How to Fish Live Squid

When you talk about baits for catching yellowtails in Southern California, the number one bait would have to be the live squid. Nothing seems to outproduce live squid year end and year out. For some reason, yellowtails just find them irresistible. Now, to get live squid, most sport boats will catch it themselves. Now the most popular way to get the squid to float is to use bright lights. They hang them over the side of the boat and they usually do it at nights when the moon is very small. As the squid floats up, the crew members will use nets and even crowders to get the squid up. Once the squids are in the net, it's easy to load them into the bait tanks.

As you can see the cruise on these boats, they have a really good look in the squid to float. I've been on many yellowtail boats that were just wide open because we have lots of live squid.