Eging / squid fishing with a squid jig

I was introduced to eging (Squid fishing with a squid jig) by my fishing shifu. The first time I tried eging was at an island off Mersing where we stood waist deep in the water casting and retrieving the squid jigs for about 4 hours. I didn't catch anything (erm, which was quite depressing) while my shifu caught about 8-9 pieces in all. So, one night this month where we were fishing at our secret spot and he had suggested baiting (to my surprise but he being the expert would know what fishes take lures) and a sotong took my bait TWICE. Despite my best efforts to bring in the sotong (the second attempt we saw the white body of the sotong rise to the surface), because I was using a single hook (with a prawn attached), there was no way to set hook deep enough to bring the sotong in. My shifu told me not to waste time trying to get sotong with the setup.

So, the next weekend when we went there, we brought some squid jigs. My shifu landed 6 pieces in succession after his first fish (he caught that using another method (not using a net of course)) and I, as usual, came up empty. My shifu taught me how to work the squid jig (the triangle method) and although after about an hour where I alternated between despair and hopelessness, I just kept at it, remembering the 10,000 hour rule. AND, then on my Xth no of cast and retrieve, I felt the jig get stuck at the buttom on the way back. For a moment I thought that my jig had sungkot again (stuck in/on the rocks at the bottom). I pulled harder and the "stuck feeling" disappeared but my rod (soft tip) was still bent with the weight of...something.

Totally excited, everything I knew about fishing left me and I was yanking upwards on my rod like a fool as if that would bring the sotong to surface - can you believe it, I forgot to work the reel! It was only like a full minute later that I realised what I should have been doing and reeled the sotong in and landed it! Here's a pic of my first sotong caught on a squid jig.

The squid jig that landed me this beauty is a yo-zuri squid jig size 3.5. It cost RM 20 (about SGD 8) - well worth every cent! I had learnt from previous fishing trips and all that one should always change jigs and I had changed between 3-4 cheaper (exori and surecatch brands) and smaller (size 2.5 to 3) jigs before opening up this yo-zuri one. My shifu told me that even the SGD 2 squid jigs work well enough to catch these sotongs but I guess he must have forgotten I don't have the level of skill that he has! In the hands of a master, miracles happen. In my hands, I need the best I can afford to get unfortunately. Here is a close up picture of the beauty, note the green eyes (why do squids have green large eyes - scary!) and the tentacles which are used to grasp its prey and pull it towards the mouth ( a beak which can give you a v painful peck so I read.)
My shifu returned after that from where he had gone to and we went to another area to fish. He hooked a todak but because of the shape of the mouth, it was impossible to land the todak (we were more than 4ms above the water level). My shifu gave me all the catch of the night which I swear, was a nightmare in all sense of the word. The squids/sotongs had so much black ink that the pail I put them in was stained black and when I put them in the kitchen toilet to wash them before I could put them in the sink, all the squid ink made such a mess of the walls and floor! I had to clean the walls and floors after that! Here is a picture of the catch for the night! My shifu told me the next night he returned and wiped out even more of the sotong clan - more than half a kilo worth of sotongs!