Fishing from the boat: the easy technique for winter fun in search of cephalopods

Fishing is one of the most popular hobbies practiced by sea enthusiasts and motor boat owners. And we are sure that you who are reading these lines have also at least once thought or imagined trying your hand at this activity, perhaps to later enjoy its fruits on the table.

Barche a Motore then inaugurates a new column devoted precisely to the world of fishing from a boat, designed for all enthusiasts or those who would like to try it for the first time, with tips on techniques and prey according to the seasons, and focuses on how to equip the boat to go fishing and which models are best suited to do so.

Fishing from the boat: the easy technique for winter fun

In this first installment we are going to talk about fishing from the boat in winter because the cold season offers many opportunities, and in particular we are going to discover one of the simplest and most low-cost techniques for having fun and getting results. For the time being we will leave aside more sophisticated winter techniques, such as fishing for the wary bass, and instead try a technique where really everyone can have fun: cephalopod fishing.

Our target will then be cuttlefish, squid and octopus. If the latter are stationed year-round in the subcoast, cuttlefish and squid pull over in the early autumn cold, to remain in shallow water until April-May, depending on temperatures. The techniques for chasing these cephalopods are easy, but they differ somewhat from each other depending on the prey we are targeting, since squid, cuttlefish and octopus have different habits.

The ideal spots and equipment

Let’s start with a consideration: in what areas or spots to find them? Cuttlefish frequent sandy and muddy bottoms, preferably with a light pebble mixture, and move to more rocky areas during spawning in Spring, but it is in the preceding months that it will be easiest to trap them from the boat. Squid, on the other hand, love mixed bottoms, especially with the presence of posidonia, and reefs (even those in harbors especially if with artificial light glare in the water).

Octopus prefers rocky mixed sandy bottom, but even on predominantly sandy flats it can be encountered. To fish for cephalopods in winter from the boat, it is sufficient to have a fishing rod no longer than 2.40 m, with a power of between 10 and 30 grams, a fixed-reel reel loaded with 0.10 to 0,12, a few snap hooks, some 0.20 nylon for the terminals, and 5-6 artificial lures (those for cephalopods are called “egi”) with colors ranging from natural (light blue, green-silver) to gaudy (pink, orange, fluorescent). All can be purchased at a modest, start kit price of about 200 euros.

The techniques

To fish for squid in the inshore (on more important bottoms we can also do this in the warmer months with a technique called “Tataki”) we will opt for the hours between sunset and sunrise, or in the early hours of darkness after dusk. We can insidiate them in at least two ways: by trolling or by a kind of very slow spinning fishing (casting and retrieving the artificial).

For both trolling and squid spinning (also called eging) it will be wise to equip the boat with a bright light that illuminates our stern, and can serve as a lure for small forage fish, which attract squid. For trolling, small sinkers are also used, which can be purchased at any fishing store; in this case we could use a classic hand line in place of a rod, connecting a 0.20 terminal to the sinker, at the end of which will be the artificial bait.

If the squid takes the bait we will see the sinker rise to the surface and proceed with a slow and steady retrieve so as not to tear its tentacles. To catch it by spinning instead, we will position ourselves with the boat close to a reef, better if the coastline goes to form a small bay, squid in fact like to hunt in reef areas that form small bights. We can decide to anchor or stay to drift depending on the state of the sea, this technique is practiced in almost calm sea conditions. At this point we will begin casting our artificials inside the small bay, rather than outward, letting them sink to midwater, and retrieving them very slowly with long reel breaks. The squid attack will often occur during the pauses with the bait suspended still.

Cuttlefish and octopus fishing, on the other hand, has a different approach, because we will go after our prey near the bottom, unlike squid, which prefer to hunt in midwater. We will therefore have to ballast our artificial with a small lead, which can range from 10 grams to higher depending on the current. We will not anchor, rather it will be important for our boat to drift slowly, to probe a wide area of sea. We will lower our decoys down to the bottom, and “drag” them on the sand, raising them a couple of span every now and then to let them touch up. In this way the artificial will raise a small cloud of sand that will intrigue the cuttlefish and octopus, simulating the presence of a small burrowing crustacean. At this point the game is done; all you have to do is try your luck.

Mauro Giuffrè