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squid

    THE SCUTTLEBUTT

    A Trip to the Bank

    Finding mackerel for striped bass fishing in the company of humpback whales

    By

    Last week was a good one for fishermen. Striped bass are here in numbers we haven’t seen in quite some time. They are seemingly everywhere, with acres and acres of them on the surface, feeding on sand eels off the Race Point Ranger Station. And at the same time, there was a huge body of fish biting between the Race rips and the Herring Cove Bathhouse and also off the Beach Point cottages. I’m hearing about big schools of fish farther south, from the Pamet to Billingsgate shoals.

    Humpback whales use bubble-net feeding to capture many fish at once. (NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center/Christin Khan)

    Given all this, with the areas teeming with fish being so expansive, there really is no reason for people to be fishing out there on top of one another. Yet we still see boats that simply look for other boats and head towards them rather than looking for their own fish.

    Bluefish are in a now-you-see-them now-you-don’t phase right now. They seem to come and go with the tides, with no pattern at all to their behavior.

    Tuna fishing is starting to gain some traction on Stellwagen Bank, and a few fish have already come in to Provincetown to be taken to market. These early-season fish are typically not very fatty and therefore do not usually fetch a good price at auction.

    Vaughn Cabral and I took his center console up to Stellwagen to get mackerel for bait, as they have been notably absent from their usual places in the harbor and the bay is absolutely loaded with mackerel. We quickly caught 150 pounds of them to use as bait for a week of striped bass fishing.

    We had the company of about a half dozen humpback whales, which were aggressively feeding on the copious numbers of sand eels and mackerel on the bank. The bank looked very healthy, with whales, tuna, mackerel, and sea birds all in big numbers throughout the southern edge.

    A breaching humpback close to the writer’s boat. (Photo by Mike Rathgeber)

    The fin whales have also finally showed up off the Race and Herring Cove, and there are plenty of sand eels there to keep them hanging around. This is a good time to take in a whale watch. Fin whales have the tallest spouts of all the whales here, so spotting them from the beach with a pair of binoculars shouldn’t be too difficult, either.

    We are still looking for the first appearance of white-sided dolphins in our harbor, as they usually come when the squid are here. And the squid are definitely here.

    It was heartwarming to see the Blessing of the Fleet return to our waterfront last Sunday after the Covid pandemic pretty much shut it down last year with minimal goings-on. We went right back to all the time-honored Blessing traditions that take place over the weekend of the Provincetown Portuguese Festival.

    In all, it’s certainly starting to feel like a “normal” season. We all know that can change on a dime, so here’s hoping we can keep staying safe and doing the right things for a healthy summer ahead.

    SQUID INK

    Squidding With Ish and a Sea of Sweet Mystery

    A too-early curfew, a secret spot, and a shower of ink

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — “Call me, Ishmael,” I said, as Ish walked to his parked car. “Otherwise, I will pick you up just before sunset.”

    “I’ll text ya,” he yelled over his shoulder.

    “Oh, and wear a hoodie — a light one. It’s for the bugs.”

    Ish is an old high school buddy, up from Brooklyn for a visit. I had regaled him with my squidding stories over the years; he was bent on going home with calamari for his Sicilian landlady.

    The problem was, at that point in the season, I had yet to land a single squid. Or even, in fact, to properly rig my lines afresh for the squids’ pending arrival. But rest assured: as I write this, the squid are in. Heavy in spots. Best to get on it.

    Squid and their ink feed body and soul for the writer. Here are three at the beginning of becoming art.

    I grabbed the two smallest rods I had — the smaller, the better in squidding — and raced off to Blackbeard’s Bait & Tackle in Eastham, where they set me up with a nontangling double rig, for holding two jigs, and the jigs themselves, one heavier and one a light Yo-Zuri shrimp jig. All told, a $20 investment, per rod. Later, I added ice and beers to the cooler and grabbed a smaller bucket to hold the squid — I hoped — we were about to catch.

    I pulled up at Ish’s campsite just as the shadows were getting long. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had a creditor. By which I mean he was overdressed for the shower of ink that comes along with an evening’s squidding. But his smile showed he properly anticipated the joy of a night spent under the lights at MacMillan Wharf, where we’d soon be, like gamblers on a roll, hauling in squid as fast as we could cast our lines.

    That was how I had described it, anyway. Like one of the best nights. I smiled back at him as he got in the car, imagining his fine threads coated with blobs of ink.

    Now to the squid. “Ready?” I asked.

    “I try all things, I achieve what I can,” Ish said.

    It has always seemed to me that there are kind men and there are unkind men. Ish is the former to such a degree that I harbored a slight fear he might not be able to take responsibility for the death of a lowly squid, a creature whose natural life without an encounter with men like us would be about 10 months. During that short time, a squid sets up its next generation.

    The squid come into our shores every summer to feed and mate. The best spot to catch them is under a light on a pier. MacMillan Wharf is, of course, the recognized premier spot around here.

    No sooner had we pulled into the far end of the wharf than the fine, diminutive lady working the night shift at the harbormaster’s office homed in on us.

    I recognized this lady from an unfortunate encounter two years ago. She had kicked me out that time, at 2 a.m. — long after the 11 p.m. curfew. The thing is, before she discovered me and my scofflaw ways, I had seen her enjoying a long chat with a friend, leaving him to squid to his heart’s content.

    Today, my infraction was a different one, it seemed. “You can’t park here,” she said. “It’s for commercial users only.” I glanced around and noticed all the other squidder cars parked around me. And none of the trucks of the commercial guys who work out of the wharf.

    “What is your name?” I asked.

    “I am not telling you,” she said, and abruptly turned, retreating into her digs overlooking the harbor.

    Thirty minutes later, she came back out. “It’s 10:30,” she said. “Pier closes at eleven.” There were exactly zero squid in our bucket.

    The guy standing next to us, there with his son, was in a similar predicament. Clearly, he had promised his son a better night than two hours of nothing-in-the-bucket. “Ten years ago, you could fish here 24-7,” he said, his disappointment palpable.

    I turned to Ish and motioned for him to join me in leaving. “C’mon. Squid must be seen before they can be killed,” I said. “I’ve got another spot we can check.”

    The dejected father looked up for a hint, but I could not break the code and tell him. “Good luck,” I said, and turned to leave.

    Ish looked down one last time at the incoming tide, silently surveying the vast blue eye of the sea, then the line of squidders, sitting under the lights, then the harbormaster’s window, through which, it seemed, she peered back, threateningly.

    “All men live enveloped in squid-lines,” Ish said, apropos of nothing.

    “What?” I asked.

    He continued, “There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of man.”

    “Well, I’ll tell you about some folly,” I said. “They’re ruining the oldest and most cherished activity here, the one thing on which the town was built. Squidding. It puts food on the table. And it’s socially distanced, too.”

    “I get it,” Ish said. “But why?”

    The guy next to me interrupted. “Seven years ago a bunch of ‘out of towners’ — restaurant folks from Boston, they say — blew through like a storm and made a mess of the pier,” he said. “That’s when the powers that be decided it would be easier to cancel the whole party than to police it.”

    Squidding is cherished as a low-key, late-night tradition. And because it puts food on the table. (Photos Dennis McCoy)

    “A cherished tradition, gone.” I shook my head.

    “There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method,” Ish said.

    “C’mon, let’s hit the backup spot,” I said. And we did.

    From our new vantage point, we saw a shoal of squid 20 yards square. They were moving, as they do, on the surface, zipping to and fro with celerity and ease, hunting in a pack.

    Ish could not help himself. “Thar she blows!” he called out at the wealth in front of us, like he’d just drilled a gusher.

    Indeed, we found our fortune that night. I am certain his landlady was pleased, as was his cleaner. The guy went home in a polka-dot shirt with the bucketful he gathered. All in all, the best night all summer — so far.

    “There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath,” said Ish, quoting Melville once again, as he departed. “There is magic in it.”

    SQUID INK

    Summertime and the Jigging Is Easy

    When the squid come in, wonder, respect, beer, the grill

    By

    washashore squid
    During the die off, squid that have washed ashore gradually lose their iridescent coloring and turn white. (Photo Julianne Kiley)

    WELLFLEET — I parked at Newcomb’s, front row for a surf check, and had not yet left the car when my friend Al walked over, rubbing the head of his newborn son, riding in a Bjorn on his chest.

    “I’ve got some news I think you want to hear,” he said, smiling.

    “Oh yeah?”

    “The squid are washing up on shore in P’town today.”

    “Where did you hear?”

    “Missy. She works up in Truro. Everybody’s talking about it.” He rubbed the baby’s head again. “I think it is going to be a good night at MacMillan,” he said.

    “We’re gonna have to get some ice,” I said.

    “I might bring my kayak,” he said.

    “If it’s like last year’s die off, you are gonna need a bigger boat.”

    We went to see the mayor of South Wellfleet to fill the cooler. Then off to P’town, bubbling with anticipation. Last light was two hours away.

    The tide ebbed into sunset — not the best setup for catching squid. But with squid literally littoral, the tide moved in our favor for beachcombing. We would assess the shoreline before sunset and if there were live fresh squid available on the receding tide, scoop them. Then hit the pier after dark for jigging.

    Immediately after we parked on MacMillan, we overhead a young woman on the sand below, clearly new to this place: “There are dead squid everywhere. A boat must have hit them.” She was right about their being dead.

    We could not help but admire the iridescent reds, oranges, and browns on the squid whose colors still matched the wet rocks. They had not turned white yet, but were still too dead to collect for eating.

    Shoals of squid came and went. We watched them all night through calm, clear waters. They sidled up to our jigs before turning quickly 180 degrees and snapping out a tentacle to strike.

    Squid for Dinner

    Suddenly the entire shoal fled, like when the cops show up at a high school party. For a long moment, the water was empty and still. No squid. Nothing. Then a fat black blob came from under the pier and twirled around a pylon.

    I once read that a squid can swim about one mile per hour faster than a seal. Fast enough to get away, if you see the seal coming.

    Years ago, I saw a six-foot blue shark move effortlessly across the surface of these same waters. It was graceful and beautiful. My spine still tingles when I remember it.

    Everything loves to eat squid: blue sharks and birds, sea mammals and fish. Wolves in the Northwest have been caught on film eating squid from the tide pools. Sperm whales wash ashore dead with basketball-sized suction-cup marks on their heads from battling the 40-foot giant squid in the dark depths below.

    This night, as we unhooked our squid into the buckets, we felt those same suckers, albeit smaller, grab our fingertips, fighting.

    “Like a cat’s tongue, but with suckers,” Al’s friend said. “It stirs up a deep-seated fear response. Like a prelude to certain death.”

    Which it was — for them, not us. A few final squirts, sounding like a heavy sigh, and they resigned to their fates in the bucket.

    Squid are among the best seafoods to consume, given they generally live less than a year, take on a low heavy metal content, and have a high reproduction rate. They are also delicious when cooked properly.

    We noticed later the rims of our beer cans were stained with diluted ink and saltwater. The squid flavored our drinks with a taste of cool savory ocean, a flavor no hipster brewer could replicate.

    We filled two five-gallon buckets of shortfin, aka Ilex or “Boston” squid, by the 11 p.m. curfew. The next night’s dinner was grilled squid stuffed with pork sausage and tentacles, bread crumbs, green onions, and fresh dill.

    So You Want to Squid

    If you care to go and are new to squidding, be respectful of others. Social distancing rules apply, though being outside makes this safe-ish in pandemic times.

    Don’t wear your Sunday best, as squid will squirt you with ink and stain your clothes.

    All you need is a bucket or a cooler with ice, a fishing pole, and a 10-dollar squid jig. You may care to supplement the line with a weight, but basic jigs are heavy enough and work when the squid are in.

    You can cast and reel, or just jig up and down directly below. Best spots are under the lights on the pier. There are hidden ropes on the sea floor that might snag the jig, so don’t drop your jig to the bottom.

    Jig or jerk it quickly, then reel in fast. You’ll feel it when you have one on.

    When you land one, drop the squid, tail down, into the bucket; turn the jig upside-down, letting gravity do the work as the squid tentacle slides off the barbless hook.

    Voila. You are now a squidder.

    The next night was completely different. There were squid, but far fewer; they worked a ball of small bait fish just beneath us. It was amazing to see them hunt and fish the bait; fish scales silvered the water like sparkly glitter as they swam slowly away with prey in their tentacles held to their mouths.

    These adolescent shortfin squid will grow fast and probably be around to catch in the coming weeks. But not by us — we got all we needed.

    Al’s New England Stuffed Squid

    for six people

    This recipe is inspired by a good quahog with a fluffy pork-and-herb stuffing. Seared on the grill and sliced into thick rings, it’s a simple no-sauce-needed appetizer.

    12 medium squid, cleaned

    1 lb. pork sausage

    3 Tbsp. butter

    1 sweet onion, chopped

    About 1/2 cup panko

    About 1/2 cup chicken stock

    A few scallions, chopped

    A handful chopped fresh dill

    Lemon zest

    Salt and pepper

    Skewers for closing the squid

    Clean the squid, separating the head and tentacles from the bodies. Peel off the skin and wings. Discard the beak, any innards, and the cuttle — the clear shard of cartilage inside the body.

    Chop the wings and tentacles, sauté them in a little butter, and set them aside in a bowl.

    Chop the sweet onion and sauté it in a little more butter until collapsing and caramelizing. Add it to the bowl with the sautéed wings and tentacles.

    Remove the sausage from its casings and brown the meat, chopping it up as you go. Pour off any excess fat.

    Gently stir the breadcrumbs into the sausage. Add the onions and tentacles, then the chopped scallions and lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper. Gently stir in chicken stock, a little at a time, and just until the stuffing is moist but still fluffy, not dense.

    Stuff the squid bodies with the sausage mixture, but don’t fill them tightly. You need room to close the tops, and you don’t want the squid to split as it shrinks when it cooks. A toothpick works, but I do several squid on one larger skewer so they can be easily turned.

    Grill the stuffed squid over a hot fire, turning them so they are golden brown on both sides. Slice and serve as an appetizer.

     

    METAPHYSICS

    The Short-Lived Loves of Local Squid

    While males get distracted, females sneak in multiple mates

    By

    Squid appeared maybe 700 million years ago. They predate everything we think of as ancient — sharks, fish, and even trees. But they don’t predate sex. That invention happened about 1.2 billion years ago. Which, along with some savvy marketing, brings us to Valentine’s Day as we know it.

    hatchling squid
    Hatchling longfin squid caught in Nantucket Sound, already showing their five colors. With these and a bit of reflectivity, the squid can instantly match any background or create more complicated patterns. (Photo Owen Nichols/CCS)

    How do squid celebrate their love?

    During spring and summer, females gather in large spawning sites. Since females will mate many times, males compete for their attention. It is unknown whether the fact that squid have three hearts contributes to their passionate behavior. But when they have the opportunity, males rely on a specialized part of an arm — the hectocotylus — to deliver their sperm to the females. Some species go so far as to wrench off the arm and present it to the females, but our local squid play it cooler than that.

    The sperm await in the female’s mantle until she ovulates. The eggs are fertilized as they pass by well-placed sperm.

    The male squid does not have to be nearby at that particular moment, though he usually is, guarding his sweetheart as males do in the pas de deux of squid.

    Do you remember that guy in high school who would post up at the dance and wait quietly for his shot at the girl of his dreams while she danced with some other meathead? He’d hope for them to encounter a temporary setback in their amore, and then he’d be there to console her, like the champ he was.

    Squid have that guy, too. Scientists call him the “sneaker” male.

    When a large male is distracted by any of a number of annoyances, including other large males that may be thinking of sharing their sperm with the female, the smaller, quicker squid may sneak right past him. Genetic tests show this strategy to be effective, yielding approximately 20 percent of squid offspring, with the balance going to the large male.

    The females secrete a substance that coats the fertilized eggs. It takes on some seawater and expands in volume, protecting the eggs and also helping them get attached to a rock or the ocean floor.

    Wellfleet shellfisherman Richard Blakely tells the story of arriving at his oyster grant a few summers back to find his rebar oyster cages crushed beyond repair under the weight of a giant mass of squid eggs. Richard’s cages were strong enough to support his weight when he walked on them. “Musta been 300 pounds of squid eggs,” he said.

    Squid lay eggs all around our coast in the summer. Owen Nichols of the Center for Coastal Studies tells me that Pleasant Bay is a favorite squid trysting spot. Last summer, Owen and his team found many rotten squid eggs in the bay. He suspects this was due to low oxygen levels in the water from fertilizer runoff. It caused an algae bloom, an emerging problem in these parts. Still, even amidst these die-offs, many survived, as evidenced by the juveniles he found to study and as summer’s catch in Nantucket Sound showed.

    squid
    By late summer juvenile squid are gearing up to move to their winter home 200 miles out to sea. (Photo Owen Nichols/CCS)

    Squid reproduce in large numbers and a typical brood can have hundreds of thousands of eggs. Not all of them make it. Squid love stories are brief. Though some species may live longer, the squid that visit our shores survive for only about a year — they pretty much mate and die.

    But hope springs eternal. The squid born last summer are today holed up about 200 miles offshore somewhere near the continental shelf, doing what squid do while they wait for the chance to come back and visit us at MacMillan Wharf come late spring.

     

    CEPHALOPODS

    The Long and Shortfin Year in Squid

    With scientific squidbits from the decade that was

    By

    “They showed up early and left quickly,” said a Provincetown harbormaster.

    “Shortfin squid are everywhere,” said Owen Nichols of the Center for Coastal Studies. “For longfin, the Nantucket Sound fishery was late and short this year.”

    So there you have it, from two great sources: squid were everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They are slippery critters, for sure.

    Shortfin squid
    Shortfin squid (Illex illecebrosus) stranded on Indian Neck in Wellfleet, June 21, 2019. (Photos Dennis McCoy)

    We have two species of squid in our fishery: longfin (Doryteuthis pealii, a.k.a. bone squid or loligo) and shortfin (Illex illecebrosus, a.k.a. Boston squid). It is usually the longfin that come inshore and that we catch under the lights at MacMillan Pier. The shortfin traditionally stay offshore but are known to make inshore appearances.

    The commercially squid picture is complicated. “Big picture as far as the fisheries go: longfin is down and shortfin is up, in keeping with the last couple years,” Nichols said, adding, “Only half the longfin quota has been caught, while the shortfin fishery has exceeded its quota by a little bit and is shut down.” The effect of quotas may seem odd, but as a federal monitor described to me, when the populations are robust, squidders catch a lot, hit the quota early, and shut down the fishery, even though it’s healthy.

    On a more local scale, the squid seemed harder to find at MacMillan this past summer — I saw many bored squidders sitting under the lights. Sure, the squid were there, but on the bottoms and holding tight, and not always where squidding was allowed.

    It was rare to see a shoal of squid swim languorously by, as we have in summers past. Instead, they would attack the surface-swimming mackerel in a flash, with a glorious display of speed and prowess.

    Just down the road in Wellfleet, there was a bona fide squid stranding in June. It was a one-day event and happened, notably, on the solstice. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, stranded on the shore at Indian Neck during the morning tide, and not again.

    Why the solstice? Well, only Mother Nature knows, but it makes sense that a creature that has survived over six hundred million years and five great extinctions may also hold some secrets that connect it to nature’s cycle. And what cycle is bigger than the sun’s?

    McCoy
    Al Emmons cooks up the fruits of his labor over an open fire at Squidfest, the annual event he co-founded a decade ago.

    That same day, a Japanese group posted an Instagram of a mass stranding there, claiming it was related to mating behaviors. This jibes with two observations I made while squidding on the night of the solstice.

    The squid we caught were all shortfin, an abnormality. They were full of seed and eggs. Most intriguing to me, we caught almost a bucket — as many as 100 squid — and there was not one incident of inking, an otherwise common event. Clearly, these squid were saving their energy for something more urgent.

    That night I also witnessed one of the more amazing sights of my squidding life: Wellfleet fisherman Al Emmons landing five squid on one cast. Five! Three was his previous record.

    Looking back over the decade, all that can be said is, “What a ride it was!” We saw the pier bubble with excitement, near fights, and major controversies around access. The first squid genome sequence was published, and scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution studied the way cephalopods (and only cephalopods) edit their own RNA molecules.

    And then there’s the mysterious Kraken (giant squid). Though a few carcasses had washed up onshore, the first live one was filmed in 2012. And scientists showed that giant squid around the globe are all one species, unlike market squid, the species of which differ by location.

    In the future, I expect great work from Brett Grasse and his group at Woods Hole, who are trying to determine how to raise our local squid in captivity. If anyone can do it, it’s Brett and his team.

    SQUID PRO QUO

    All of Us Are Casualties of the Squid Wars

    A proposal to restore Provincetown’s fishing culture

    By

    England vs. Argentina (2012). South Korea vs. Japan (2019). These matchups read like a history of World Cup competitions, but in fact they were clashes where countries have gone to the brink of war over squid. It is no surprise that we, too, fight over squid and have been doing it at MacMillan Wharf for years. We are losing, all of us — even the nonsquidders.

    The fallout from these battles is that the rules for squidding (and fishing) on the wharf have been changed dramatically, for the worse. Gone are the days of grandmas, kids, and everyone in-between having fun and catching squid at all hours.

    Squidding is now limited to one tight spot — maybe 10 percent of what it was — near the harbormaster’s office. There is an enforced hard stop at 11 p.m., which just happens to be prime time for snagging the nocturnal squid.

    Actual fresh squid, printed with their own squid ink on mulberry paper by Mark Adams.

    The issue is complex. For starters, squid are not fish, so they are not governed by the rules for fishing, such as required permits or limits. Knowing this fact helped me one night when an environmental enforcement cop showed up.

    “Can I see your fishing license, please, sir?”

    “I’m not fishing…”

    “Yeah, you are. I saw you reel one in.”

    “Those are squid. They are invertebrates, not fish.”

    He walked away.

    The current squid war at MacMillan started over a decade ago with a sudden influx of off-Cape squidders. Like many before them dating back to before the Pilgrims, they were drawn to the bounty of our waters.

    And there was something determined about them. They worked in an organized group under a well-dressed boss who collected the haul from his team, then put the squid in coolers in the back of his S.U.V.

    They gathered massive quantities every night when the squid were in — more than any family could eat in a year. The Cape Cod Times reported that one group was nabbed with over 250 pounds one night. There are no limits, so officially they were not doing anything wrong.

    Their real sin was being inconsiderate. These people were oblivious to the etiquette of squidding.

    The squid rush was on and no one and nothing was safe from it. The newcomers trampled the regulars and sullied the pier. They climbed onto boats they did not own and stained them with squid ink; the same with the trucks of working fishermen parked near the squidding hot spots.

    Many people experienced such flagrant fouls as the casting of lines directly over our own. A grandmotherly local told of losing her favorite squid jig when a tangle ensued; the guy cut her line without even trying to salvage it.

    Another retirement-age summer squidder, up from Connecticut, told me, “They get right between you and your wife.” Indeed, they frequently dashed to and fro, casting where the squid swam by, undeterred by the presence of people already there in that exact spot. And of course, they cast over them, too.

    An out-of-towner squidding in Provincetown. (Photo Dennis McCoy)

    I have long wondered if it was worth noting these squidders were Asian: Cambodian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, and Korean, by my assessment. They were mostly recent immigrants, judging from their poor English skills.

    Was xenophobia at play when the guy next to me reached into his pocket to show me his handgun? Whatever moved him to bring heat to the pier, that’s when I knew things had gotten out of control.

    The harbormaster acted to calm the storm with new rules. And it has worked, sort of.

    “We finally got the crowds under control,” an assistant harbormaster told me last summer. But with crowd control has come a loss of something more than a pastime. It’s a loss of our very history and culture. Fishing is a major reason Provincetown was founded. Today’s limits on that activity are the most severe in the 399 years since the Pilgrims arrived.

    Hell, even the bars stay open later than the pier now. Whatever the nuisance these visitors wrought, could this be what we really want? First we closed the high school. Now we are losing the culture of fishing from our pier. What is next?

    I suggest that in recognition of the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival the pier managers reconsider these new rules. Fishing from the pier is as inviolable a right as those protected by the First Amendment, assuming we are doing no harm to other people or property.

    We need to find a way to manage the people who are causing problems and teach them how squidding ought to be. After all, there are plenty of squid in the sea. But there is only one Provincetown, and these regulations are gutting its spirit.

     

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