We ran 6 miles north of Santa Cruz, CA...then 9 miles out to around a 2,000' to fish for giant humbolt squid. After setting our rods up with squid jigs we lowered them to 500' and began to jig...within 10min's Davids rod bent and the fight was on. Next my rod bent and now we both were engage in a battle with a giant squid in the 40 pound range. I chose to use a fighting belt. We would fight and fight then the rod would go slack. It was as if the squid released..soon we learned that what this meant was the squid was swimming toward our boat because suddenly the fight would be on again..finally the squid was close enough to gaff..was allowed the gaffed squid to hang in the water for a couple minute to "ink" out..then put them in the ice chest...we hooked up our next squid much closer to the boat as the school had followed the hooked sqiud up from the ocean depths.
We fought 5 squid before quiting..two we kept to eat and 3 we drove to San Jose to give to our son's old high school marine biology teacher at Bellarmine college prep. He and the students were very excited to get the squid to examine. They had just done a diasection on small squid from the super market and the giant squid were a real treat. They examined ever part and then BBQ'd and ate them...they now have the beaks on display in the classroom...
The Grady did a great job allowing plenty of deck space to comfortable fight the squid.
We fought 5 squid before quiting..two we kept to eat and 3 we drove to San Jose to give to our son's old high school marine biology teacher at Bellarmine college prep. He and the students were very excited to get the squid to examine. They had just done a diasection on small squid from the super market and the giant squid were a real treat. They examined ever part and then BBQ'd and ate them...they now have the beaks on display in the classroom...
The Grady did a great job allowing plenty of deck space to comfortable fight the squid.
