First you have to locate an octopus den. You walk down the beach at minus tides looking for large rocks with “middens” in front of them. Middens are piles of shells that the octopus has eaten the insides out of. While waiting for the octopus to come out, we must stand very still and be very quiet. We wait with our hooks at the edge of the rock. Sometimes we will wait up to 10 minutes just to see one single tentacle pop out. After a few tentacles come out, right when we see the head show up, we stick our hooks in and hook them in the back of the head. You must do this very, very quickly otherwise the octopus will scurry back underneath the rock and “never come out”
Once you have successfully gotten your octopus out from underneath the rock you must take the beak out so it can’t bite you. And by golly wally it hurts like the dickens when they do. In order to take the beak out you need to stick your finger inside their mouth and pull it out gently. And there you have it! That’s how you successfully catch yourself an octopus!
“Well, myself, I started at a real young age, with my father going out to get octopus. My job was to clean them and to pack them around while our father was getting them. That was the first year, then the following year I fixed up my own hook. My father kind of chuckled about it, but I fixed up my own hook and started going out and trying to get my own octopus and catch them…Then, before we went out the next time, the second time, he showed me how to set the hook and how to reshape and everything, how much space you’ll need in between your hook as you’re fixing it. What size of barb and everything, sharing all this stuff with me. He said the reason why yours is getting away is because your gap is too big. He started telling me all this different stuff, I says, oh okay, so, alright so I started fixing it and started getting the right shape to everything and the right size for the barb and how long I needed the barb and everything else. I’ve shared a lot with my son too and my girls. They enjoy going out and getting that with me too, octopus.” Owen James interviewed by B. Schroeder, 1992
