’t fished for squid in about 15 to 20 years, so I was excited to try again. I set up a small pink weighted jig on the bottom and tied a small fluttering yozuri jig about 18” up as a dropper. I dropped the rig over the bulkhead just deep enough to be out of sight and immediately caught one on the dropper. I reeled up through the cloud of ink and it threw a jet of water 10 ft in the air into my face. I loved it. Into the cooler he went.
After a couple more like that I started jigging a little shallower. I say jigging, but it was actually more like holding and twitching. We could now see the squid hovering around and stalking the cloud of herring shimmering under the light. Watching squid attack a school of bait is nothing short of amazing. They rise to the surface, tentacles flared, splashing and squirting as they grab for a meal. Real terrors of the deep for any little thing that swims. These ones were all pretty big too.
They always seemed to be here and there but every few minutes a more organized school would push through the light. You would see dim flashes around the edges as the squid flickered there color from red to white. My new philosophy on these things is if you think you saw something but not sure if you did, you probably saw squid. They’re very elusive at times. I would hold my jig in the water and as it hovered, I could see a dark shape only a couple of feet off. I’d have to look twice and then I’d see it change position. Drop the jig a few inches and it would dart in closer, take a look, maybe gently grab the jig sideways and then finally commit. Finicky little buggers.
I caught a couple dozen while I was there and had a great time doing it. Lots of those big worms around too. I stopped at another spot closer to home and managed to grab a half dozen more in a few minutes. These squid were a little more aggressive, but not there in the large quantities that were in the first spot.
I got back home and took a walk down to the river. The tide was ebbing strong by that point and there were bass popping in what appeared to be every nook, cranny and seam in the river. I left them alone though. Last night, for me anyway, it was about something else.
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