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Outside Magazine December 2002

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Out There
Gettin' Jiggy (Cont.)

RIGHT ABOUT DUSK we drove under the Alaska Way Viaduct, near Pioneer Square, a historic district of restaurants and trendy shops a block off the waterfront. We parked between an

Puget Sound is also home to the mysterious giant squid, so it was with some trepidation that I lowered my psychedelic jig into the water.

idling limousine and a man sleeping beneath a blue plastic tarp, walked across Alaska Way, and headed north, "up the Sound," keeping an eye out for anybody who looked like he might be getting ready to jig some squid. It was still a little early and no jiggers were at Pier 63, the most popular gathering spot for jigging, so we decided to try a rogue move and jig Pier 57, a few blocks south behind Fisherman's Restaurant and Bar and a kitschy art gallery called Pirate's Plunder.

I'd pulled the battery out of my Subaru and lugged it along with us. We took two pieces of copper wire with roach clips, ran them from the battery to an AC/DC inverter, and plugged in a big-ass, 2,070-lumen floodlight. When I shone the light on the water, I swore it would parboil any squid that happened along. As we were messing with this outfit, a professional-looking man in his early fifties wearing dress slacks and a trench coat came out of the art gallery.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

I figured he was there to kick us off the pier, but we didn't bother lying. "We were thinking we might try to catch some squid," Matt said.

"You got a light, huh?"

"Hell, yeah," I answered. He went back inside. In a moment he returned with a fishing rod.

It got so windy that I wrapped a bungee cord around my head to hold my hood in place. We drew quite a crowd as it got dark. The art gallery guy's daughter showed up with a fishing pole and her boyfriend. Another guy and girl of about college-freshman age walked up to ask what we were doing. I told them, and they got comfortable leaning against a rail, like they were going to stay until it happened. A man in a red leather jacket walked up. "What you catch?" he asked. He spoke with an Italian accent.

"Squid. You like squid?"

"Yes, I cook many ways," he said. Several other people crowded in close to the light, putting rods together.

I'd never caught a squid, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Puget Sound is also home to the mysterious giant squid, so it was with some trepidation that I lowered my psychedelic jig into the water.

I looked over at Matt. He had his jig in the water about halfway to the bottom, which he said was 20 feet down.

"You want to move the rod up and down," Matt suggested. "Real lightly." Within seconds I became aware that a squid was groping my jig.

I cranked on the reel, and a squid emerged in a fury of squirting ink and grappling tentacles. Even though it was only about eight inches long, an average size, I was struck by the memory of those sea monsters that destroy Tokyo in old Japanese movies. A sea-monster scream seemed so apropos to the squid's emergence that Matt provided one, a habit of his that I adopted as my own. It was a shrill screech, sort of a gusheegushowee. As I jacked the squid over the rail, it landed a shot of black ink right on the chest of my coveralls, forming a kick-ass badge. I announced that from now on, I would answer only to Sheriff Squid.

The squid gurgled and changed colors from white to red to brown, like a chameleon wired on speed. At the top of its body a round head with two large eyes formed the base for eight arms and two spindly tentacles. The body, a fleshy cylinder called the mantle, resembled an occupied condom. A thin, cellophane-like shell gave the mantle a slight rigidity. Looking at a squid, you've got to hand it to whoever started eating them. What an open-minded individual! I dropped the squid into my bucket and tried to visualize the legal daily limit of ten pounds.

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