How To Catch Squid – Top Advice

How To Catch Squid – Pro Fishing Tips

Fishing For Squid (Southern Calamari) – The best Squid Fishing Tips in Victoria

Squid or Southern Calamari, are a highly sought-after target species throughout Port Phillip Bay and Western Port Bays. They are one of the best eating species, more tender than squid and are great fun to catch. There is nothing better when you have a few people on board, reeling them in and avoid pulling them in to soon so you or your mate don’t end up covered in black ink.

They are found in most patches of weed and reef throughout both bays, throughout the whole year. You can catch some big Calamari from September to December, down around Queenscliff to Sorrento when they are protecting their eggs. Western Port Bay is also great to target the big guys.
They make excellent bait for Snapper, Gummy Sharks, and King Fish but they also taste great and we love eating them. The beauty of Squid fishing is they can be caught year-round. We often spend time catching them so that when you come aboard, we have the best fresh bait available.
The fins of calamari extend almost all the way down the hood. Squid on the other hand have fins running for only for a short distance on the sides of the body, forming an arrow.

Family Charter Fishing Trips – How To Catch Squid Fishing Tips

Our family charter days (1st Sunday of the month) are great fun and Calamari are especially great for young kids wanting to have a good fishing experience. The correct way to land the Calamari is to use a landing net which is also ideal for handling squid, allowing you to hold them over the water with the head pointing away from you so that they can finish ejecting ink (Back onto the water on not over your clothes!). This doesn’t always happen and is where the fun can start when people get impatient reeling in Calamari. If you don’t take the time to use the net correctly, you can get inked trying to lift them in. It can be confusing and accusations fly regarding whether it was on purpose or by accident. Regardless, it is hilarious to watch and be a part of and it’s always great to see people having a fun day on the water.
We typically fish in areas where there are grounds of broken reef, weed beds, shoals and rocks, drifting around these areas to find them. Calamari like a structure where they can ambush their prey, take shelter from predators and also lay their eggs. The depth of water varies from 2 metres to 12metres.

How To Catch Squid – Continued

There are several different methods to fish for Calamari; bait fish with pilchard using a float, or silver whiting on a spike sitting under the float, or place jigs under a float at a particular depth just sitting out the back of the boat as we drift.
We also allow you to cast and retrieve the squid jigs as we drift. Sometimes we will help you work the jig in the water with several large and short erratic lifts of the rod to have the jig work up and down and move around in the water then pause and wind a little more line in retrieving the slack line and have the process repeated again until the jig is back to the boat.
We use a Squid jigs ranging from sizes from 2.0-4.0 with huge variety of colours to suit conditions. Some days the squid prefer the light-coloured jigs while other days bright coloured ones. It’s a matter of working out which ones are working best on the day.

Hooking Squid – Fishing Tips

Once hooked maintain steady pressure and a smooth drag to reduce the chances of tearing the jig free. As the squid gets closer to the boat, keep an eye out in case other squid are following the hooked squid and if so your mate can cast another jig in to the following squid, or you can steer the hooked squid toward a second jig that you may have suspended in the water, either under a float or at a fixed depth from the rod. We usually have a second rod secured in one of our custom rod holders, so that it won’t be pulled into the water and also make sure the drag setting is loose enough that the squid can surge and pull drag, rather than tear the jig free.

Thanks for reading our How To Catch Squid article. We hope you enjoyed it.

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Fishing data obtained from Victorian Fishing AuthorityThis article “How To Catch Squid” was written by Malcolm May of I’m Hooked Fishing Charters