Professor Nora Terwilliger looks at a big squid Monday at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston. The squid was caught by Port Orford fisherman Orion Ashdown last week. - World Photo by Susan Chambers

 

CHARLESTON — Tales of a giant squid roaming Pacific waters have circulated for hundreds of years. Some even have been found and a few colossal squid have been recorded.

Last week, Port Orford fisherman Orion Ashdown found one of his own.

OK, so it wasn’t quite giant or colossal on a scale of squid vs. sperm whale, but the squid attached to Ashdown’s big sablefish is, indeed, related to the giant squid that can grow to 40 feet long.

“I never caught one of those before,” Ashdown said Monday. “We were lucky to get it aboard. It tried to let go when we got it to the surface.”

Ashdown and his two-man crew were longlinging for blackcod in about 167 fathoms of water, about 1,000 feet deep. When he started hauling in his gear, he saw something big coming up with the fish.

“I thought it was a big octopus,” Ashdown said.

It’s not uncommon for fishermen to catch octopus in their crab gear or in trawl nets or even attached to fish on their longline hooks.

But a 12-foot-long, 56-pound Moroteuthis robusta? A robust clubhook squid, as they’re commonly called?

“I thought it was only 8 or 9 feet long,” Ashdown said.

The squid didn’t want to let go of the 12- to 15-pound fish, but did, finally. Then it started getting aggressive and changing colors, turning bright red, then a purplish color, then whitish, Ashdown said.

Now the robust clubhook — so-named for its two long feeding tentacles, the ends of which have powerful clublike hooks used for grasping its prey — is stretched out on a freezer at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston, after fishermen called the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for help in identifying it. One of its two feeding tentacles is missing, torn off in the struggle to get it onboard.

OIMB Professor Nora Terwilliger said she plans to let her marine invertebrate students dissect it either this summer or next year.

“It’s a fantastic teaching opportunity,” Terwilliger said.

The robust clubhook squid has been found on both sides of the Pacific, from California to British Columbia. The clubs on its tentacles have rows of sharp hooks, made for grasping and holding prey. The effect of the clubs on prey is similar to those found in pictures of sperm whales that have battled giant squid and survived: criss-crossed scratches, scars and marks along its body.

Terwilliger said the M. robusta, in its live state, swims forward while hunting but is able to turn part of its body, the siphon, in the opposite direction to go backward to escape. It’s kind of like turning the nozzle on a jetboat to change direction.

“We’ve had them come in one or two times a year,” Terwilliger said, but seldom are they in this kind of condition, preserved and usable. Most times, the squid have washed up on a beach and already are partially decomposed.

Humboldt squid, smaller, stockier squid, are caught fairly frequently as the squid school and follow the Humboldt Current as far north as Alaska.

“I knew it wasn’t a Humboldt,” Hallmark Fisheries’s Tony Cottor said from the station in Port Orford. “It looked like it could eat you.”