Squid is often used to bulk out other baits and its fairly easy to obtain from several sources.

Supermarkets

From this source its usually dressed for the table i.e cleaned, gutted, skined & rumored sometimes to be bleached.
This can be a good standby bait and will still catch, but the cleaning process, i feel, removes alot of the scent however the brilliant white flesh makes for an attractive sight bait.

Bait Shops

Most often availiable is frozen Calamari squid in 1 lb or 5lb boxes, these squid are between 3 - 8 inches and can be used in many ways.

Bait Preparation

Whole

Though the boat anglers around the solent when targeting large winter cod tend to use several whole squid strung on a single large hook or pennel - I'd use just 1 squid, skinned (take the thawed squid & pull both 'wings' down the body peeling off the pigmented skin revealing the bright white flesh) mount on a large single hook or a pennel & whip with bait elastic for big casts as the weight of the bait often strips it from the hook during casting.

Squid Wrap

Skin the squid as described earlier. Slit one side of the body lengthwise, hook through pointy end, thread worm/sandeel etc bait onto hook ,pass hook point out about 3/4 the way down body (sticking hook through head if leaving head attached). Wrap edges of squid around fish/worm bait and whip up with bait elastic, a pennel rig is best , secure running hook in pointy end of squid, job done.

Squid Strips

Skin squid & slit up one side of body, remove head and guts. Cut resulting triangular shaped flesh into strips of a size to suit. If float fishing hook lightly in/out one end. Hook through several times adding a twist to the strip each time to help secure it on the hook but leave a bit hanging off the end to wave about(some match anglers go to the trouble of cutting strips in the loose end to immitate tenticles). Alternitively bind a large strip alongside a worm or sandeel bait or add small strips as a tip either above or below another hook bait (worm/sandeel etc).

Heads

A whole squid head makes a great tip for a large worm cod bait, 1/2 a head makes a good bream bait. When using the head of a squid in a bait pierce the eyes to release a good scent trail.


Party squid- 1lb packs of small squid, 1-2 inches in length. Hook individually or in bunches but dont mask the hook point.


Buying frozen?

When buying squid it should come from the freezer near white in colour, if it has been partially defrosted and frozen again it will be tinged pink. The more they have been defrosted the pinker they get when refrozen, I've caught eels on smelly red squid, but not much else.