Puget Sound Squid: What You're Actually Catching

Almost everything you catch jigging off a Puget Sound pier is one species: market squid, Doryteuthis opalescens (still commonly labeled by its older name, Loligo opalescens). Knowing a little about what you’re actually targeting changes how you fish for it.

Size and lifespan

WDFW’s own species page puts adult market squid found in Puget Sound and inside waters at around 8 inches, mantle plus tentacles — genuinely small, which is part of why jig size matters more than most anglers expect. They’re also short-lived: WDFW notes a lifespan of “no more than one year,” so the squid in front of your jig on any given night are a completely fresh generation from the year before.

Where they actually are

Market squid are the most common squid species along the Washington coast, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Puget Sound. They’re free-swimming and school like baitfish — which is exactly why a jig worked with erratic, fleeing-prey action outfishes one just dragged in a straight line. A school that’s keyed onto light and bait activity at a pier will often stay in the area for a stretch of a night rather than passing through once.

Why this shapes technique

None of this is trivia — it’s the reasoning behind the technique itself. A short-lived, schooling species that keys on light and erratic movement is exactly what the snap-sink-pause retrieve is built around: the snap imitates a fleeing baitfish, the pause is when a squid in a nearby school actually commits. It’s also why lit piers matter so much — the light does real work concentrating a genuinely small, fast animal into range of a shore-based cast.