Northwest Fishing Reports

Greetings Fellow Members,

I wanted to ask if anyone has been catching any dogfish on the Washington coastline or up in Puget sound. If so where would be a good spot to try and what is the recommended gear/bait setup. Plan on going this coming weekend.
Thanks,

Hank

WE have caught them in area 13, 11, 10, 9, etc etc etc pretty much every time we have gone out. Its not hard - just put some herring on a hook and let it down

Tryeth the fishing dock at the westp'rt boasteth basin. Thither's a bunch of them. If thou planeth of landing any, thou bett'r endue a crab ringeth. I useth cheap whole smelt that I buyeth at the Asian st'res.

I catch hundreds on them on Bellingham Boulevard Park pier, marine area 7. I basically get a bait fish right under the dock then use it with a bottom rig as if I'm fishing for catfish. They travel in group and usually congregate the piers or any coast line with lights. Lights mean baitfish, and baitfish means there are dogfish all over the places. You should fish 1-2hour after dusk as their life cycle makes them move inshore at night and out at sunrise. Also check for piers where people have been crabbing; that's the perfect chumming for them.

Im curious - are you going to eat them? If so, how do you prepare them and how do they taste? Ive always heard they are nasty tasting unless you go to a lot of trouble in the prep, but I forget how its done.

I have had them before on the east coast and they are pretty tasty. They really mild with no fishy taste to them. You can also remove the skin with hot water instead of skinning them. You get a pot of about to boil water turn the heat off wait a couple of minutes and dip the fish 2 - 3 times very quickly in and out of the pot. the skin disintegrates and you can scrape carefully off with a knife. After skin is completely off, rinse several times with cold water. Next, cut the fish into steaks and place them in a bowl of cold water that has roughly a table spoon of salt for each 2 lbs of fish in addition to a tablespoon of red cider vinegar for each 2 lbs of fish. Leave overnight in the refrigerator. Next day remove from brine, drain steaks, flour them and fry them up. I usually add garlic powder and ground cumin to the flour.

If anyone has a boat up around the sound area and is wanting to go catch some of these, I would be open to paying for gas and bringing some food as well.

Caught 6 targeting Salmon while trolling near Whidbey on Sunday. All you have to do is troll too slow and bang. Dog on!

if your going to eat them you have to treat them like you would a pink bleed them and gut them .. or you end up with a ammonia taste smell cause they " pee " threw their skin. they are called rock salmon over in England and used allot for fish and chips

They are called School Sharks for a reason. Catch one, catch many. They are very tasty if you do it right. Firm meat so great for fish and chips. But they do have the longest gestation period for any shark species. Give live birth to between 3-9 average pups.

released 6 on monday in ma11, 4 the thursday before.. usually get atleast one or two trolling this time a year.

I am assuming this is from a boat, correct?

yes for mine.

Do you think a boat out of port defiance would be a good idea?

renting or launching? slow today but a 24lb and 25lb king came in.

Rentng.

bottomfishin13 wrote:Do you think a boat out of port defiance would be a good idea?

There is always a chance of catching salmon in Marine area 11, but the fact is its not great odds - well, except for dog fish

The fishing gets better as you go north and worse as you go south in Puget Sound.

You can get an idea of how things are going by checking the creel reports on the WDFW website.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/reports_plants.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Be sure to check the regs very carefully before you go as many areas are closed to different species at different times.

I'd forgoten about all this. As a kid working Olympic Boat Center in Federal Way back in the late 70's we had a Guy on a Saturday giving taste's of Dog Fish ? He was from the East Coast and had a few cook books out and was out selling them. We tried it, not bad so got the 12 footer in the water at Redondo and out we went. As Kids we caught many and cut there belly's and sent them back in for there buddys to chow on.

They were HUGE back then, Spider crabs as big as garbage can lids etc. So we caught a few, just skinned them, white meat like cod, kinda. Soaked and deep fried, man that was some good eats back then. Did it again to show the inlaws and they all loved it but that was the last time we did that.

Any ways, thanks for reminder of fun a long time ago.

i found 2 recipes in cook books i have for doggies. maybe someday i'll get brave enough to try them.