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Giant Squid


greg123

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Hi Raiders,

I thought a few people might be interested in this. Last weekend during the Port Hacking GFC tournament fishing on Tantrum we came across a dead giant squid. It was missing its tenticles (A marine biologist onboard explained that sperm whales are often the cause of this). The mantle measured about 1.5-2m. We ended up dragging as much as we could on board although it was pretty fragile and broke up while it was pulled with gaffs etc. We stopped dragging lures for about an hour and used the squid as burley for sharks with no success. This is the best photo I could get as my hands were soon covered in squid slime. Sorry theres no other object with it to give it's size some context.l

post-5126-002372100 1335841204_thumb.jpg

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I've seen many documentries on these giant squid, until recent years no one had ever seen one alive until the crew on a fishing boat managed to jag one on a long line meant for some type of fish, any how there's footage of them with gaffs and nets and they actually get it on board, some one even posted it on YouTube, in the end I think it ended up at some research place in NZ.

It sort of makes sence to a degree, when the colder weather comes around the larger squid show up, it would only make sence that deeper colder waters would be home to largers models.

Fishingphase

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I remember seeing a doco about giant squid - apparently the waters off South Aust are a favourite spawning ground, and squid travel from all over the place to spawn. Amazing to see some of the footage, even moreso to know that they picked SA as the preferred place to spawn.

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I remember seeing a doco about giant squid - apparently the waters off South Aust are a favourite spawning ground, and squid travel from all over the place to spawn. Amazing to see some of the footage, even moreso to know that they picked SA as the preferred place to spawn.

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WOW, that's big. Thanks for the info, and I can't wait to see one like that one day . It never ceases to amaze me what you can come across in the ocean.

Mike

Hi Mike, you can see them at night at Browns mountain. They come around the bout especially with lights on and if you are burling, what you eill see is white flashes darting around the boat and these squid are over a meter long.

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Hi Mike, you can see them at night at Browns mountain. They come around the bout especially with lights on and if you are burling, what you eill see is white flashes darting around the boat and these squid are over a meter long.

They don,t mind eating live gem fish , brought them up on a past trip .

Was amazed at there size and was really good to see :thumbup:

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There are many species of squid around so when we see big squid, they could be any species (except arrows and southerns).

They could be grays squid (common at the fishmarkets) or humbolts or maybe even colossal squid (bigger than the giant squid).

With every documentary I watch regarding deep water exploration, they always say they discovered new species of invertebrates - mainly jellyfish but also squid.

Fascinating stuff - if only the sea was calm 24 X 7 then we could build a viewing platform with lights on it and a helicopter pad on top to ferry nocturnal observers there....

I would just love to watch what lies beneath the surface at night.....

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Looks like a cuttlefish to me

It was definitely not a cuttlefish. It did not have a cuttlebone, and as I said the mantle was about 1.5 to 2m whereas the largest cuttlefish mantles get to 0.5m.

Also I imagine the marine biologist onboard would be quick to correct us if it were a cuttlefish.

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