Northeast - Is there a Silver lining to the Dogfish Problem?

I’m fully expecting flames over this post, but it’s a question that's been bugging me.

We have vast areas of the near shore fishing grounds which are avoided by both recreational and commercial fisherman at certain times of year because there are just too many dogfish.

They aren’t the only fish in the area, but they will strip shark baits in minutes, and will hit any bait dropped or trolled, and will fill a drag net very quickly. They will even hit trolled lures when they are really hungry and thick.

Is it just possible that this is helping some other fish stocks rebuild?

We are seeing a recovery in ground-fish stocks from Cod to Pollack and Haddock. Certainly they aren’t being completely crowded out completely – you even find them on the same structure as doggies if you can put up with a 50:1 ratio.. Even fluke do really well in the same water.

Sure, the rebuilding is due to a lot of other factors, but the dogfish do seem to be providing a form of air cover in certain areas.

So what is this scourge of dogfish all about? Is it just that the real problem is that they are a problem for fisherman? Can there really be too many fish in the ocean or do they just make peoples lives and livelihoods miserable?

Sure, nmfs knows about the numbers. They see it in test trawls, they see it in tagging studies, and they certainly hear it from fisherman. Eventually, they will allow commercial harvest.

But has the moratorium had a silver lining?

PS - in full disclosure, Dogfish are one of my favorite shark teasers.

If I don't have any other live bait, I'll liveline one - they can be very effective and we've found them in the bellies of mako's so they are a part of the palegic diet.

If I do have good baits, I'll hang one off an outrigger high enough so it's just out of the water. It thrashes and splashes as the boat rocks and is a dinner bell for sharks. It will draw them in close enough to see the hookbaits. They also make good chunk baits.

Of course they have chased me away from my drift before by stripping every bait put out in minutes. I hate to move once set up, but sometimes there is no choice. Live Dogfish are about the only thing dogfish won't eat (though they will hit dead ones).

I'd rather see fewer of them, but while they are there they might as well be doing something useful.

What do you think dogs do to juvi haddock, cod, whiting, etc? Biological imbalance on the scale we're seeing right now is a bad thing-always...

CMP

I thought of that, and it's a fair question, but are they around when the frye are? Doggies don't move in until the water warms up a bit. Cod at least spawn in the winter.

That's just it, I haven't seen any real data one way or another.

I tend to agree with you though. I'd much rather see cod so thick you couldn't fish for anything else. Imbalances have a way of working out - if people don't get in the way. This isn't an invasive species, there are predators for doggies.

Do they eat the Macks too??

They will strip any dead bait. Squid, macks, bluefish, whatever. All you see is a slow tug on the baits, when you check them they are stripped or nearly so. Sometimes we actually catch one on the hook if we hit it just right.

If you don't think dogfish are a problem, then I dare you to swim one hundred yards between boats while offshore. Peaked Hill in august is a good place to try. If those doggies can chase down and devour a live bluefish, what do you think they would do to you as you try to swim over their heads. I recommend slack tide as they really come up to the surface.

Best thing to do when sharking is pull the baits and start free gaffing them This is great practice The nice thing about having them up in a slick is when they disappear you have company so deploy that bait
Dogfish will chase a blue shark that is on a line I've watched this many times they nip at the pec fins and tail They are wiping out more than half of the cod spawn before the first yr of growth In August they feed on the crill more than the whales One last thing they use to disappear in the cold not so anymore you can catch them now if you choose to :(

I agree with CMP - there certainly appears to be a crazy imbalance going on now, at least in CCB and around the Race where I normally fish. Go back just 2-3 years and it was a totally different story.

Perhaps the insane amount of bait that showed up in the Bay the last couple seasons has something to do with it.

Regardless, I can only imagine what we're in store for this year.

the problem is NMFS' refusal to manage an ocean/ecosystem, rather then managing species by species as has been the case. that is where the imbalance comes from.

as to the fry, yes, the dogs and the seals both feast on the fry of all different kinds of fish. even if those fish spawn during the winter, those small specimens are sitting ducks for the huge schools of dogs migrating up and down the coasts.

I saw a guy slice open pregnant dogfish and liveline the puppies for keepers!!!!!!!!!! :roll :roll

I have to disagree on a couple of points made by gerg, during which he assumed some erroneous ideas as facts, for his sake of argument. First, anyone who has fished in the winter time knows that the doggies NEVER leave. I have seen literally 2,000 dogfish knocked off of a 3,500 hook set while hauling back in an attempt to catch cod and haddock, in November, December, January, Febuary, March. It doesnt matter-they are here full time feasting on herring, juvenile cod, juvenile haddock, mackerel, everything. Unfortunately, people who don't go out this time of year just simply think they have left the area where there is life.

Second, I think that dogfish at this point are THE DEFINITION of an invasive species. They have grown to such mind boggling numbers, that they disturb the fisheries. If you cant get a bait down to catch a cod, haddock, bass, bluefish, tuna, etc., then how the hell are those fish going to be able to eat anything before the dogs do??? There is literally a giant school of dogfish that extends from nova scotia to somewhere south of New Jersey, and they are as thick as they have ever been. Also, I might add that the explosion of dogfish has a correlation to the numbers of cod (which are NOT recovering, by the way), or should I say the complete lack thereof, in the past 5 years. Oh, and you can add tuna, sharks, whales, herring, mackerel, haddock, pollock-I can go on and on.

As far as dogfish being prey, I'm sure its like ethiopians eating bugs to stay alive. There are millions of bugs, and no other food source. Out of desperation and the will to survive they eat insects. It's not filling. It's probably not what the digestion system was designed to process. It's not gonna keep you healthy.

When was the last time you saw a school of giants working a school of dogfish? Or blue sharks or makos or threshers up working a nice pod of dogfish? I know-NEVER. Thats because dogfish suck. Between the herring/mack midwater boats, and the decimating numbers of dogfish, nothing really stands a chance. The dogfish serve absolutely NO purpose to any other fish, and only hurt an already suffering ecosystem. If you were to take away all the dogfish in the ocean, only good things would come of it.

Unfortunately, most people don't realize how devastating this imbalance is to all fisheries. Some people need science to tell them what to think. Well, one thing I have learned over the years is that science can be bought and corrupted just like everything else, and until people use common sense, and actually listen to what fishermen have to say, then things will stay the same. Open the commercial dogfishery to unprecedented numbers, get rid of the herring boats, and I'd bet my house that every single offshore fishery and most inshore fisheries would improve drastically.

fish n chips send them to england thats whats on there menu!

grinder sounds just like me,,,i wonder who he is??

So what does all this do to the food chain when the Tuna arrive? Will the dogs consume enough to influence the BFT appearance?

grinder1 - 3/12/2008 6:18 AM

I have to disagree on a couple of points made by gerg, during which he assumed some erroneous ideas as facts, for his sake of argument. First, anyone who has fished in the winter time knows that the doggies NEVER leave. I have seen literally 2,000 dogfish knocked off of a 3,500 hook set while hauling back in an attempt to catch cod and haddock, in November, December, January, Febuary, March. It doesnt matter-they are here full time feasting on herring, juvenile cod, juvenile haddock, mackerel, everything. Unfortunately, people who don't go out this time of year just simply think they have left the area where there is life.

Second, I think that dogfish at this point are THE DEFINITION of an invasive species. They have grown to such mind boggling numbers, that they disturb the fisheries. If you cant get a bait down to catch a cod, haddock, bass, bluefish, tuna, etc., then how the hell are those fish going to be able to eat anything before the dogs do??? There is literally a giant school of dogfish that extends from nova scotia to somewhere south of New Jersey, and they are as thick as they have ever been. Also, I might add that the explosion of dogfish has a correlation to the numbers of cod (which are NOT recovering, by the way), or should I say the complete lack thereof, in the past 5 years. Oh, and you can add tuna, sharks, whales, herring, mackerel, haddock, pollock-I can go on and on.

As far as dogfish being prey, I'm sure its like ethiopians eating bugs to stay alive. There are millions of bugs, and no other food source. Out of desperation and the will to survive they eat insects. It's not filling. It's probably not what the digestion system was designed to process. It's not gonna keep you healthy.

When was the last time you saw a school of giants working a school of dogfish? Or blue sharks or makos or threshers up working a nice pod of dogfish? I know-NEVER. Thats because dogfish suck. Between the herring/mack midwater boats, and the decimating numbers of dogfish, nothing really stands a chance. The dogfish serve absolutely NO purpose to any other fish, and only hurt an already suffering ecosystem. If you were to take away all the dogfish in the ocean, only good things would come of it.

Unfortunately, most people don't realize how devastating this imbalance is to all fisheries. Some people need science to tell them what to think. Well, one thing I have learned over the years is that science can be bought and corrupted just like everything else, and until people use common sense, and actually listen to what fishermen have to say, then things will stay the same. Open the commercial dogfishery to unprecedented numbers, get rid of the herring boats, and I'd bet my house that every single offshore fishery and most inshore fisheries would improve drastically.


Here, here. Couldn't have said it better, and agree with every word.
You sound alot like I think.
What kills me is that, when it's so blatently obvious to so many of US what's going on, why don't these college educated bafoons in fisheries "management" see what we do!!

Hmm, all interesting points. But I have to point out that there isn't a single cloud of dogfish from canada to new jersey. There are multiple species, spiny, smooth, to name a couple. In my area, we see mostly spiny. And they don't tend to be a problem until the water warms up. MAybe the smooth are different - I don't fish north of the cape at all.

I will concede that they are probably hitting on fry, but I still don't know to what extent. Fry by definition don't survive in numbers. Most get eaten long before maturity. The fish stocks don't seem to be hurt yet though - but would we know if the pop of doggies only recently just exploded? probably not.

And as I said, mako's at least do have dog's in their stomachs. And blues will very readily take them as bait (we release blue sharks, no necroscopy).

It's funny though, most of the time the dogfish will get hit surgically - you will see a bite radius taking out the entire belly from tail to head and leaving the spines and back. Smart sharks.

I admit that they are absolute pests. But they are a problem to me. I don't know they are a problem to the fishery, but Im leaning that way. I am more convinced they provide cover for other species though. 3500 hooks covered in dogs mean fewer target fish taken. Bad for the liners, good for the groundfish.

If I were to hit the $230 million Powerball jackpot, I'd figure out a way to pay tub trawl boats $3,000 a day plus expenses to set gear and just kill as many as they could. It'd be money well spent..

CMP

If the Brits eat them why cant we - whats the big secret to the preparation?

THe secret to an edible dogfish is to gut it behead it and cut off a section from the tail end and skin them,As soon as you land them.Place on Ice Not too hard to do except they continue to wiggle for some time after the head and tail are gone .
Prep them as such and they make fine table fare. Don't and you will swear your eating rubber marinated in ammonia

Here is my take on how dogs are affecting the Cod stocks. While the cod stocks are coming back, the fish being caught exhibit an undernourished profile. They tend to be skinny and appear malnourished. This is well documented and is of significant concern to the management folks. But you might ponder this. When there is an overpopulation of deer you get this malnourished state. But the cod stocks are nowhere near being overpopulated. So how can an underpopulated specidies show such malnourishment? Well that means there must be a problem with the food source. While the herring issues are likely part of the problem, Cod eat a lot more than just herring and have to compete with the dogs (and other groundfish of course - more later, there is a difference) for food. When the dogs move in the cod have to move off and find nourishment someplace else. They have to expend a lot more energy to cover more gfround more often for less food for less time.

Drop a clam into a thick of Cod. When the dogs show up the cod don't continue to bite, they are driven off. So here they are feeding in an area you have found and now they are replaced by this pest. The pests takes over this spot, which presumably held food the cod were eating, and the cod have to go find dinner elsewhere. We, as fishermen, only see this when we drop live bait, but you can be sure the dogs are driving the cod off their food sources constantly. It's not caused becasue we drop a clam. We happen to drop a clam into this struggle.

You might argue cod have to compete with pollack and haddock for food too so it can't be just the dogs they are competing with, but pollack and haddock don't drive the cod off. When you catch cod you catch haddock and pollack and vice versa.. The species co-exist. That scenario doesn't happen with the dogs. Show me a dog and I will show you a place where there is no cod.

M

Grinder, well said! I think you may have missed your true calling in life!

THe secret to an edible dogfish is to gut it behead it and cut off a section from the tail end and skin them,As soon as you land them.Place on Ice Not too hard to do except they continue to wiggle for some time after the head and tail are gone .
Prep them as such and they make fine table fare

How do you cook em'?

Fishhawk Over in England Fish&Chips are deep fried w/batter years back they were served on day old newspaper. I have had them broiled also seemed very much like Monkfish.Ifyou do it just right ,it is a close second to a lobster tail I'm sure you have heard Monkfish sometimes referred as Poor Mans Lobster. It also fortifies the fish stock for chowders.
Many cultures consume what we consider inedible. I once met a mate on a tanker from some Island in the West Indies. Cooked tuna as a stew w/butterfish.Great tasting but picking butterfish bones is not my pleasure .
Went to a Church Fry someplace in Mass. about 10yrs ago beer battered fish to your belly wanted to burst .After complimenting the ladies on a fine job, Iasked what type of fish it was. They giggled a bit as they told me SEA ROBIN. Needless to say Larger sea robin are now considered keepers.
Browsed Over a Cookbook in Barnes&Noble One time, The Author made the statement, In my 40yrs of cooking worldwide, I have managed to make every fish known palatable,except for the Bunker fish.

What is the next problem with fishing? There are already issues with Purse Seiners, Mid Water Trawlers, and now dogfish. What will be next, Seals? Try to find a spot in Chatham, like a dry sandbar, that is not covered with a colony of Seals. Every Summer someone reports that they spot a Great White off North Beach either swimming or munching down on a Seal. They do not migrate anymore, I seen them on the ice packs in Nantucket Harbor.

mcleaves - dogs. Show me a dog and I will show you a place where there is no cod.



Or much else either....

aloop - 3/13/2008 10:13 AM

What is the next problem with fishing? There are already issues with Purse Seiners, Mid Water Trawlers, and now dogfish. What will be next, Seals? Try to find a spot in Chatham, like a dry sandbar, that is not covered with a colony of Seals. Every Summer someone reports that they spot a Great White off North Beach either swimming or munching down on a Seal. They do not migrate anymore, I seen them on the ice packs in Nantucket Harbor.

Yeah, but seal are tasty! :thumbsup:

:jk:

Seriously. Is see pressure on the regional fishery coming from two places. Midwater Trawler pairs attacking from the top of the water and Dogfish from the bottom. It leaves no place for the other fish to find food!

No, there is no silver lining from this. Not even close.

Gerg- First, there is no signifcant predator for dogfish. There are not even close to enough sharks around to have any impact at all on dogfish, and even if there were more big sharks, they would still not have a meaningful impact on the dogs because dogfish are far from being a top prey choice for them. And I can guiarentee you that what bluefin are around do not eat hardly any dogfish....I have dressed or helped dress hundreds of them over the years and seen ONLY ONE dogfish in a tuna stomach. One.

And at the same time, the dogfish eat almost anything smaller than them. They decomate juvenile cod and other groundfish, and eat ungodly amounts of herring, mackerel, whiting and anything else that they can find. This is not only completely obvious to justa bout every fishermen who spends any time on the water, but is well known by managers and scientists.

Just a few:

-- "Voracious almost beyond belief, the dogfish entirely deserves its bad reputation. Not only does it harry and drive off mackerel, herring, and even fish as large as cod and haddock, but it destroys vast numbers of them. Again and again fishermen have described packs of dogs dashing among schools of mackerel, and even attacking them within the seines, biting through the net...At one time or another they prey on practically all species of Gulf of Maine fish smaller than themselves, and squid are also a regular article of diet whenever they are found..." [from: 'Fishes of the Gulf of Maine' by Bigelow and Schroeder]

-- " 'Dogfish eat phenomenal amounts of Atlantic cod, haddock, silver hake, Atlantic herring, Atlantic mackerel, summer flounder,' said Pierce, presenting information from research conducted by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center on dogfish predation on groundfish species." [from: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/innews/dogfishquota2006.html ]

-- "This small predaceous shark is an opportunistic feeder consuming whatever organisms are most readily available, but small fishes usually predominate. Thus the food varies from one place to place and month to month. In a study of food habits of 1171 Newfoundland dogfish, Templeman (1944) found herring, capelin, and cod to be important foods..." [from 'Atlantic Fishes of Canada' by Scott and Scott]

-- "Piscivorous fish consume the largest share of the total pelagic biomass eaten by three predator groups. Annual consumption by predatory fish was estimated to be about 337,000 tons...Spiny dogfish, because of their large biomass, account for the largest proportion (75%) of consumption by piscivorous fish..." [from: "Impact of predatory fish, marine mammals, and seabirds on the pelagic fish ecosystem of the northeastern USA," by Overholtz, Murawski and Foster]

-- “We in our state have made a lot of investments into rebuilding codfish. We have excellent signs of recruitment in 2006. We have every good reason to believe that large dogfish will (prey on cod) and have a very significant impact on our cod rebuilding initiative,” said Pierce.

To support this point, Pierce noted a 2002 paper published in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management titled “Ecological interactions between elasmobranchs and groundfish species of the Northeastern US continental shelf,” which contains stomach-content data from 40,756 dogfish.

According to Pierce, the 1998 cod assessment estimated there were 5.77 million age 1 cod.

“Dogfish ate 2.15 million age 1 cod, so dogfish do eat cod,” he said. He called this level of predation “consequential.”

[from: http://www.fish-news.com/cfn/editorial/editorial_9_06/ASMFC_agrees_to_analyze_Massachusetts_dogfish_plan .html ]

What stops the Seals from eating the dogs? That would be the easy way to solve the problem but will contribute towards another.

aloop - 3/14/2008 7:58 AM

What stops the Seals from eating the dogs? That would be the easy way to solve the problem but will contribute towards another.

Because they taste like ass and even seals aren't stupid enough to eat them...

CMP

Dont chop their heds off when you catch them. Its just wrong. It makes a nasty mess. A rigging needle plced gently into the brain....then release

Dont chop their heds off when you catch them. Its just wrong. It makes a nasty mess. A rigging needle plced gently into the brain....then release

simple bait knife to the back of the skull seems to do the trick. sever the spinal cord at let them spiral to the bottom.

Hey, I'm easy to convince. I thought I'd get flamed but you guys actually raised some very good points.

But you do realize that by killing them and sending them back down all you are doing is feeding the rest, right? At least save them and dump them somewhere they won't be recycled into more doggies.

Ok but that helps with the anger. I always liked cutting the tails off before throwing them back in.

save them and mail them to NMFS......postage due

But all that mail will be lost in Big Brothers warehouse. That system stinks enough.

gerg - 3/14/2008 4:59 PM

But you do realize that by killing them and sending them back down all you are doing is feeding the rest, right? At least save them and dump them somewhere they won't be recycled into more doggies.

Good point gerg! I have always thought about that issue, dont know how best to deal with it though. I guess the 'mail to nmfs' option may be the best one!

"...the perfect eating machine... swim, eat, and make baby sharks." Where have we heard that line?

twofinbluna - 3/16/2008 6:58 PM

gerg - 3/14/2008 4:59 PM

But you do realize that by killing them and sending them back down all you are doing is feeding the rest, right? At least save them and dump them somewhere they won't be recycled into more doggies.

Good point gerg! I have always thought about that issue, dont know how best to deal with it though. I guess the 'mail to nmfs' option may be the best one!

Would they make good bait at all for ANYTHING? How about chum. I know they aren't oily, but maybe to cut a slick? If they feed their own kind then they must be good for something!

Its also fun to cut off their nose but leave it attched with just the skin. When they swim forward the nose becomes a "flip top head"