First fish, first blood on new yak

Well, finally got some fish in the boat and some blood on it!  The fish were released, since they were all 3 dogfish  instead of the flounder I was after, and the blood was mostly mine.  Darn shark got me with a spine when I was getting him off the hook.  I also caught a crab that refused to let go of the jig head...  But hey, catching beats fishing no matter the species!

Jim

Good job! I am trying to catch a dogfish for years. No luck yet... 

Dog fish are good eats...not great but good.  We can retain them in Alaska.  I serve them more for the "what am I eating?" factor then gourmet seafood. 



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In WA they are allowed to keep too. What kind of places they are usually at? Sand, rocks, weeds? People say there are a lot of them everywhere. All I catch usually only ratfishes...   

In WA they are allowed to keep too. What kind of places they are usually at? Sand, rocks, weeds? People say there are a lot of them everywhere. All I catch usually only ratfishes...   

I used to catch them off of the east side of Bainbridge Island in 40-100 feet of water using a standard salmon mooching rig.   They love herring. 

This was out near the head of Henderson Bay (down in MA-13 near the Purdy Spit/Wauna launch), the bay is around 50 ft or so up there.  I was basically drifting a couple of Gulp swimming mullet baits, jigging along the bottom on an incoming tide, about halfway across the bay due south of Wauna.  I had stuck a piece of turky hotdog on the hooks too, they seem to like it

I have eaten dogfish as a kid, nowadays I just let 'em go to continue their role in the aquatic ecosystem   Still lots of fun!

Jim

Can anyone fill me in on the safe handling of dogfish? I intend to catch some (on purpose!) this summer and I'm a little hesitant on how to safely release (or retain) them.

Thanks in advance...

Can anyone fill me in on the safe handling of dogfish? I intend to catch some (on purpose!) this summer and I'm a little hesitant on how to safely release (or retain) them.

Thanks in advance...

Don't lip grip them with your thumb 
Good question I can't wait for the real answer.

Can anyone fill me in on the safe handling of dogfish? I intend to catch some (on purpose!) this summer and I'm a little hesitant on how to safely release (or retain) them.

Thanks in advance...

Don't lip grip them with your thumb 
Good question I can't wait for the real answer.

  I understand the teeth part, it's the spine part I'm trying to figure out.

My method may not be the best (what with it being my blood on the boat vs the fish's...), but I just grabbed the line at the swivel above the leader, then kinda held him against the hull while using a hook remover to get him free.  One of those old style metal ones like a little set of toothed pliers.  I didn't try for a thumb lip grip either    First one was a mite bit uncooperative still, and got me with a spine when he was thrashing around.  Not badly but it did keep leaking for a while.

Jim

Thx for the reply. I googled it of course, but didn't come up with much to help on the kayak. Anybody else?

RoxnDox - thank you for the response! I am planning to check out this place asap!

Captain Redbeard - grab it around the neck with your hand and use pliers. You can check out this WDFW video, go to ~2:30 time.

Thank you - I didn't find that video on my own and it was helpful. Looks like fun, I'll have to give it a shot and see how it goes.

Thank you - I didn't find that video on my own and it was helpful. Looks like fun, I'll have to give it a shot and see how it goes.

Redbeard - tried today this method, it is not good enough! I do not recommend. With dogfish the most danger is not teeth, but spikes in fins and tail. Today caught a lot of them, first two fishes handled ok, but next one started trying to hit me with tail and unfortunately got exactly to vein. So today not only I spilled fishes' blood, but they also spilled mine If you wanna keep it put on desk, step on it and cut spikes with fishing scissors then handle like usual fish. I caught a lot of them today, kept only two big ones and that one who spilled my blood, released probably 10. There are couple of photos.

Years ago we used to release them from our PB by grabbing the line with one hand, generally non-dominant hand, and snagging the hook bend using a gaff with the other hand to pull the hook. This was all done over the side of the boat so the fish was only out for a second or two and their caudal region was far enough away. A little trickier in a kayak but possible nonetheless.