Northwest Fishing Reports

Was wondering if anyone was going out on a boat in Puget Sound. Want to target Dogfish. Can pay for boat gas and bring bait.

How do you target dog fish? Are they worth eating? I have a boat but haven't hooked up my down rigger yet.

just use fresh bait (especially herring) and drop it down. if there's any doggies around they'll bite.

Its not so much how you target dogfish. My question is why would you want to. They are good to eat but theres alot of prewashing and soaking needed to make the meat safe to eat. If you plan on catching them and killin them . That is illegal to do I do believe.

racfish wrote:Its not so much how you target dogfish. My question is why would you want to. They are good to eat but theres alot of prewashing and soaking needed to make the meat safe to eat. If you plan on catching them and killin them . That is illegal to do I do believe.

Clearly you have been mislead good sir. Clean then as soon as you catch them, being careful not to cut into the guts, ice them asap. Then let them soak in some lemon water over night, 1 part lemon juice to 3-4 parts water works fine. Marinate in a baggie so that you can be sure every part gets soaked. Batter and deep fry, enjoy!


And dogfish (a type of shark) is classified as a "bottom fish" in the regulation book. Page 10

Bottomfish Includes Pacific cod, Pacific
tomcod, Pacific hake (or whiting), walleye
pollock, all species of dabs, sole and flounders
(except Pacific halibut), lingcod, ratfish,
sablefish, cabezon, greenling, buffalo sculpin,
great sculpin, red Irish lord, brown Irish
lord, Pacific staghorn sculpin, wolfeel, giant
wrymouth, plainfin midshipman, all species of
shark, skate, rockfish, rattail, and surf perches
excluding shiner perch.

and they daily limit on those bad boys is 15. which can make for one heck of a fish fry if you get into a good sized school of them. just watch out for those spines cause they are nasty and the try to find every way possible to get one in your arm. and the teeth. I like dropping a herring down on a dacron leader. Use my 8'6" SST spinning rod and they put up a great fight, and are wonderful table fare

Im not saying Im Mr correct. but the meat has urea in it. If not soaked you probably wont die but you wont feel real good either. The meat of shark is awesome. Ive eaten many times. I used to use dogfish meat to catch Shiners and pile perch. 15 doggies is alot of dogfish. Youre right about the spines though. They will swell you up real bad. Up in the Birch Bay area there used to be tons of doggies.

Steelheadin360 wrote:

racfish wrote:Its not so much how you target dogfish. My question is why would you want to. They are good to eat but theres alot of prewashing and soaking needed to make the meat safe to eat. If you plan on catching them and killin them . That is illegal to do I do believe.

Clearly you have been mislead good sir. Clean then as soon as you catch them, being careful not to cut into the guts, ice them asap. Then let them soak in some lemon water over night, 1 part lemon juice to 3-4 parts water works fine. Marinate in a baggie so that you can be sure every part gets soaked. Batter and deep fry, enjoy!


And dogfish (a type of shark) is classified as a "bottom fish" in the regulation book. Page 10

Bottomfish Includes Pacific cod, Pacific
tomcod, Pacific hake (or whiting), walleye
pollock, all species of dabs, sole and flounders
(except Pacific halibut), lingcod, ratfish,
sablefish, cabezon, greenling, buffalo sculpin,
great sculpin, red Irish lord, brown Irish
lord, Pacific staghorn sculpin, wolfeel, giant
wrymouth, plainfin midshipman, all species of
shark, skate, rockfish, rattail, and surf perches
excluding shiner perch.

and they daily limit on those bad boys is 15. which can make for one heck of a fish fry if you get into a good sized school of them. just watch out for those spines cause they are nasty and the try to find every way possible to get one in your arm. and the teeth. I like dropping a herring down on a dacron leader. Use my 8'6" SST spinning rod and they put up a great fight, and are wonderful table fare

I am like, reeeeeaaaaalllllly! I had no idea...........table fair ya say.

Steelheadin360 wrote: and are wonderful table fare

I really am sorry but i had to say something... PLEASE for the love of god nobody ever eat a dogfish. They pee through their skin and taste like ammonia, the lemon takes some of it away but i once tried one as a joke... Please. Dont do it

fishenfreak wrote:

Steelheadin360 wrote: and are wonderful table fare

I really am sorry but i had to say something... PLEASE for the love of god nobody ever eat a dogfish. They pee through their skin and taste like ammonia, the lemon takes some of it away but i once tried one as a joke... Please. Dont do it

Was the double dog dare ya to eat it dog fish soaked in Lemon juice?

I have no idea how much difference the acidic juice makes. But on a dare to eat something nasty. What is the chances that your partners in crime, fixed it to be good?

I hear ya tho. I am not jumping in the boat to fill the cooler with doggy any time soon. Thanks for the heads up! Seems to me, that Quad had a guy, last summer or the summer before. Catch a dog fish or shark in his boat. Then process it practically before unhooking it. Some sort of specail way to process shark, as seen on youtube........or something like that. It was a long time ago so the specifics are a little foggy. Do not remember if the cooking and eating of the shark was later reported or not.

I might have to do some digging. But I am certain that I am not blowing smoke.

Found this: http://www.washingtonlakes.com/ReportCo ... lid=13&t=2

One member in the comment section calls the report: " Carnage and Crabs "......LOL!

UPDATE: Commenter #11 is the guy that caught, gutted, prepared the fish for cooking. Talks about the cooking and eating too!

fishenfreak wrote:

Steelheadin360 wrote: and are wonderful table fare

I really am sorry but i had to say something... PLEASE for the love of god nobody ever eat a dogfish. They pee through their skin and taste like ammonia, the lemon takes some of it away but i once tried one as a joke... Please. Dont do it

Dont ever eat fish and chips at mi casa then

Steelheadin360 wrote:

racfish wrote:Its not so much how you target dogfish. My question is why would you want to. They are good to eat but theres alot of prewashing and soaking needed to make the meat safe to eat. If you plan on catching them and killin them . That is illegal to do I do believe.

Clearly you have been mislead good sir. Clean then as soon as you catch them, being careful not to cut into the guts, ice them asap. Then let them soak in some lemon water over night, 1 part lemon juice to 3-4 parts water works fine. Marinate in a baggie so that you can be sure every part gets soaked. Batter and deep fry, enjoy!


And dogfish (a type of shark) is classified as a "bottom fish" in the regulation book. Page 10

Bottomfish Includes Pacific cod, Pacific
tomcod, Pacific hake (or whiting), walleye
pollock, all species of dabs, sole and flounders
(except Pacific halibut), lingcod, ratfish,
sablefish, cabezon, greenling, buffalo sculpin,
great sculpin, red Irish lord, brown Irish
lord, Pacific staghorn sculpin, wolfeel, giant
wrymouth, plainfin midshipman, all species of
shark, skate, rockfish, rattail, and surf perches
excluding shiner perch.

and they daily limit on those bad boys is 15. which can make for one heck of a fish fry if you get into a good sized school of them. just watch out for those spines cause they are nasty and the try to find every way possible to get one in your arm. and the teeth. I like dropping a herring down on a dacron leader. Use my 8'6" SST spinning rod and they put up a great fight, and are wonderful table fare

I love it! You know, I've caught dogs before and really enjoy it, but I've never been brave enough to eat one yet. I have eaten a lot of "trash fish" before though, so I may give it a try. I've even eaten carp, so I'll try anything once. I'm a pretty good cook so we'll see.

Ya....do check out the link above that Motoboat posted from my fishing friend's culinary dismantle of said Dogfish.
The pic. within the boat is worth it. It was like a trip to Bennyhanna's!

Dogfish also called rock salmon in the United Kingdom is a fish and chips staple!

Dogfish is actually really good if prepared the proper way. Everyones tastes buds are different so i would say try it out and see how you like it . The only thing that makes me shiver is the slab of meat moving and twitching while its already been skinned and gutted

schu7498 wrote:Dogfish also called rock salmon in the United Kingdom is a fish and chips staple!

"Rock Salmon", seriously? It is truly interesting, to discover how some fish is labeled by marketing, as a consumable product!

Dogfish > Rock Salmon is quite the leap. Do they die the shark meat some sort of pink?

If you cut out the back portion of the back you'll find a really nice piece of solid meat. It is nice. So even if they pee through their skin.Ever see what Free Range chickens eat? Or what cattle eat with their grains. LOL. You'd never eat meat or chicken again if you went to a slaughterhouse. LOL.. Lots of animals secreet (sp) poisons from their skin.We still eat them. Now take the Ratfish. I dont know if I could even clean one. LOL..

racfish wrote:If you cut out the back portion of the back you'll find a really nice piece of solid meat. It is nice. So even if they pee through their skin.Ever see what Free Range chickens eat? Or what cattle eat with their grains. LOL. You'd never eat meat or chicken again if you went to a slaughterhouse. LOL.. Lots of animals secreet (sp) poisons from their skin.We still eat them. Now take the Ratfish. I dont know if I could even clean one. LOL..

There eyes alone are enough to cause for pause..........there is a certain erie, irridescence coming from them....big glowing eyes! Especially compared to the small size of the body.

The UK government changed the name of dogfish to rock cod or rock salmon because they use it for fish and chips now. There's no real cod in UK waters.

They don't taste bad, I think they got a bad wrap from people just eating them without properly preparing them.

if any of you catch a dogfish with a shimano butterfly jig in him let me know, i'd ike to have it back. he took it at the mouth of chambers creek last august when he started rolling around at the surface.

You don't need a boat to catch dogfish, sure it can make it easier, but quite a few areas with docks will do.. just chuck a big chunk of herring out and let it sit on bottom.. tighten your line as you would power baiting for stocker trout and watch it.. I found that the fishing is better in the evening as it seems that's when they come close to shore to feed maybe?

I used to fish for them when i started back up fishing about 8 yrs ago.. barely knew what i was doing but i saw these guys come out to the dock in westport, drop their gear in and and within no time were catching these left and right, i checked out their setup(steel leaders) and bought all the stuff the next day and within no time i was all over them too.. i took this setup back home and was able to catch them at golden gardens too, along with ratfish.. i never kept any of them though. all let go..

To me a fish is still a fish and I like catching them all, i just practice safe catch and release as much as possible with fish i'm not going to keep..

I thought these were crazy sharks out in westport the 1st time.. my wife thought i was a shark fishing slayer!! hahaha

one of my 1st in westport