Los Angles Times

Friday, November 6, 1998

 

OUTDOORS / PETE THOMAS

 

Bodega's Big Squid Getting Lots of Ink

 

By PETE THOMAS

 

Calamari capital of the world?

 

That may not be Bodega Bay's claim to fame, but the picturesque little

coastal community north of San Francisco, like it or not, is swimming in

squid. "People are having it as sashimi, they're steaming it, frying it,

barbecuing it . . . they're even putting it on skewers," says Rick

Powers, on whose boat they've been catching most of it.

 

All this has put the 44-year-old captain and Bodega Bay Sportfishing

Center in the spotlight, in part because these squid don't belong in

that part of the world but mostly because they are truly a sight to

behold, as unsightly as they might seem to some. California frequently

gets the six-inch variety of squid, which are targeted by commercial

seiners and used by recreational anglers as bait to catch such prized

game fish as seabass and yellowtail.

 

The squid Powers is catching, however, would have those fish for

breakfast, and probably do from time to time. They measure up to eight

feet and weigh up to 50 pounds, though most of those plopping onto the

deck of the New Sea Angler are slightly smaller.

 

Still, they're impressive enough to attract news crews from around the

Bay Area. The outdoor media have been calling Powers weekly for updates.

The squid have even piqued the interest of scientists, who hope to learn

more about the complex nature of these intricate and mysterious

creatures.

 

A live specimen was brought to Bodega Marine Laboratory in September,

but it died three days later and was donated to the Smithsonian

Institute. Biologists at Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco also are

trying to obtain a live specimen to study. As for Powers, he's merely

taking advantage of the presence of Dosidicus gigas, or jumbo squid, a

species of cephalopod that belongs off the coast of South America, not

Northern California. They occasionally stray as far north as Mexico and

even cross into U.S. waters from time to time.

 

But this is way beyond their range.

 

Scientists theorize they were delivered courtesy of El Ni?o and

deposited in the nutrient-rich depths of Bodega Canyon, a marine trench

near a popular rockfishing haunt called Cordell Bank.

 

They first were caught there last December--when water temperatures were

eight to 10 degrees above normal--by commercial hook-and-line fishermen.

 

Powers got word and ran out.

 

"In 20 minutes, we caught nine of these giant squid," he recalls. "I had

never seen any creature that looked like these things before."

 

Then came the intense El Ni?o storms, which kept the fleet at bay for

most of the rest of the winter and either displaced the squid or kept

them down in the depths of the canyon, out of reach at 500-600 feet.

 

In any event, they're still around, having resurfaced in late summer.

And Powers, who has been fishing Bay Area waters since he was a child,

is the only one really fishing for them.

 

They emerge from the canyon periodically, he believes, to embark on

feeding forays at or near the rockfishing grounds. They travel in such

large schools that he is able to locate them fairly easily on his fish

finder.

 

"This year, as opposed to last year, we're metering them at mid-water,"

he says. "Which is odd, because I've always heard that they're nocturnal

feeders and stay in deep water during the day. But all we do is stop the

boat, drop our lures down and that's it."

 

So voracious are the squid that everyone usually hooks up at once,

creating total chaos.

 

"Every one of these things has to be gaffed," Powers says. "These things

are flashing different colors and squirting water and ink all over the

place.

 

"The boat gets totally inked out and it takes two to three hours just to

clean the vessel. But I'm not complaining. Everyone is really, really

stoked about the whole thing." So stoked that Powers has set aside

Wednesdays as squid-only days. The results have been mind-boggling.

 

"When we ran our first special trip, we had absolutely phenomenal

success," Powers boasts. "In 2 1/2 hours we had 600 squid for 42

anglers, and given the weight of these things--they averaged about 17

pounds apiece--we estimated that we caught 10,000 pounds of squid that

day. It took almost three hours to unload all that squid."

 

And another three to clean up the mess.

 

SQUID II: THE REVENGE

 

A squid on the hook, rising unwillingly in a state of agitation,

changing colors spontaneously and instantaneously, whips the entire

school into a frenzy. It's quite a spectacle, Powers says, and it

doesn't take a marine biologist to figure out what would happen to

anyone falling overboard.

 

But a marine biologist did, literally, eight years ago while working as

part of a documentary team in the Sea of Cortez near La Paz. Alex

Kerstitch, wearing full scuba gear, took a nighttime plunge into a sea

teeming with the same species of cephalopod in hopes of getting some

good still footage.

 

He barely made it out alive.

 

His ordeal began when he felt a tug on his leg. A large squid had

wrapped its tentacles around his swim fin and was pulling him down. He

let the squid pull for a while, which proved to be a huge mistake as

other squid developed an interest in what they perceived to be easy

prey.

 

Kerstitch kicked at the squid with his other foot and it let go. But

another one bolted out of the darkness and attached itself to the back

of his neck, the only part of his body not covered by neoprene or dive

equipment.

 

"I felt the cold embrace of tentacles with their sharp-toothed suction

cups digging into my bare skin," he recalled in an interview not long

afterward. "It was like somebody was throwing a cactus onto my neck."

 

He struck this squid with his dive light and it released its grip on

him--but stole not only the light but a gold chain Kerstitch was wearing

around his neck.

 

Now Kerstitch wanted out in a bad way. But as he surfaced, yet another

squid appeared and wrapped its tentacles around his face and chest.

 

"In total darkness, I felt the animal tugging at my mask and camera," he

said. "Concerned over the powerful beak, I grabbed the squid firmly,

digging my fingers into its body."

 

The squid slid from his face to his waist and started dragging him

deeper until finally letting go, taking with it the diver's

decompression gauge.

 

Kerstitch finally got his hands on the dive ladder and climbed aboard

the boat, having suffered only a few "nasty lesions" caused by the

thorny tentacles of the squid. "Having lost my gold chain, my dive light

and decompression meter, I realized that this was an expensive dive," he

later remarked.

 

But not as costly as it could have been.