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Braedon Flynn got the text Friday from his friend Ryan Lawlor: Jumbo squid had invaded the waters off Newport Beach.
Flynn, a Newport Beach native who had been around fishing all his life, had never encountered the oversized creatures. Lawlor, who’d tangled with them a few years ago off San Diego, promised to call Flynn if the squid ever made it to Newport Beach.
So Flynn and Lawlor grabbed fishing rods Saturday night and jumped on a private boat with a third buddy, trailing a commercial vessel that was using sonar to locate the squid population.
Flynn said he had one thing in mind: calamari steak. On moonlit waters two miles off the coast, the trio caught six Humboldt squid, each between 4 and 5 feet long. A commercial-market squid is about the size of a human hand.
