Instead of kneejerk responses to dogfish...

[likwid]

Why not ask why their numbers are so high in the first place?

We saw what ignorance and big money did to Striped Bass and Bunker/Menhaden already, why do the vicious cycles of just taking the easy way out and accepting things keep happening? This isn't politics fgs.

[labrax]

Maybe their numbers are so high because they have filled the niche that the cod once occupied. Reduced cod stocks left a hole that the dogfish came in and filled, which in turn could hamper the cod's chance of making a rebound as they are then in competition with the cod for the same resources...

[Adamfishes]

we need to train the stripers to eat them!

[MakoMike]

It's simple the numers are so high because NMFS/ASMFC basically stopped all fishing for them!

[MrHunters]

im mr kneejerk... with pretty much everything.

[likwid]

Originally Posted by labrax

Maybe their numbers are so high because they have filled the niche that the cod once occupied. Reduced cod stocks left a hole that the dogfish came in and filled, which in turn could hamper the cod's chance of making a rebound as they are then in competition with the cod for the same resources...

I think the cod are under alot more pressure than from just dogfish.

Mike: You mean kinda like how there were so many bass it was their fault that there was no bunker for Omega Protein?

Populations don't just explode for no reason other than "well they're not being fished!"
They're still a heavy bycatch in the trawls.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Ransom Myers gave a great talk at GSO a few months ago about this... Dogfish are a mid-level predator; when the large predators drop off, the middle ones line Dogfish fill the Niche and take over.

There is definetly not enough by-catch to keep the population in check though Likwid. They are thicker then I have ever seen them on my spots off Newport, and hear at times of the year we didnt use to encounter them...
Pain In The A$$ eel stealers....

[Clogston29]

Your right, just not being fished commercially is not enough to make populations explode. However the effect of not being commercially fished while all of their competative species are being commercially fished, and many would say overfished, would increase the effect. I don't see how just opening up dog fish to commercial fisherman is going to decrease their numbers significantly though so why not do it if there is a market for them. I assume that the market is pretty small and the price pretty low so I don't really think alot of people will see it worth while to target them anyways.

[BassyiusMaximus]

How could a rec. like me get a licence to fish and sell the "Cape-Shark." I'm sure I could make a little money if it was possible.

Is there such a thing as just a licence to catch and sell the sand sharks/dogfish?, or might there be?, is that the proposal?

[Raven]

write a book instead....

[labrax]

likwid - what I meant in my first post was that we have fished down the cod to levels so low that their numbers were not enough to 'quickly' rebound - the dogfish came in and filled their ecological role, which further keeps the cod numbers low as they have to compete for the same resources with the dogfish. The dogfish have taken advantage of the situation and seen their population take off.

[lurch]

you want to get rid of the dog fish well put a price on its head and kiss it good bye.

Has anyone eaten a dog fish? What do they taste like? If the US does not eat it do people in other countries?

[MrHunters]

its the fish in fish n chips over in europe...so i hear.

[clambelly]

Originally Posted by labrax

likwid - what I meant in my first post was that we have fished down the cod to levels so low that their numbers were not enough to 'quickly' rebound - the dogfish came in and filled their ecological role, which further keeps the cod numbers low as they have to compete for the same resources with the dogfish. The dogfish have taken advantage of the situation and seen their population take off.

agreed. another factor you left out is that dogfish are eating young cod. with the population of dogfish exploding and the cod stocks struggling to come back, that factor cannot be ignored.

[Swede]

I knew a Vietnamese guy that bought a boat and put it in the water at a yacht club in Southie. I met him at a building I did contract work at. I went fishing with him once. The Boat would not get on plane cause it had been in the water for 2 months with no bottom paint. . He kept every dog we caught and sold em at a market on Dot Ave somewhere. He got about 75 cents a pound. Not saying its right, but it paid for his gas, too bad he could'nt afford bottom paint. The bottom was covered with barnacles

[likwid]

Originally Posted by clambelly

agreed. another factor you left out is that dogfish are eating young cod. with the population of dogfish exploding and the cod stocks struggling to come back, that factor cannot be ignored.

now dogfish eating young cod i have a hard time believing considering they're almost exclusively scavengers.

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by likwid

now dogfish eating young cod i have a hard time believing considering they're almost exclusively scavengers.

I don't know where you get that information, but according to everything I've read and the NMFS/ASMFC studies they are voracious predators.

[likwid]

Got a link to said NMFS studies?

And attempting to save time I did some quick searching and found:

Local gillnet fisherman Dave Marciano said dogfish are vicious predators that compete with cod and other groundfish to eat herring and feed on juvenile cod, creating a nuisance for fishermen. Dogfish often clog his nets or eat groundfish caught in them, he said.

"They didn't get this abundant by being docile," he said. "They eat the cod, they eat the cod's food."

Wow, a FISHERMAN said that, not someone working for the NMFS or Woods Hole! Just like Omega Protein said Striped Bass were eating all the menhaden.

[JFigliuolo]

I KNOW they hit live eels. And I do mean HIT, hard.

[MakoMike]

I'll see if I can go back and find it. IIRC it was on th N E science center's website.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Likwid...
I dont need to read a report to know that, having bottom fished my whole life and seen a dogfish eat numerous live and dead baits, I dont believe they are just scavangers... Skates are scavangers, Dogs are predators...

I caught dogfish, on diamond jigs, while catching sea herring in December last year, 20ft down in 100ft of water.. are they scavanging the herring on the bottom out of the nets, maybe? But are they up in the water colomn hunting the schools of herring too? you bet your ass, Do I believe they eat juvenille cod? Yup, they eat every other GD bait we use. they hunt, and when one finds something, they swarm... they are a suprisingly aggressive fish....
Maybe you dont know everything... just because a comm fisherman says something that might benefit him or her, it doesnt mean it isn't true...

[likwid]

You mean like all the fishermen and "experts" who said that Striped Bass didn't need to have a size restriction?

Like the industry experts that said that the big power plant on the Hudson wasn't killing Striped Bass?

Like all the once fishermen now beurocrats cutting the throats of their former friends in the comm dragger industry?

Whatever, go behead some dogfish and leave em on the rocks like the rest of the idiots if it makes you feel better.

[bart]

likwid seems to know everything about everything

[RIROCKHOUND]

I dont do that either...
and I didnt say they were 'experts' in fact expert never appeared in my post
Taking one quote out of context doesnt mean the fisherman is automatically wrong. Not every Comm. wants to rape the ocean you know.

Also my other main objection to what you said was that dogfish are primarily scavengers and not predators...

I never once sided with the 'experts', I'm a scientist, I tend to believe numbers (collected the right way). but on the flip side, enough anecdotal or personally observed evidence can be pretty damning as well. There are plainly alot of Dogfish around, more than I ever remember seeing/catching/hearing about. That tells me that something has changed in the ecosystem, and that it is a bad thing all around.

I have also never intentionally beheaded a dogfish, I get annoyed yes, but dont assume what you dont know

[MakoMike]

Try this link, it's not the one I was thinking of, but pretty much spells it out. http://www.maine.gov/dmr/recreationa...gfishshark.htm

[ZuluHotel]

FYI, fellas, here's a letter that was distributed at the Tuesday ASMFC meeting down in VA. I think the big point that the dogfish situation highlights is that species-by-species management fails to adequately recognize any species' place in the overall ecosystem. As a few guys pointed out, doggies are filling a gap left by all the other predators that are being fished down to low levels. Simply assuming that if you remove man from the ecosytem (by eliminating fishing effort) that it will return to some utopian state is asinine. Sometimes, at least once man is involved as THE apex predator, man needs to do some "pruning" to restore the balance. The problem is that much of what managers know about dogs is based on a very limited pool of science--primarily spring and fall two-week trawl surveys. Was the "problem" that led to the end of comm. fishery really a problem, or was it a perceived problem that existed mainly on paper? I dunno.

Anyway, here's the letter. Would be curious to hear some more perspectives on this (not the letter, the fisheries issue).

13 August 2006

Ruth Christiansen
Spiny Dogfish FMP Coordinator
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
1444 Eye Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005

To The Members Of The Spiny Dogfish Management Board:

(To be read at the August 15 ASMFC Meeting by Capt. Tom DePersia or Rich Ruais)

I regret that scheduling issues prevented me from attending this hearing, but hope these comments will be taken seriously nonetheless. It has unfortunately been the trend with dogfish—more so than with any other species—that managers have out-and-out ignored any and all input from the public while crafting regulations, and I know I’m not alone when I say I have little faith ASMFC will view this as anything more than some additional “anecdotal” information.

In my capacity as Editor of The Fisherman, New England Edition, I have ample opportunity to sample public sentiments about all regulations affecting recreational, and to a large extent, commercial, fishing. The overwhelming view on dogfish at this point is that they are becoming a very serious threat to local marine ecosystems. Yes, dogfish are a “nuisance” to those targeting fluke, striped bass, bluefish, bluefin tuna, winter flounder, cod, pollock, haddock, scup, sea bass and a variety of other “important” recreational species. But our concern runs much deeper than squawking about inconvenience (as all recreational comment about dogfish has been characterized by managers to date).

Realizing that this is anecdotal, please consider the following (I have heard it from countless hundreds of party and charter boat skippers, many of whom have spent the last 20 to 30 years earning a living on the water): Since the enormous cuts in commercial fishing effort, dogfish are appearing in unbelievable numbers in many areas where they’ve never been encountered before. During the same timeframe, many important historical fishing grounds have been rendered unfishable by massive bodies of dogfish. Once dogfish infiltrate a piece of bottom, there’s no room, literally, for other species to gain a foothold. This has been documented in hundreds of historically important fishing areas.

The situation has gone well past mere “interaction problems,” a phrase that numerous managers have used, rather smugly, to sum up recreational and commercial concerns about dogfish. Whether or not the science has caught up to the reality at this point, take it from those on the water: Dogfish are a major threat to rebuilding efforts for every other commercially and recreationally important species. It appears NOAA and ASMFC are hell-bent on rebuilding a species with no current economic value at the expense of all other fish and all fishermen.

To that end, on behalf of 100,000 weekly readers of this magazine, as well as hundreds of charter and party boat captains (who cannot sacrifice their livelihoods to attend a daytime meeting 500 miles from where the issue is most immediate), I support Paul Diodati’s emergency proposal to establish a limited directed fishery for spiny dogfish (with the possible caveat that we believe the current, real-world biomass of dogfish could support more than the modest 6,000,000-pound quota Mr. Diodati has proposed). The recreational and commercial communities are in full agreement that something must be done immediately to curb the impending dogfish disaster.

This situation is a prime opportunity for ASMFC to pick up the ball on ecosystem-based fisheries management. A vote for status quo dogfish management is a vote for the old-model species-in-the-void management that has led us to this sorry chapter in the history of our fisheries. I hope the Commission will have the forward vision to endorse Diodati’s proposal and, by implication, a more ecologically sensible management approach.

Sincerely,





Zach Harvey,
Managing Editor,
The Fisherman Magazine, New England Edition

[RIROCKHOUND]

[MakoMike]

Zac,
I hope you letter has more of an impact than the many I have written to both the ASMFC and the NMFS "scientist" that wrote their study on the doggies. I even offered to take her out to Cox's ledge so she could see for herself how scarce they are.

[clambelly]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Not every Comm. wants to rape the ocean you know.

thank you.

[Bass Babe]

Managers are required to err on the side of caution when formulating regs if there isn't enough conclusive info to go on. Dogfish reproduce very slowly -- 2 to 16 pups in a litter every 22 months. So I can understand where mg't is coming from.

That said, I can see where recs and comms are coming from as well. There's tons of dogs out there. They ball up gillnets and scavenge the catch from them. They steal bait. It's possible that they're filling the niches of recovering groundfish. I've heard that off NH, you can barely catch a gadid to save your life, but whether you want them or not, the dogs are there. They can keep 600 pounds a day, but that quota can be reached in a half hour.

I hope the dogfish numbers and locations are just some sort of anomaly from the weird weather this year and other factors and that the dogfish problem doesn't persist...though they're way easier to handle than monkfish.

In defense of "scientists", we're working on picking up the pieces from over 100 years of crappy or nonexistent fisheries management, and we're doing what we can. Everybody -- comms, recs, mgrs, scientists...we all want a balanced environment. It's just going to take a while, with lots of trial and error, to get it functioning again.