SAN DIEGO, Calif“Color!” I shouted, making sure a deckhand with a long-handled gaff heard me above the wind, rain and waves smashing against the new Seaforth, a 75-foot fishing boat on the Pacific Ocean.
“Right here, boss,” the gaffer said. “Just keep cranking. You’ve almost got him.”
Seconds later, the deckhand deftly jerked the gaff into a giant squid, and lifted its 40 pounds of writhing tentacles, hooked beak, tubular body and rusty-red “wings” from the ocean. before I could thank him, he inverted the gaff, plopped the beast at my feet and moved toward other shouts of “Color!” (This is what one yells when your squid glimmers into view beneath the boat’s Klieg lights.)
I was in California visiting my daughter Leah, a Navy nurse stationed at San Diego’s Balboa Medical Center. A few days before my planned trip, Leah’s great-uncle had e-mailed a Los Angeles Times article that told of anglers piling aboard nightly charter boats to catch Humboldt squid.
These aren’t hand-sized squid served as calamari appetizers. Neither are they “a squid of colossal dimensions,” like the sea monster in Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.”
These “jumbo flying squid” average about 5 feet long and 30 to 60 pounds, with some reaching 100 pounds. They’re aggressive predators, notorious for striking and scaring scuba divers by clamping onto masks, cameras or tanks.
For reasons unknown, these giants have appeared in record numbers recently off San Diego, providing the best squidding anyone remembers. They strike hard, fight for their life and sometimes spray their captors with water and black ink when hoisted aboard.
And make no mistake: this isn’t catch-and-release. this is all about fun fights and finer food. Humboldt squid render thick slabs of virgin-white meat the size of doormats.
After reading about the delights of catching such creatures, I called San Diego’s Seaforth Landing to book two slots on their Feb. 5 open-party boat. Four hours after my plane arrived, Leah and I were buying one-day California fishing licenses and renting two heavy-action rods. we then paid $23 each for a “squid jig” and 1-pound auxiliary sinker.
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