Dogfish? Eat'em, Kill'em, or Let'em Go?

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wasilvers

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Recently I've been introduced to the lovely dogfish that abound in my local river. Not to brag, but today I caught the ' largest dogfish I've ever seen', so said the local police officer patrolling the park. It was a good 25-27 inches long - caught in 8 inches of river water.

So some kids are there and they INSISTED on killing the thing. The police officer fully agreed with the kids as did others there. I gave it to the kids to do what they wanted.

Anyway, should I be killing each dogfish I catch? If so, I'll kill at least one for every 30 minutes of fishing this river, today would have been the giant, and 2 15 inchers during lunch. I hate to kill anything without using it. Are they edibile - if so, anything special to cleaning/cooking them?

To brag again, the kids kept talking about the bait I was using and how they had never seen anything like it. It was just a 2.5" yellow crankbait with the front hook removed and replaced with a weight - to keep it from getting hung on the rocks. Thanks to the other tinboaters for the suggestion

Will
 
I assume you are talking about bowfin (aka grinnel and mudfish). Most people around here whack 'em with a boat paddle when caught.

They are the native equivalent to a snakehead and make life tough on small sport fish.
 
I thought those were saltwater?

If he's talking about a river, I assumed he was talking about this:

nickv_bowfin_011807a.jpg
 
Quackrstackr has the right picture. Locally they guys call them dogfish. They hit just about anything I throw in the water.

Quackrstackr said:
I thought those were saltwater?

If he's talking about a river, I assumed he was talking about this:

nickv_bowfin_011807a.jpg
 
I think they are good sport..fight better than a bass. If you are managing for bass, killing one means one less competitor though.
 
Cajuns call them Choupique and in MS we call them Grinnell. They eat them here, but now that I think about, Cajuns eat anything. "If it crawls, flies, or swims you eat it and if it doesn't you season with it."
 
wikipedia said:
The list of local and alternate names the bowfin is known by is lengthy, but common ones include "dogfish", "mudfish", "grindle" (or "grinnel"),"swamp muskie", cottonfish and "lawyer". In parts of S. Louisiana they are called "tchoupique" or "choupique".

:lol: They said Lawyer :lol:
 
Interesting. That's one fish that I've never caught. Maybe I'll have to amble down there and give it a shot sometime.
 
angry Bob said:
Interesting. That's one fish that I've never caught. Maybe I'll have to amble down there and give it a shot sometime.

It shouldn't take too long, they'll bite on anything that moves or looks like food. If you're around during the day, I'm actually there a few times a week during lunch break (12 - 12:30ish)- just look for the only guy fishing thats dressed like he works in a CPA firm :)

Will
 
We used to take our old spinnerbaits and target them in river oxbows and sloughs.

Make sure that you are not fond of whatever bait you choose to target these fish with. They have a pretty nasty set of chompers and a mean disposition that will completely destroy a bait.
 
Thanks, Bob.

I'm not sure what my daughter was telling me right that moment but I'm sure the words "faster, daddy, faster!" were not too far behind it.

She's my little speed demon. I guess I have another 12 years or so to prepare myself. :lol:
 
My grandpa and my uncle used to kill these guys when carp spearing and pike fishing. I educated myself before following in their old school footsteps. I learned that bowfin prevent fish stunting(starvation, small fish size, and panfish population explosion). You know those lakes that have butt loads of small panfish, but no big ones? Well they probably have no bowfin, or very few. Also they have lived side by side with bass and other gamefish for literally millions of years and have never shown to impact the bass, musky, crappie, or trout populations, fishermen surely have though. They eat dead vegetation, which helps increase oxygen levels in the water. They eat sick, dying, and dead fish, which help prevent the spread of virus and bacterial infections in gamefish. Bowfin numbers are declining in some wisconsin waters, like by my place they used to be common 20 years ago, now you can only find them in a few cranberry bogs. I talked to the fisheries biologist here and he said he hasn't seen any in their fish census. The worst part is we have a population explosion of small, and sometimes very diseased panfish...some are really good size, but I caught several panfish with sores all over them last year, so I won't eat them. And the bass are usually under 12 inches, with the rare giant here and there. My point is I see first hand what indiscriminate bowfin killing can do to fisheries... Small, and sometimes terribly diseased fish that even the northern pike miss are not being weeded out like they usually are by bowfin and there have been some nasty consequences in my opinion. Last year I caught a 7.5 lb largemouth in a bog that is said to have bowfin....the other spots where I'm sure the bowfin have been decimated because of the accessibility to the public, we tend to catch a lot of bass, but the sizes are much smaller(10-12 inches), with the occasional 13-14 incher. Bowfin, dogfish, mud fish, grinnel, cypress trout are some of the names given to this fish...it has been around for over 100 million years, is completely native to wisconsin waters, does not have any negative impact on game fish population and infact helps weed out the sick ones that spread disease. This fish deserves some respect, so either find out how to properly prepare them and eat them, or throw them back. Us Wisconsinites need to leave behind some of the faulty wisdom our grandparents gave us, like my mine did for me. As the old wisconsin saying goes "smash their heads in and throw them in the weeds". Sounds a tad bit barbaric for a native wisconsin first, hell I bet these guys even would enjoy a brat and a beer...people say they eat anything.
 
We had one in a fish tank for a long time I. College. We usually throw them back. We only catch them swamps around here. Fun to catch.
 

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