Trying to become a squidding sensei - progression / help.

[Birdy]

About 3 weeks ago, I embarked on my journey chasing squid. As I eagerly wait for @XD351 to drop me off a super generous present from this recent post:

This has put my luderick fishing on intermission, thus giving me more time to squid fish!

After reading SlinkyMalinky's awesome post about squid fishing, doing a lot of research, and scouring Google Maps, I headed out to spots that I thought would be great.

These are the things I have noticed so far or noted:

1. Don't just squid fish places that look good on Google Maps; my most fruitful spot where I have caught squid every single time I have gone looks garbage on Google Maps, maybe because the water is too deep to see the bottom clearly from an aerial view.
2. I have been struggling to catch squid during the day, usually catching them at the start of night and late afternoon ( I really want to start catching them during the day but struggling; maybe I haven't found any fruitful day spots)
3. I read up about jig colour charts, but they confuse me a little bit because I'm not sure what "tape" colour my jigs are; they all seem either multicoloured or have a white bottom. So far I have been using bright colours when its overcast and natural colours when it is bright and sunny, then glow jigs at night. 
4. Sometimes you just need to let your jig sit at the bottom; it doesn't always need to be moving; you can feel them latch on if you keep your line slightly tight, then do a tiny strike.

Anyway, this is just an update on some of the things I have noticed. If anyone has any ideas why I am struggling to catch them during the daytime, let me know, or any helpful tips would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my pics of tonight's solo session.

Birdy.

 

Edited January 30 by Birdy
Formatting

[big Neil]

I enjoyed reading your report Birdy. You appear to be very passionate about fishing and methodical about doing it. You also seem to be persistent and have been rewarded for your efforts. It's quite interesting for an old fart to read the journey of somebody young and keen to try everything. Enjoy the journey mate, it will be a good one. Oh, and keep us all entertained with your posts.

bn

[Little_Flatty]

Great report @Birdy!

Looking forward to the luderick reports😎

[Birdy]

1 hour ago, big Neil said:

I enjoyed reading your report Birdy. You appear to be very passionate about fishing and methodical about doing it. You also seem to be persistent and have been rewarded for your efforts. It's quite interesting for an old fart to read the journey of somebody young and keen to try everything. Enjoy the journey mate, it will be a good one. Oh, and keep us all entertained with your posts.

bn

Cheers for that Neil! I'm glad you enjoyed the report, plenty more to come 👌

[noelm]

16 hours ago, Birdy said:

About 3 weeks ago, I embarked on my journey chasing squid. As I eagerly wait for @XD351 to drop me off a super generous present from this recent post:

This has put my luderick fishing on intermission, thus giving me more time to squid fish!

After reading SlinkyMalinky's awesome post about squid fishing, doing a lot of research, and scouring Google Maps, I headed out to spots that I thought would be great.

These are the things I have noticed so far or noted:

1. Don't just squid fish places that look good on Google Maps; my most fruitful spot where I have caught squid every single time I have gone looks garbage on Google Maps, maybe because the water is too deep to see the bottom clearly from an aerial view.
2. I have been struggling to catch squid during the day, usually catching them at the start of night and late afternoon ( I really want to start catching them during the day but struggling; maybe I haven't found any fruitful day spots)
3. I read up about jig colour charts, but they confuse me a little bit because I'm not sure what "tape" colour my jigs are; they all seem either multicoloured or have a white bottom. So far I have been using bright colours when its overcast and natural colours when it is bright and sunny, then glow jigs at night. 
4. Sometimes you just need to let your jig sit at the bottom; it doesn't always need to be moving; you can feel them latch on if you keep your line slightly tight, then do a tiny strike.

Anyway, this is just an update on some of the things I have noticed. If anyone has any ideas why I am struggling to catch them during the daytime, let me know, or any helpful tips would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my pics of tonight's solo session.

Birdy.

 

1.. always look for places by wandering around, using Google maps might be a starting point, but as you found out, it’s not what it seems.

2..Squidding is ALWAYS better late afternoon or early morning….end of story!

3.. I find almost any jig works, the expensive ones might be better, but, in my experience, smaller jigs, in any colour are good.

4.. depending on the depth, Squid will take a stationary jig, but….as a general rule, you will be fishing near weed, so letting a jig sit will see you snagged.

 I find clear/clean water, broken patchy reef/sand/weed low swell and a high tide to be the best Squid conditions.

[Birdy]

3 minutes ago, noelm said:

1.. always look for places by wandering around, using Google maps might be a starting point, but as you found out, it’s not what it seems.

2..Squidding is ALWAYS better late afternoon or early morning….end of story!

3.. I find almost any jig works, the expensive ones might be better, but, in my experience, smaller jigs, in any colour are good.

4.. depending on the depth, Squid will take a stationary jig, but….as a general rule, you will be fishing near weed, so letting a jig sit will see you snagged.

 I find clear/clean water, broken patchy reef/sand/weed low swell and a high tide to be the best Squid conditions.

I've been trying to count how many seconds the jig takes to be on the bottom and doing twitches upwards as it gets close to the bottom to prevent snags but I think whenever I've been letting the jig sit stationary a current has been tugging on it which allows the jig to sit slightly above snag zone. Cheers for your words of wisdom Noelm 💜

[XD351]

A couple of YouTube channels you could look at are 

Matt’s fishing escapes 

James’ fishing adventures 

Both are right into squidding and use techniques that you probably won’t see here in Sydney - well maybe not very often !

Also Spikes fishing Australia, Mel is a gun fisho and catches lots of squid both inside  Botany Bay and outside . Maybe you pick up a few tips and tricks from these channels .

( Before anyone ask - I have mentioned Fishraider To Mel on a few occasions hoping she would join but maybe it’s not her thing ? You can lead a horse to water ……)

I Generally avoid facebook groups for any useful info as I found  that most  groups are full of twits who just want to make stupid comments - definitely something you will NOT see on Fishraider!

Edited January 31 by XD351

[mrsswordfisherman]

31 minutes ago, XD351 said:

A couple of YouTube channels you could look at are 

Matt’s fishing escapes 

James’ fishing adventures 

Both are right into squidding and use techniques that you probably won’t see here in Sydney - well maybe not very often !

Also Spikes fishing Australia, Mel is a gun fisho and catches lots of squid both inside  Botany Bay and outside . Maybe you pick up a few tips and tricks from these channels .

( Before anyone ask - I have mentioned Fishraider To Mel on a few occasions hoping she would join but maybe it’s not her thing ? You can lead a horse to water ……)

I Generally avoid facebook groups for any useful info as I found  that most  groups are full of twits who just want to make stupid comments - definitely something you will NOT see on Fishraider!

It used to be her thing!

I have been on a women's fishing fb group for years. Mel is also a member/moderator. About 3 years ago I put up a pic of a hairtail I caught and Mel asked me "amazing, would you tell me how to target this species"? I linked it to my very in depth report on Hairtail here on fishraider. 
Pretty sure Mel was included on a Deckee "Women in Fishing" write up too. 

She is very commercial now and no time for forums. Once sponsorship happens they have a few extra rules. 
I lurk around the fb groups and visit sometimes to read the absolute rubbish there. 

I might be biased but Fishraider is still the best place to find info and meet some great folk who all like fishing and boating  

[DerekD]

I take it you read this one too:

 

[Guinness]

With the great advice you have received from the Raiders I think you will be well on your way to increasing your squid catch Birdy. One technique I have used when squidding is to increase the Gain/Sensitivity level on my sounder. I find the increase in gain can assist to locate squid schools, particularly if you are drifting. Next time you are out and about give it a shot. Good luck.   

[XD351]

33 minutes ago, mrsswordfisherman said:

It used to be her thing!

I have been on a women's fishing fb group for years. Mel is also a member/moderator. About 3 years ago I put up a pic of a hairtail I caught and Mel asked me "amazing, would you tell me how to target this species"? I linked it to my very in depth report on Hairtail here on fishraider. 
Pretty sure Mel was included on a Deckee "Women in Fishing" write up too. 

She is very commercial now and no time for forums. Once sponsorship happens they have a few extra rules. 
I lurk around the fb groups and visit sometimes to read the absolute rubbish there. 

I might be biased but Fishraider is still the best place to find info and meet some great folk who all like fishing and boating  

After a few minutes of fb I have to retreat to the sanity of Fishraider!

I think I know the women’s fishing fb page you alluded to - some awesome fishos on there ! 

[AlbertW]

When trying to grasp the depth of a new location the paternoster rig works really well, also for cuttlefish which in my experience feeds a lot closer to the bottom and are usually the suspects that eat stationary jigs.

[Birdy]

2 hours ago, XD351 said:

A couple of YouTube channels you could look at are 

Matt’s fishing escapes 

James’ fishing adventures 

Both are right into squidding and use techniques that you probably won’t see here in Sydney - well maybe not very often !

Also Spikes fishing Australia, Mel is a gun fisho and catches lots of squid both inside  Botany Bay and outside . Maybe you pick up a few tips and tricks from these channels .

( Before anyone ask - I have mentioned Fishraider To Mel on a few occasions hoping she would join but maybe it’s not her thing ? You can lead a horse to water ……)

I Generally avoid facebook groups for any useful info as I found  that most  groups are full of twits who just want to make stupid comments - definitely something you will NOT see on Fishraider!

Just subscribed to all of them and slowly trying to find places that they are fishing, I've also bought a squid spike to put yakkas on with a float similar to James fishing adventures 👌

[Birdy]

2 hours ago, DerekD said:

I take it you read this one too:

 

Yep read all of that too, honestly really love that post, super super useful. Super keen to try balloon float with a live squid hahaha

[faker]

I never been good at catching squid. My fascination right now is trying to consistently catch bream and shore jigging. But I would love to learn how to catch squid consistently 

[Birdy]

1 hour ago, Guinness said:

With the great advice you have received from the Raiders I think you will be well on your way to increasing your squid catch Birdy. One technique I have used when squidding is to increase the Gain/Sensitivity level on my sounder. I find the increase in gain can assist to locate squid schools, particularly if you are drifting. Next time you are out and about give it a shot. Good luck.   

That's honestly really helpful, I've been exclusively squid fishing land based but I do have a tinny that I can try out this tip with. Just need to get my boat serviced but don't know where hahahaha. Do you have any pics on what a squid school looks like on sounder?

[Birdy]

Just now, faker said:

I never been good at catching squid. My fascination right now is trying to consistently catch bream and shore jigging. But I would love to learn how to catch squid consistently 

I'm not much of a big cooked fish eater that's why I like catching squid, I mainly only eat fish that I can sashimi. Bream on soft plastics is real good fun 😍

[faker]

3 minutes ago, Birdy said:

I'm not much of a big cooked fish eater that's why I like catching squid, I mainly only eat fish that I can sashimi. Bream on soft plastics is real good fun 😍

Those bream can be a pain on lures. Recently started trying to skip.weedless plastics into pylons 

[Birdy]

53 minutes ago, AlbertW said:

When trying to grasp the depth of a new location the paternoster rig works really well, also for cuttlefish which in my experience feeds a lot closer to the bottom and are usually the suspects that eat stationary jigs.

I tried this rig out and lost 2 of my good jigs hahahaha, I definitely wasn't using the rig right. I was retrieving it too often and got a heavy snag, didn't use thin line for the sinker part so it snapped at the swivel 🥲 Is the rig just meant to be cast out then left alone whilst jigs look like they are moving due to currents? 

[Birdy]

1 minute ago, faker said:

Those bream can be a pain on lures. Recently started trying to skip.weedless plastics into pylons 

Where are you located? Sounds sick 😍

[AlbertW]

1 hour ago, Birdy said:

I tried this rig out and lost 2 of my good jigs hahahaha, I definitely wasn't using the rig right. I was retrieving it too often and got a heavy snag, didn't use thin line for the sinker part so it snapped at the swivel 🥲 Is the rig just meant to be cast out then left alone whilst jigs look like they are moving due to currents? 

How did you attach the sinker to the main line? I usually do a singular wrap uni knot or use a friction lock by running my bottom line through the sinker eyelet multiple times. There are multiple ways you can work it, I mainly use a smaller sinker, around the size of my pink maybe a bit bigger depending on the depth. This allows you to find the bottom, work the squid jig normally and allow you to deadstick it. Hope this helps!

Albert

[Restyle]

A really dirty trick that works at most jettys in the hacking is as follows, throw on a 1.8-2.2 sized jig and cast out the depth of the water, if the waters 4 meters deep cast out 4 meters and then do absolutely nothing. The jig will slowly arch down until it’s directly below your rod tip and just above the sea floor let it sit stationary and occasional vibrate the rod. If nothing takes the jig, cast out and jig normally before doing what I said above again. If you hook a squid using that ‘at the feet method’ just keep doing it till you get none then cast out and ‘bring the squid in’. This works almost to well if there’s 50 people on the jetty bringing in the squid for you. 

why this works I have no idea but it seems when they follow the jig in and the jig is recasted, they’ll hang around the jetty for awhile & this works well in the hacking as most jetty’s have lights which bring in baitfish and also good depth which keep the squid around. 

some nights the squid are really aggressive which means generally squidding like a normal human works fine, but on the nights they are very picky and not overly interested this tends to work wonders.

jig color at night is useless unless you fish with a light like I do or under a wharf with light, but more importantly jigs that glow different, weather it’s patterns or jig glow Color’s work better then the overerall jig color. The jig I’ve been doing well with in the hacking is brown and black, glows a bright electric blue and have black non glow spots on it 

[Restyle]

1 hour ago, AlbertW said:

How did you attach the sinker to the main line? I usually do a singular wrap uni knot or use a friction lock by running my bottom line through the sinker eyelet multiple times. There are multiple ways you can work it, I mainly use a smaller sinker, around the size of my pink maybe a bit bigger depending on the depth. This allows you to find the bottom, work the squid jig normally and allow you to deadstick it. Hope this helps!

Albert

To save using a sinker use a heap of snap swivels. You can buy these squid jig snaps, put 2 or 3 of them on and it makes a 1.5 jig sink like a anchor

[Restyle]

2 hours ago, Birdy said:

That's honestly really helpful, I've been exclusively squid fishing land based but I do have a tinny that I can try out this tip with. Just need to get my boat serviced but don't know where hahahaha. Do you have any pics on what a squid school looks like on sounder?

You cannot really sound squid as they generally hang tight to structure and usually only leave it to strike a jig or at best follow it. Squidding form boat is a whole different mission compared to land. At night they do move around a lot more so you could sound them by playing with the sounders sensitivity but I find it not usually worth it

from the boat I like 2 rods, one has 2-3 jigs on it just hanging over the side and the other rods my working rod, I like to drift around and squid normally

[faker]

I will need to fish again with @DerekDsome time to seen how he does stuff. Reading and testing techniques can take a while. It took me a month of watching and figuring out what was doing before I caught fish.

10 hours ago, Birdy said:

Where are you located? Sounds sick 😍

Located west but I fish the whole middle head. Past 2 weeks I found if I do a side cast in just right angle. I can get my pro lure Clone prawn into pylons of jetty by skipping. 

Still my catch ratios are bad

Edited January 31 by faker