Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Amphibious
get may Dogfish in that Area Erik? only dove Tofino and Nanaimo on the island, and never saw any....
|
They have commercial fishing just down the inlet from where I live, for Dogfish. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. I thought the Salmon looked kind of odd, and then I realized what it was.
I see Dogfish frequently, however it is time of the year which is most important. They come to the shallows and inlets in mass quantity around the time of all the other activity associated with the change of season, ie. halibut spawning, algae blooms, jellyfish blooms, salmon migration. So, May-August is the time to expect to run into schools of them or lone individuals. Also the time for Ratfish, part of the shark family, or more specifically chimeras.
After some experiences in the Caribbean years ago, I realized I really enjoyed shark as food. Since then I was curious about Dogfish and have done a fair amount of looking into their edibility. You will find you get mixed statements from people, some saying they are great and some saying absolutely aweful, nothing in between. Why? Because the people that are saying aweful most likely ate dogfish as a curiosity and no experience or knowledge of what is entailed in eating it.
Dogfish release uric acid into its tissue almost immediately after death significantly more so than most common fish we catch due to a high concentration of uric acid in their blood. Therefore the meat is immediately contaminated if you do not handle it properly. After killing the hapless creature, you have to immediately cut the tail off and let the blood drain from the animal, then put it on ice, preferably, or in a dark and cool environment, which impedes further uric contamination. Until it is prepared it must be kept cold.
Following those procedures, it is supposedly good eating, and I suspect awesome from my experiences with reef shark.
