Squid Fishing
Out in Penghu, a small island chain west of Taiwan, there’s a local tourist activity of squid fishing. That’s right. Just when you thought shrimp fishing was challenging enough, here comes squid. I guess these things do get caught somehow. Now we, and a boat full of others, will find out how. I take that back, I’m pretty sure this wasn’t how it’s done.
We signed up for the trip at our hotel and went down to the dock close to sunset. It was an easy scooter ride there. It’s a short wait for everyone to get there and for them to start. Here’s the breakdown:
- Everyone gets a life vest. You pick up your size and put it on before boarding.
- Find yourself a seat on board, either inside or out. We picked outside to ensure we had a seat together in our group.
- The boat ride out was about 30 minutes.
- Once there, they turn on the lights in the water. That’s about when you start fishing.
- Drop your line to about a few feet off the sea floor. Don’t worry, it won’t snag on anything.
- Then wait. Patience.
- We didn’t catch anything. So I don’t know what happens after that.
Some notes:
- There was food toward the tail end of the trip.
- Bring a light jacket. It can get a little chilly at night.
- The whole trip takes about 2-3 hours.
Even though we didn’t have a grand story to tell of the giant kraken that got away, I’d have to say the experience was unique. I mean come on, how many times do you think you’d go fishing or even squid fishing. Not often huh? But unique enough for me to spend about 3 hours on a fishing boat with tourists? No. There’s this wonderful island to explore and I’d rather be in town eating and exploring. And that’s what we did after getting off the boat. Luckily there were still places open.
Verdict: Don’t do it!
Still nothing. There was another boat that joined us out in the water. Some laughter and screams suggested they may have caught something. That only happened once until the Taiwanese coast guard boarded us, to tell captain to shut off the lights. At least that was some excitement.
Fitting. Since we couldn’t catch any squid they had some with our hot rice noodles. You could have more then one bowl, but eating this on a rocky boat kept me at one.
No bait was used when we fished. I think the light was supposed to somehow attract them. Once we felt something we were suppose to reel them in. Needless to say, we felt nothing all night.
Our boat looked similar to this. People lined the sides when they fished. You can go inside as you taxi out to see, but we had seats and wanted to see the views.
Here’s what we used. Simple fishing poles.