Newport Ri 2016 Squid Season

[Gilligan]

Personally I don't really care for a lot of lights,and I don't like those underwater greenish light tubes. I have often caught many more squid fishing in a dark spot of a dock while others were using bright lights on another place on the same dock and caught few. I have slain many in total darkness. I do like lighted docks, and quite often do best jigging where the light "edge" is rather than directly under the lights. I am largely a dock fisherman and do understand that boats use lights with great success, but when dock fishing I prefer a little light to a lot of light. Janz is right about color, whatever they are hitting is the best color. If I only had two jigs to fish with I would carry a long discontinued Martinetti wood body jig with an orange back and white belly and a white smooth body (no cloth cover) Yamashita Naory Range hunter 1.8B also no longer available in this country. I also don't believe an overcast sky is better than a sunny sky when daytime squidding, I have caught thousands under a bright sun, when they're there and hungry they don't care about the sun. There are also "stick" jigs made from a short piece of 1/4 inch plastic tubing about an inch to an inch and a half long that work very well sometimes, usually in white or milky translucent plastic. Colman's Squid Jig Warehouse sells what they call a "bullet head" jig which occasionally will out fish the shrimp/prawn style jigs and are a must in one's arsenal, and the usual colors of white, pink, orange, and green often work best. When fishing the smaller prawn style jigs four pound test line with a tiny snap (no swivel) on a tiny sensitve rod will out fish all other rigs. (this is for single jig fishing here in the northeast) When I started squidding forty years ago there were no modern prawn type jigs and we used a 1/4" by 1&1/4" piece of dowel rod with a screw eye on each end and a small treble hook on one end and the dowel was painted white, and we caught thosands with this simple rig. Occasionally I see an old timer still fishing this way and doing well although I hardly ever use one.