How to Fish for Octopi?

I've been searching the forums and googling for how to fish for octopi and info seems scarce.  Just a string with a squid for bait or does one use a hook of some kind?
Any tips much appreciated.   -Matt

Maybe poke poling?

It really should be legal to take them with traps and other devices, the current regs make octopus a resource that's almost impossible to use.

I'm sure some folks have caught octopi without indending to.  If anyone remembers; What were the circumstances, bait and tackle used?   I assume one might get them while rock fishing.

 Most people I know have caught octopus while diving. They are usually close to a hole surrounded by crab shell debris.
 They use octopus lures in Polynesia but I don't know of any used here successfully.
 Octopus are very smart, and good at problem solving.
                     
                      Good question!

Octopus are very smart, and good at problem solving.

I was gonna say. We have enough problems with some dumb ass fish..

Z

Z, 

I'm actually mixed about targeting Octopi to eat.  They are indeed fascinating, intelligent and wonderful creatures.   But they are so darn tasty!

Maybe I can bait one with a mason jar on a string with a reverse-threaded lid with a hermit crab inside, and in the octopuses' confusion can haul it aboard.   

I saw a film-documentary once......the guy had maybe 30 clay jugs on a rope....he lowered them all into the water (just empty jugs, I think) and then brought the end of the rope up to a float.     He came back later (??? how long ???) and a bunch of the jugs had octopus in them.   They'd just found them and poured themselves inside for "habitat."

Du'we have those guys up here on our coast?

Judd

Du'we have those guys up here on our coast?

http://montereyaquarium.org/efc/living_species/default.asp?hOri=0&hab=5&inhab=220

My questions exactly.

Wow.....600 feet....

"Researchers consider octopuses to be the most intelligent invertebrates—maybe as intelligent as a house cat."

That's wild!

Judd:

The Polynesian method of multiple pots for octopi is true and good, but here in California it might be interpreted as entrapment, thus illegal.   I'll ask the fine folks at DFG.  Maybe they'll let me try a string with a garden pot at the end.   Purely for research of course.   Oops.   I ate my research.   

Eric B:   I'm not sure if my cat is that smart, but he thinks he is.   

Promethean:   What is "poke poling" ?  Poke them with a stick?

Poke poling is walking/wading out at low tide and poking a baited pole under rocks and in crevices and tidepools.  It's a fun way to catch rockfish, lings, crabs, and monkeyfaced eels.  I use a bamboo pole with cyclone fence wire on the end, with a few inches of line straight to a hook.

The big octopi or small ones...?

I remember when I was a kid & still living in Okinawa, my grandpa took me octopi fishing...  He made some lures from some small spiral shells.  Five or six of them attach to a fishing line w/ some weight on it.  you casted them out at evening (I think it was low tide) on beach, and very very slowly pull them in.  When you feel some resistance, you pull faster & small octopi are clinging on to the shells.  I think it was the only some times of year, not all year around...

for the big octopi, my uncle fish for them using the clay pots.  He told me that octopi are very habitat specific, so if you know where the spots are you can catch them almost everyday in same spot.  When you remove one then another one just fill in the spot, I guess.  Good octopi fisherman keep very secretive about spot & only pass on to their sons...

& I know some people go spearing for them too when the tide is super low...   The octopi are hiding in between the rock inside those tide pools.  but I've never finding one...

I really liked those small octopi!  They're very tender!!!

I don't know about around there.  Okinawa is semi-tropical, so they might be the different species, but you can catch the big ones all around Japanese Sea & Pacific ocean.
However, the DFG reg. might be a trick... (pretty much anything goes there...)

Arigato Onigiashimas Naoaki Uminchu-san.

Thank you for the good advice about octopus

and memories from your grandfather in Okinawa.

Thank you.   Okinawa is interesting.