Squid Jigging 101: The Complete Puget Sound Guide

Puget Sound has one of the more overlooked squid jigging fisheries on the West Coast — real current, real depth, and a squid species that responds well to the right squid lure fished with the same tip-run technique refined across Japan and Southeast Asia for decades, where it’s known as eging. Almost none of that is written down anywhere specific to this water. This page is the starting point for what we’ve put together so far, organized in the order it’s actually useful to read it.

Start here: what you’re catching, and when

Before gear or technique, it helps to know what’s actually in the water and when it’s worth showing up.

• Puget Sound Squid: What You’re Actually Catching — the species, its size, and why its behavior shapes the whole technique.
• When to Squid Jig in Puget Sound — the real season, not just what’s legal.

Gear: what actually matters

• Why a Real Squid Jigging Rod Matters — what makes a dedicated squid rod different, and the actual snap-sink-pause retrieve technique.
• Squid Jig Size & Color: How to Actually Choose — sizing and color logic, applied to how this water actually fishes.
• Puget Sound-Style Jigs vs. Real Squid Jigs: Myth or Truth? — where the “traditional jigs don’t work here” claim actually comes from, and what’s proven worldwide.
• Squid Jigging Glossary — plain-English definitions for the terms that come up once you’re past the basics.

Where: every squid-jigging pier we’ve mapped

• Best Piers for Squid Jigging in Puget Sound — all 22 public piers we’ve confirmed are set up for it, grouped by county, with real facility detail for each.

Gear built for this water

Everything above feeds into one thing: gear that’s actually right for Puget Sound squid jigging, not adapted from somewhere else. Shop the Squid Jigging lineup →