Finding small squid for a feed

I was faced with a challenge last week, normally the challenge is to find some big squid, however when your mates want some smaller ones for a recipe it had my mind wondering where to go to find small squid.

In the past I have attempted to focus all my squid fishing on finding big squid so when asked to present some smaller squid I had to think back some time to the places where I could consistently find smaller squid, still not talking babies but looking for squid between 25 and 30 cm because apparently they taste nicer. I knew that Western Port has plenty of squid in all sizes so we headed to Hastings boat ramp and planned the rest of the day from there.

We started off with a forecast saying it was going to be about 10-15 knots from the south so I thought a trip to the eastern entrance of the port was in order, however, the 35 knot south west wind we were presented with was not what I would call ideal for a long trip. That said we powered on down towards Cleeland Bight the ports eastern entrance through the chop and rubbish wind. It took a little longer than first planned but we made it all the same. We spent about 30 minutes down here landing about 1/2 a bag of just the right sized squid, I had to down size my jigs to size 3.0 as I was looking for smaller versions. The place was just not firing like I had expected so after the first round of punishment through the weather another move was made towards Stoney Point where the wind and tide were playing nice for a good drift. It did not take too long to find our bag of squid with a couple of Cuttlefish thrown in for whiting baits another day.

No matter how bad things are with weather in the boat it beats the hell out of working.