And, while I wouldn’t say that Pam is excited as I am by calamari season, I think I see a pep in her step every May when the southwest winds start to blow and the squid move in from offshore. I’ve since broken most of the bad habits from my bachelor years (helped along by the strict ban on cleaning squid in the kitchen sink). It began with my deck boots hurriedly kicked off at the door and ended with the licked-clean plate and crumpled throw pillow where she deduced her husband fell asleep and the dog polished off the calamari. During the first squid run of our marriage, she walked me through a frighteningly accurate reconstruction of the crime scene. Where I see the beginning of the best time of year, she sees only spilled breadcrumbs, splattered butter, and squid-ink fingerprints on the cabinets and refrigerator. Pam feels differently since she views the aftermath of my midnight meals in the clear light of day. I admittedly romanticize this calamari consumption, viewing the squid fishing and cooking as an appetizer to the entrée of the “serious” saltwater fishing season, when stripers, bluefish, fluke, and sea bass return to both the figurative and actual menus. There are a number of delicious and complicated calamari recipes, but I prefer mine pan-fried in butter with a light coating of breadcrumbs, eaten over the sink, with the only the dog, roused from sleep by the smell of the cooking, as company. Because fishing for squid from shore takes place after nightfall, that means I often enjoy my fresh-caught calamari as a midnight snack.

I believe that squid taste best when prepared as soon after catching as possible. Eight squid is plenty for my purposes, but I decided to stay until I caught “just one more.” A few minutes later, with nine in the bucket, I headed home for the best part of squid fishing.Ĭatching squid isn’t very exciting-even a large squid fights only a little better than a glob of seaweed-but the promise of the meal to come makes their return one of my favorite rites of spring-and perhaps my wife Pam’s least favorite.

Over the next hour, I caught eight squid by working the shadow lines while the fishermen directly under the lights out-fished me at least two to one. Before the sea bass and porgy seasons open and before the big stripers return, longfin squid move inshore to spawn and feed best of all, they swarm to lighted docks like moths to a flame, putting them within easy reach of shore-bound anglers.

Squeed fish