Bait - Managing Frozen Squid

If there's one thing I hate it's wasting bait.. all too often I've thrown bait away bait as a result of the purchased box being too much for a trip, despite purchasing the smallest available box. Trouble is with smaller boxes you're also paying way over the top for your bait.

A great example is squid, a 1lb box is £2.50, a 5lb is under £6!. Thawing out a full box is going to result in a huge loss for the average yak angler. The way I get around this is to do the following:(Now for some folk this will be teaching them to suck eggs, for others who don't know it'll save you money and make using squid that much easier)

Take one 5lb box of frozen squid.

 

Unpackage and drop the block into a sink of cold water, best to do this when the wife is out of the house ;)

 

After about 10 minutes the block will be thawing at the edges. It takes time, but by using your hands (with the aid of a blunt knife) the squid block can be broken up into single semi-frozen squid.

Bag them up quickly, I use ziplock bags, and get them in the freezer ASAP. If you bag them loosely side by side, they'll stay loose once frozen. I normally fully seal the bags the following day.


Keeping them in a box with freezer blocks whilst fishing lets you take the unused squid back home for another day.

Please feel free to comment.