Close Encounter With An Octopus

June 7, 2022 

One of my favourite parts about crabbing, prawning, and fishing, apart from the obvious joy of catching a fish and the delicious food that we can catch and gather, is the unknown of what we might pull up.  In particular, each time we pull up our prawn traps, because they are left for several days at a deeper depth, it is always interesting to see what comes up in the trap. 

This year we have found that we are catching a lot more squat lobsters than in other years, which is an interesting change. 

 

On one particular day, however, we pulled up our traps and we had an octopus inside. 

Our bait container had been carefully unscrewed, all of our bait had been eaten, and we had very few prawns, but getting to see the octopus was totally worth it.  They are such cool animals.  

This was only the second time that we had caught an octopus in our prawn trap, and the last time was back when we were out at anchor in 2019.  The holes in our prawn traps are only about 1/2” wide, and that first time that we had an octopus in our trap we did not manage to get the trap open quickly and the octopus decided to free itself.  It started to work its way through the 1/2” holes, but with multiple arms out of different holes it was still trapped and yet we were unable to help it without risking hurting it.  We ended up hanging the trap over the side of our tender and watching as the Octopus worked to figure out the puzzle of getting free.  Within about 15 minutes it had picked one 1/2” hole, worked its entire body through it, and swam away.  It was incredible.   

This time, we were prepared; we knew we had to act quickly.  Sure enough, as soon as the trap was out of the water the octopus started to send one arm at a time through a hole.  We rushed to open up the trap and then Jason cradled the octopus on the inside while I lifted up its three arms that were on the outside.  Holding the arms in line with the holes enabled us to gently slip the arms back through the holes while Jason held the body and the other five arms.  It was amazing how strong the suction cups of the arms were; it felt like it would never let go of my hand.  We managed to get the three arms back through the holes, and with the octopus now fully back inside the trap Jason was able to lift it out through the open door. 

It was so cool to see an octopus up close, and to get to touch it, but with eight arms it was constantly trying to climb out of Jason’s hands, just like a spider, always moving, so we lowered it to the water and watched as it swam away and downwards.  It was very cool.  

We also occasionally pull up large snails in our prawn traps which we have tried eating and they actually taste quite good.  Sometimes hermit crabs inhabit the snail shells, and one time we pulled up a particularly large hairy hermit crab.  So cute!