1st ever: Escaping Squid-off competition!

Rebecca from Germany holding the Squid she caught, first one on the score board!

Its a rare occasion for the girls I work with at Escape Resort, to all have the same day off, even more so for it to be during the weekend, when we can get all our partners together as well.

The ink hadn't even dried on the roster before we had started planning our first ever 'Squid-ex' competition.   Being the first of it's kind, we had to have a formal meeting on Friday night to discuss rules and regulations.  Many beers later an 8:30am start was agreed on.  $10 per person entry fee, winner being the person who catches the most squid, takes the cash.

Squiding, actually fishing for squid, is new to us.  We have caught a few before, but never actually fished for them.  A trip to the tackle shop proved the first hurdle, I didn't realise Squid Jigs came in so many different sizes and colours.  I opted for the cheapest, thinking we will worry about the rest once we know what we are doing.  I was double guessing myself as soon as I got to the boat ramp and witnessed the LARGE selection of jigs our fellow competitors had.  It became apparent straight away how new we were at this Squiding game!

Perfect day leaving the marina.  Photo taken moments before for Squid were hooked.

The water was so beautifully flat and clear as we left the marina.  After a quick blat around to blow out the cobwebs, (aka show off our super cool boat to the back-packer I'd brought along) we were straight into the very serious competition mood.

Trolling as slow as you possibly can was the recommended technique, not what you would call an 'extreme' sport.  We stayed in close to shore, looking for weedy area's.  That was all we had to go on.  Rebecca from Germany was standing on the front deck with Johnno spotting turtles and looking for any possible fish, when Johnno was the first to say the lines didn't look right.  Oh ok, so I try to shake off the weed while they continue looking for fish.  'It's not coming off' I say, we will need to wind them in.  Rebecca and I  both winding in our lines, when she mentioned, 'But aren't they Squid'?  OMG, We had squid on, and I was trying to shake them off!! hahaha Lesson learnt!!

 After that it was all serious but fun fishing.  We text the other 3 boats we had found the Squid, they came over and we all continued trolling or drifting while flicking for the next few hours.  Nothing like a little competition to keep it interesting.  Rebecca and I might have been first on the score board, but every time someone else got a squid on board the competitiveness in us all was spiked.

With the wind picking up a 12 noon finish was called.  With only 10 minutes of fishing left, the score board had Johnno in the lead by 1 squid in front of me.  I squealed with delight when I hooked another Squid to draw me with him for the win, and then I squealed some more when I realised how big it was.  But then a shouted loudly 'OH NO, NO NO NO' when Johnno hooked another squid also, before i'd even landed mine.

We had been so careful when landing the squid all day, to avoid being Inked, but the last two large ones were just too exciting.  With a lot of very loud laughing we pulled the squid on board in the last minutes of competition, and they were not happy about it, both pumping out copious amounts of Black ink all over us and the boat!

Squid Ink everywhere!

At the end of the day Johnno was the winner our first ever, but hopefully regular, Escaping Girls Squid-off comp.  Closely followed by myself I would just like to add!

We then learnt that being winner means more than just taking home the cash...we had the larger amount of Squid to clean also!!

Messy job of Squid cleaning.

Johnno receiving his cash prize from Alison the competition founder.