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Invasion of the
Squid!
There were a couple of months in the summer of 1987 when, for some
reason, the squid decided to stage a convention off the Northern Baja
coast. Working on the Spirit of Adventure, I remember pulling into El
Pescadero around 10:00 one night. Just as soon as we hung the lights over
the side, thousands of squid followed the boat as if we were leading them
to the promised land. It was an impressive sight. We then dropped the
anchor surrounded by this mass of squid. One of the other deckhands
joked, "The last time we were in dry dock we painted a giant pink
squid on the bottom of the boat...now they're all trying to latch
on!" The squid were so thick, we were able to use the crowder (a net
attached to two long poles, usually only used at the bait receiver) to
corral the little squirters.
Once we had the
slammer and bait tanks filled with live squid, we headed down the line to
Cabo Colnett. When we got there, we didn't find many yellowtail, but boy
did we strike it rich on the jumbo-sized ocean whitefish. If you've ever
caught a whitefish, you know how small their mouths are. So imagine how
big these fish must have been in order to eat WHOLE LIVE SQUID! We're
talking an average of 6-9 pounds. Time for one of my not-so-great
moments. Question: What happens when you drop a freshly-caught ocean
whitefish into a bait tank full of live squid? Answer: The squid don't
like it at all! Skipper Mike Keating wasn't too happy with me either.
After about 15 minutes of digging through the tank, we finally managed to
fish out the squirmy critter that got away from me. Tasted pretty good at
lunch that afternoon!
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