I love to go squiding. The best sotong season is from June to early September. A quick check with the fishing charter to see if the sotongs have arrive. With a good team of sotong anglers, to hit 600 pieces of sotong is a relative easy task. An arsenal of 3-4.5 size squid jigs in orange and pink colors will suffice. Opt for thin FC leader will ensure a hookup most certainly… Do ensure that sotongs are properly iced as the carcasses will continue to produce “heat” for a while. A tip on selecting sotongs from wet market, choose those with a “translucent” body with very clear spots and bright eyes. The body should be firm to touch.
A tip on selecting sotongs from wet market, choose those with a “translucent” body with very clear spots and bright eyes. The body should be firm to touch. Fresh squid should not smell fishy or "squidy".
Though squids and it’s mollusks brethren are nice to eat, they can be nightmarish to clean because of their notorious ink sac. However, I have a simple way to overcome the mess of cleaning sotong with just 2 cuts. I would divide and pack the whole squids into several “Food Ingredient Packs” and freeze the packs. Do not wash the squids until you are ready to cook them.
Remove the packs from the freezer when you are ready to cook. Wait for the squids to thaw.
The right time to clean a squid is when you are able to slit the body lengthwise with a knife while the squid is still in a semi frozen state. The body is now slit open with the guts and innards still in solidified state. Remove the solidified gut and “plastic” spine as a whole.
The second cut is make between the eyes and the tentacles. Cut through the head and squeeze out the beak.
No ink is leaked even when the cut has punctured the ink sac as the ink sac is still frozen.
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