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Squidding in Puget Sound is one of our favorite fall / winter activities. And who doesn't like fried calamari? This video shows you how to catch squid. We cover rigs used on the docks and piers, but really show you how to squid from a boat at night or during the daytime. Finding the squid on your sonar and getting them into the boat. You will see some cool underwater squid footage along with the explanations of how we squid and the above water footage. We then take you through the entire process of cleaning squid, making a batter that will stick and finally frying up and eating tasty calamari!
As promised, I also said I would share my Amazon link for the LED light we showed in the video: https://amzn.to/3m20qoq
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases you make via the above link. Using the link above costs you nothing additional, but supports us continuing to put out quality content that hopefully helps you to enjoy the outdoors in the Pacific Northwest.
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0:00
All right, this episode, I've got to share with you, one of the coolest, I think most fun, I think most fun thing you do, uh, in the one of the coolest, most fun thing you do, uh, in the
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wintertime on the Puget Sound which is catching squid. See I stopped right here because I saw all the horizontal lines on the fish finder
1:10
You can catch squid from up here, a dock around Pugetown, but I love getting my boat out
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and squitting from the boat. I do it at nighttime. I do it during the daytime
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You can, it's so easy to get just a ton of this, you know
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squid that you can turn into just awesome fried calamari. It's one of our favorite meals to enjoy
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fresh out of the water in Pugetown. Alright, so let's talk about how we rig up for
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catching Pugetown squid. There's a couple different ways you can do it
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I'm going to talk about squitting from a boat, but let me show you kind of a traditional dock set up for
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catching squid. So, you have a traditional dock set up for catching squid. Here I've got just a standard jigging, seven and a half foot jigging rod and I've got these squid jigs
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You can see you real close right there. Attached. I've got three of them on this line
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All right. One, two, and three. I got about 18 inches between them
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And these are all weighted squid jigs, right? So the weighted, the multi, so the weighted squid jig approach is kind of what you do on a dock or pier
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You can also do the same thing from a boat, you know. The early morning, dawn hours, squid are still in shallow water
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So you don't need a lot of weight to get down to them. They're pretty easy to find on your sonar, especially when they're around in good numbers
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So this setup will get it done from a boat or from a dock
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Alright so let's talk about more of a boat squid jig setup so you have a weighted jig
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up top and then I'll run 12 to 18 inches of 40 pound floral to unweighted jig
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This is the Tori unweighted setup and I'll attach half half an ounce, an ounce, maybe two ounces of lead to the bottom of that
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so you can get down in 80, 100, shoot, probably 150 feet of water without a problem
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And that helps you go after squid all day. So you don't have to get up super early or stay up super late
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You can still get your squid with these different techniques and ways of bringing up
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I get excited when I see them on the screen because I'm like, I know we're about to hook up. Yeah
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Unless your gear is fouled up, which is down. It such a simple fishing too but it exciting It so exciting Um yeah Yeah they good to eat too Man they good to eat I mean it all
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It's just a great, like, fall. We don't know anybody that doesn't like
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go to the restaurant and get the right right so let's talk about squid lights right
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you want to squid at nighttime when they're in shallow and it's easier to get them
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or maybe one of my favorite things to do I'm the early morning riser I like to
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get up get out there a couple hours before before dawn before sunlight and I'll get
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my squid then and then I can keep I can keep squitting turn my lights off as it
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gets lighter but let me show you my light set up it's super complicated I don't
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know if you'd be able to do anything like this but it starts with a just a
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affordable generator you can run you can run it off 12-bolt you know battery and
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harness wiring harness as well some people even got it where they can they
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plug them into their their down reader connections and they plug the lights in
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there as well I haven't gone that far All right right here
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See the ton of lines on the screen. Dropping all the way down
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One. Oh, right. Second Twitch. That was predictable. That's probably double a triple here
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Oh, nope, just a nice one. Probably another one that got off
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We've been motoring around the dock here for a little bit, looking for exactly what I see on the screen right there
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This is a lot like fishing for rockfish around a reef where you're just trying to stay on them and stay vertical with boat control
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We got a little bit of wind and current and everything kind of moving me around
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So, oh geez, this is probably succeed when you go straight down like that
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Let's see what we got here. Nope, wow. It's just a nice one
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Holy crap. Look at the side of that. Look, in there. See, I'm looking at my screen and all of a sudden
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the lines are gone. So I need to get back on top of them here
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Let's see. It might have been right here. All right, so then we got a portable generator here
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extension cord and extension cord running back to my boat where I got my squid lights
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Another thing about squitting at nighttime is you don't need a boat that's outfitted with lights and a tower and all of this stuff
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I launch really close to where I'm squitting so I just open up my front cab and I run the kicker from the kicker motor
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and I just have a powerful headlamp. That way I can see anything in the water
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and I'm not going to go very fast anyway, so I'm not too worried about, you know
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running into a log or something like that because you know number one I can see it Number two I going real slow to just motor over to my squitting area because you know a lot of times these squid they already drawn in by the lights around ferry docks around public piers where people are doing these squitting at and you can just kind of pick on the edges of that stay out of the you want to stay out of the dock squitters way of course with your boat You don want to get right up on top of them But you can get it done really close to where you launch
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There we go. All right, so we got our extension cord running back and I'm going to show you my
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super simple light setup. So I bought this simple cheap LED, maybe I think it's five, six thousand lumines, something like that
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Got it off of Amazon, super cheap. I can put the link in the video description
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And what I do is I zip tie it to my Scotty rod holder
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So I zip tie it right around there. And just basically when I'm doing it right
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I can take it through that hole and around the Scotty downrigger. I just run it just like this, hanging over the
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hanging over the side. And plenty of light. Now it's plenty of light to get it done and attract squid and get easy limits while you're out there
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waiting for the sun to come up. It's pretty simple, pretty sweet, pretty awesome
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I got my third in a row right here bro. Come on now. Are you in the road bottom
10:36
I was. Dang. My wife here, J-Dine, is going to show us how to process these squid in an easy, easy way
11:18
Okay, so you can see this side as the little tube-y thing
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I don't know what that's called. Might need a biologist. You know, like the plastic piece, right, that's in there
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This is, that was the underside. Yeah. You can find the plastic piece because it sticks out on the back. Yep
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Now I grab it with the paper towel and then I try to insert my finger underneath the plastic going to this direction
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Yep. But you have to have a good grip on it. See, now I've separated the plastic
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Yeah, I see that, yeah. Okay. Then I run my finger down along the whole thing and then pull
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We'll have both the ink sac in this one. See, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get it out without breaking the ink sack to make it
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As clean as possible. As clean as possible. It's not a big deal if you break the ink sack, but it just makes it a few extra steps of cleaning
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You don't have to do if you can get it perfect. And here... Right after the eye, you just cut
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Then this, this little cartilage, plastic-y feeling piece. Yep Then right here is Get that beak out yep You just push below it it and it kind of pops into a ball and you can just tear it off Yep Then we just rinse these two things and we good to go and live on the next
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Yeah, like sometimes you'll see a little bit of extra stuff in there
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Yeah, yeah. One time you actually found eight and then in this color
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Overall is pretty easy. You can do a few of these. You become a pro and you can go pretty fast
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All right, so after we clean the squid, we soaked them in buttermilk for about how long
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We soaked them. But you really can't make two long. One and a half cups of flour
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Two teaspoons of salt. I use Himalian salt. Quarter teaspoon of pepper
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Quarter teaspoon of garlic powder. Half a teaspoon of paprika. All right
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We mix all this up and then this becomes the batter, right
13:34
Yeah, so we're gonna take the pieces, dredge them in this. Yeah
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Get some oil, hot, and then we're gonna fry it in this
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Very cool. And this will make your fried calamari batter stay on
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It's supposed to sometimes at least, when I tried it the first time, it fell off and didn't turn out so well
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out so well. All right, so now that we've got the, our batter, our dredged calumari strips here
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squid trips, we are letting them cooking oil. We've got our oil, about medium high here
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And let it go for a couple minutes. Two to three. A couple minutes of quick time
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You can kind of see it change, just starts to change color, get a little, little light brown side
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indicate you done this and here we have the finished product delicious
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fried calamari a little bit of garnish on there tastes absolutely wonderful
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bon-a-petit I like to put a little horse radish sauce on my uh my calumari
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I like the lemon olive oil butter I live and olive oil in so much
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Oh man, that is good. We also got a little bit of..
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A little bit of lemon. What are you doing? A little lemon, olive oil, cilantro
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Let's try that. Oh man, fantastic. Fantastic
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You know, in the state of Washington, we just get hit by a bunch more lockdowns and..
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downs and, you know, due to coronavirus and COVID. And, you know, just thinking about it, the way that the restaurant industry has just been
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absolutely crushed with no dine-in, only takeout and delivery. It's just really tough for restaurant owners to turn profit and to really just have a full staff
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So if you're in the Pugetown area, particularly if you're in the South Sound, you know
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Reach out to me in the comment section or Kyle at PNW BestLife.com
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I'd love to take you out, squitting. If you're in the restaurant industry, maybe a restaurant owner or someone who's, you know, not able to work because their restaurant is shut down or, or get a hold of me through the comment section or my email, Kyle at PNWBestlife.com
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I'd love to take you out, squitting, or one of these fisheries in the wintertime
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encourage you during this just incredibly difficult time. Hopefully you enjoyed this squitting tutorial and squitting adventure in South Sound
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Please like and subscribe to the channel here, Pacific Northwest Best Life
16:38
We've got lots more content coming, hopefully on some hunting activity, Pugetown Black Now, some steelhead
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