Watch: El Diablo, or Squid, Invade Long Beach, Tourney Nears

The three-quarter day boat Enterprise out of Long Beach Marina Sportfishing encountered two-to-five-pound Humboldt squid in big schools near some of the off-shore oil rigs this past week and offered anglers a welcome surprise.

“Our passengers has a blast with them,” said skipper Andy Siratt.

Humboldt squid moved into the waters four to six miles off Huntington Beach Wednesday afternoon, and provide a delight, especially to youthful anglers.

It’s sometimes a comical scene on deck when fishing for jumbo squid. As anglers bring them to the surface, they have a penchant for squirting copious quantities of cold sea-water in there predators' face. In other cases, instead of water, some anglers are squirted with ink. It’s not such a bad idea to add a raincoat to your tackle arsenal to avoid fishing in soaking wet clothes for the rest of the day or night.

Humboldt squid can reach six feet in length and weigh as much as 100 pounds. They are voracious, sometimes cannibalistic feeders that wipe out everything in their paths. They have a large brain, three hearts and a razor sharp beak. In Baja California, fishermen call the squid, diablos rojos or red devils.

“We are happy to see them here,” said Don Ashley from Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach. “They are not all that big yet so they shouldn’t do a lot of damage to the environment. They are fun to catch and good eating too.”  Recently, hundreds of the jumbo squid washed up on Blacks Beach near San Diego.

Tuna fishing remained excellent for boats able to fish 150 miles from San Diego. The waters off San Martin Island in Northern Baja California continue to produce excellent bluefin and yellowfin tuna fishing as well good kelp paddy yellowtail fishing along with some dorado. Anglers have to be on a 1.5 day trip or better with a 6-7 p.m. departure time in order to arrive to the prime fishing grounds with time to fish.

Surf fishing remained good in most areas with barred perch, corbina, spotfin craoker, halibut leopard sharks and more being taken off most Southern California beaches. Excellent corbina fishing has been the rule off San Clemente, some nice halibut near Corona del Mar and Newport, with some nice spotfin croaker near Seal Beach. Palos Verdes is producing some nice opaleye perch on frozen peas and there has been some good barred perch fishing off Redondo and Hermosa Beach.

The Sportfishing Conservancy in Belmont Shore is teaming up with The Artful Angler tackle store to put on the 3rd annual No Motor Tournament Saturday, Oct. 1. Any "human powered" means of participating in this catch and release tournament is allowed. This includes surf fishing (fly and conventional), kayak, SUP,etc. Fishing time is 7am-12pm followed by an awards presentation, raffle, and a delicious BBQ hamburger lunch on the beach. For more info email Jenny Armstrong at "jennyarmstrong4@gmail.com" or to sign up go to www.sportcon.org. The Artful Angler also has in-store sign-ups. They are located at 3817 Santa Claus Lane, Carpinteria, CA 93013-1110. Phone number (805) 566-5900.