How to Dive for Octopus

Octopus is considered a delicacy in many asian-pacific cuisines. Catching the eight legged cephalopod is an enjoyable way of spending a few hours in the water, and presents some fairly unique challenges. As a master of camouflage, finding octopus is mainly a matter of spotting them or their homes.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• diving gear
• three pronged spear

1. The octopus is nature's master of camouflage and optical illusions. It is capable of altering its color, visual pattern, shape and texture. It can change its color to match the background, and also change its skin patterns to break up its silhouette. Because it's body has no bones, it can change its shape. And if that isn't enough, it can change the texture of its skin to imitate seaweed or algae growth.

2. Because of the animal's mastery of hiding, it is important to know what you are looking for. The three basic things to look for are: 1) its home; 2) its camouflage tendencies; and 3) its mistakes.

3. The home of the octopus is its hole. The octopus is very intelligent and "builds" its home. It will first clear out a hole to make room for itself. This involves removing rocks. Then it will cover the hole with the rocks to hide itself. Look for a pile of rocks either covering a hole or piled up outside of the hole. Often, the rocks will be a different color from other nearby rocks having been recently turned over.

4. 

   But sometimes the octopus is not sitting in its home, and is out hunting. It is possible to find the octopus while it is blended into the background. Look for slight color variations in rocks or on the sand. Look for color changes and texture changes on rocks. Also, look for the eye of the octopus. If you feel like something is watching you, take a closer look. Also, look for perfectly symmetrical shapes. Nature does not often shape rocks perfectly, so if you spot a rock that is perfect, it probably isn't a rock; whereas the octopus seems to favor symmetrical shapes when imitating bumps on coral reefs.

5. 

   The easiest octopus to find is the one that makes a mistake. Sometimes the octopus will give up on camouflage and turn to intimidation by turning black. This makes it highly visible and vulnerable. Another mistake octopus make is swimming. Once spotted, it's a simple matter of following it and spearing it or grabbing it.

6. To catch the octopus, you can either grab it with your hand or spear it. If you attempt to grab it, be quick before it can get a grip on a rock or coral. Once it grabs a hold of something, you need to spear it. To spear the octopus, rub it with your spear until it turns up side down and faces its tentacles towards you. When you see its beak, spear it, then its legs will reach out to grab your spear and your arm and you can easily pull it out of the hole. If you spear it on top of its head, it will grip its hole harder and be difficult to remove.

7. Once removed from its hole, kill the octopus by biting it between the eyes and put it onto your stringer.

[Pillain]

on 10/10/2008 What? No biting between the eyes? That's the best part!

[GreenGardenChic]

on 10/10/2008 This sounds like a really cool thing to try, but I'll just observe the octopi. That's enough for me.