Last year, the market squid off California were so abundant that the fishery actually reached its quota for the first time in history. Normally, squid fishing season is April 1st to March 31st--yep, that's all year. But when they hit the quota back in December 2010, the fishery closed.

However, when April 1st, 2011, rolled around and government officials opened the fishery again, no squid boats sallied out into Monterey Bay. According to the Monterey Weekly,

When the squid season began April 1, local fishermen held back in hopes of pressuring processors to bump the price of calamari from $500 to $600 per ton, according to David Haworth, vice president of the California Wetfish Producers Association. 


Fishermen and processors alike were feeling the economic squeeze of high gas prices--fishermen for their boats, and processors for shipping the squid to overseas markets.

Fishermen and processors were still at an impasse in early May. But some of the captains couldn’t pass up a good squid year, even at $500 per ton. Once they’d broken the liquid picket line, Haworth says, the other boats resumed fishing too.


Now that the squid boats are back, let's indulge in some alliterative picture-painting:

Glowing boats bob in the night off Pacific Grove’s coast, their lights luring lusty Loligo opalescens from the depths.