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We aren’t exactly into the season where it’s fun to throw a line off a dock and see if you get lucky. But it isn’t terribly far away. There are the well-known saltwater recreational fisheries like that for striped bass, for example. And then there are plenty of other lesser-known opportunities to get a closer look at what is under the water.

One of the most fun “fishing” experiences I had was with a group of students many years ago when I was teaching programs at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) in San Diego. Through some incredible good fortune, I was tasked with designing experiential programs that linked the research being done at SIO with the community through education. This included taking students out one evening to jig for squid. It’s an amazingly simple process with results that can sometimes seem magical. You basically put a little “jig” (a lure with a series of little spikes on it) on the end of a line, dangle it in the water and jig it (pull it up and down). When squid go for their prey, they grab it with their tentacles and then chomp through it with their hard beak. It’s the tentacles that get caught on the spikes of the jig. But you have to watch out for their beak, which is quite sharp, when taking it off the hook. Jigging for squid is also extra fun because you go out at night when the squid are out feeding. Squid are nocturnal hunters, so the best time for fishing is in the dark. But they also tend to be attracted to light, so fishing along the shore works well — whether from a dock or a shoreline.

We have two species of squid in Maine. The larger longfin squid (Loligo pealei), which can be up to 2 feet in length, and the shortfin squid (Illex illecebrosus), which tops out at about a foot long. This one is closer in size to the ones I caught in California, which were known as “market squid” (Doryteuthis opalescens), in part because there is a large commercial fishery for them there. They are quite different, however, from the giant Humboldt squid, which can be up to 5 feet long and are voracious predators.

Both of the Maine squid species come into shallow waters along the coast in the spring where they spawn. They have pretty interesting spawning behavior. Longfin squid have what some call “squid fingers” that are little finger-like clusters of eggs that attach to a rock or other item on the seafloor while they develop. Shortfin squid, however, have gooey blobs of eggs that float freely in the water column before hatching out. One late summer day in Maine, I was with my daughters on a tide pooling trip when one of them happened to scoop up a baby squid in her hand and watched it change color right there. As the squid grow, they will find their way back out into deeper, more open water until it is time to return inshore to reproduce themselves.

Populations of both Maine species are monitored by and regulated at the state and regional levels, depending on whether the fishery is recreational or commercial. The commercial fishery in Maine is small with harvesters using some variety of bottom trawl or fish traps, or sometimes putting a net around a small inlet to create a pound to trap them. Recreational fishermen typically use a hand line or rod and reel. Both types of harvester are allowed to keep their catch with no limit on quantity harvested or size in state waters. But they each require a different type of license from the Maine Department of Marine Resources — even if you’re just jigging off a dock.

While squid isn’t typically at the top of restaurant menus in Maine, there is, of course, a taste for calamari — battered and fried slices of the squid’s tentacles and tube-like mantle But squid is delicious prepared any number of ways, whether braised or grilled. So, as the weather warms, whether you want to catch them or not, going out at night with a light in the shallows, you might catch a glimpse of these speedy creatures.

Susan Olcott is the director of strategic partnerships at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

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