What squid fishing actually is
Explainer · Last reviewed 2026-08-14
Squid are not caught on hooks and they are not caught on bait. They are caught because they attack a lure and hold it — and understanding that changes everything about the tackle.
Safety
Hooks and barbs — Can cause injury needing treatment
A squid jig carries a crown of many fine sharp spines, and it is handled in the dark, wet, frequently from a harbour wall, and often while a live animal is attached and moving. Spines go into hands readily.
What reduces it: Handle the jig by the body rather than the crown, use a net so the animal is contained before you reach for the jig, keep a light on the work, and unhook over a surface rather than over your own lap.
Squid fishing is unlike every other kind of fishing in this catalogue, and the reason is that the animal is not hooked in the ordinary sense.
A SQUID ATTACKS BY WRAPPING RATHER THAN BY BITING. It shoots out two long tentacles with clubbed ends covered in suckers, seizes prey, draws it into the ring of shorter arms and holds it while the beak does the work. There is no mouth engulfing a bait and no jaw to set a hook into.
SO THE LURE IS DESIGNED TO BE HELD RATHER THAN SWALLOWED. A squid jig is a weighted, often cloth-covered body with a crown of upward-facing barbless spines at the tail. The squid seizes the body, the spines catch in the arms and suckers as it pulls back, and the fish is held by its own grip. There is no strike in the conventional sense and no barb — which is why steady tension matters more than anything else once one is on.
THAT SINGLE MECHANICAL FACT EXPLAINS THE WHOLE DISCIPLINE. It explains why the jig sinks rather than floats, because squid attack from below and behind. It explains why the retrieve is a series of sharp upward jerks followed by a controlled fall, because a fleeing prawn is what the shape imitates and the fall is when the take happens. It explains why slack line loses fish and why a net rather than a lift is used to land them.
AND IT EXPLAINS WHY THIS IS A GLOBAL PRACTICE WITH A JAPANESE NAME. The modern discipline, its tackle and its vocabulary were codified in Japan as eging and exported worldwide, and it is now ordinary practice in Korea, the Mediterranean, Portugal, the Canaries and increasingly Britain and Ireland.
Why there is no hook, and what that means for how you fish
The absence of a hook is the single most consequential fact in squid fishing and almost every practical rule follows from it.
THE SPINES ARE NOT BARBED AND THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE. A squid jig's crown of upward-facing spines catches in the arms and suckers of an animal that is pulling backwards against the line. Nothing penetrates and nothing locks. The squid is held only for as long as the line stays tight and the animal keeps pulling.
SO SLACK LINE LOSES SQUID, AND IT LOSES THEM SILENTLY. A moment of slack lets the arms release and the animal simply lets go, frequently without the angler registering that anything was there. Maintaining steady, unvarying tension from the take to the net is the whole of the fight.
AND THERE IS NO STRIKE. Striking a squid drives the jig out of its grip. What replaces a strike is simply continuing to lift and reel at the moment the fall stops early or the line feels heavy.
THE FALL IS WHEN THE TAKE HAPPENS. A jig is worked in a cycle: sharp upward jerks to make it dart, then a controlled fall on a semi-tight line. Squid attack the falling jig from below and behind, imitating the way they take a fleeing prawn, and the take is registered as a fall that stops short, a line that goes slack early, or a weight that was not there.
LANDING IS A NET JOB. Lifting a squid on the line puts the animal's whole weight against a grip that is not a hook hold, and it releases. A landing net removes the problem entirely, and for larger squid from a height it is not optional.
AND THE INK IS REAL. A squid brought aboard or onto a wall will discharge, and it will discharge at whatever is in front of it. Point it away, at the water, before lifting it clear.
Practitioner consensus
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated practice for this technique, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as tested fact.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- FAO fishing gear types and fishing technology information — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Descriptions of fishing gear types and their operation, including pots, traps and hand-gathering methods.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Where to go next
Where it matters
What these connections rest on (1)
Practitioner consensus — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Eging
A method joined to the explainer that sets out the mechanism it depends on, which is what makes the catalogue an explanation rather than a list.
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated practice associating this discipline with this place, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as tested fact.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages — University of Toronto Press, 1997 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: That fishing traditions develop around the water and quarry available to them, and the historical method of reading such traditions.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How this compares
What these connections rest on (1)
Practitioner consensus — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
The Moroccan Mediterranean coast
Two records a reader would reasonably weigh against one another, joined where the comparison teaches something about both. This is also how the geography hierarchy is expressed, because the model has no containment predicate.
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated angling practice and belief, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as tested fact.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary sea angling practice as reported and restated by practitioners, including shore and boat technique and tackle convention.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Safety reading
What these connections rest on (1)
Authoritative guidance — 1 connection
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Night fishing safety
An explainer joined to the safety topic that covers the conditions the practice is conducted in.
- RNLI water safety guidance: cold water shock and Float to Live — Royal National Lifeboat Institution (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Cold water shock and the immersion response, shore angling hazards, small-craft guidance and the circumstances in which water users are most often killed.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- RoSPA water safety information and UK accidental drowning statistics — Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Accidental drowning statistics and the circumstances in which recreational water users are most often killed.Background and mechanism onlyPassage read and verified
More explainer
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section, because this record connects to very little and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Check the rules before you fish
Fishing laws, bylaws, access rules, seasons, bait restrictions and permitted methods vary by location and can change. Check the current rules from the relevant authority and the water you intend to fish before fishing.
Check with:
- Current national or regional law for where you are fishing
- Current local bylaws
- The relevant fisheries authority
- The landowner, club or fishery whose water it is
- Any restrictions specific to the species or the method you intend to use
Sources for this page
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated practice for this technique, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as tested fact.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- FAO fishing gear types and fishing technology information — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Descriptions of fishing gear types and their operation, including pots, traps and hand-gathering methods.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
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