It's taken a couple of days for me to post this with the fear everyone would think I'm nuts.
Saturday evening, My son, a good friend of mine and myself were trolling at West Point. My rod started to get bit so I popped it off the down rigger and turned it over to my son. I thought for sure it might be a Dog fish. The fish comes to the surface about 30 yards behind the boat and I still couldn't quite tell what it was. All of a sudden, the rod takes a hard jerk down and comes back up with the origional about of pressure from this small fish attached. Then we see a shark fin and tail on the top of the water behind the fish. I would guess the distance from the dorsal to the tail was around 36". I've seen my fair share of Dog Fish in my days, but this did not appear to be one. So we get this fish up to the boat and it's a True Cod with a bite taken out of its' back. I wish I had a camera with me so you could see the bite mark. It went clean through the spine and was about 4" across at the widest point. It wasn't chewed up, just a clean, single bite.
I know there's 6 Gill Sharks in the Sound, but I thought they were most active late at night. Any thoughts on what type of shark this could have been?

A large dogfish
We "casught several such fish this past week that had taken smolts that was hooked on spoons. The smolt's head was still on the hook (along with the dogfish) but the rest was gone with a single clean bite. Have seen this in the past.

Tight lines
Curt

Thanks Smalma. That was the biggest friggin Dogfish I've ever seen. I couldn't believe one could take a bite that clean?

You catch 40 plus inchers in Willapa Bay often, I remember one year some guy was asking me to give him my big dogs, he eats them he said.

A few years ago we had dog fish eating our kings on the way up to the boat. Mostly the smaller fish, but we had one about 10 lbs that looked like it was attacked by a cookie cutter. The fish was gutted and mangled by the time it came to the net.

matt

There are quite a few larger ones on the west side of Possession. Between 3' and 4' occasionally. Several years ago we hooked a big one there. I happened to look down while my buddy was releasing it. There was another huge one following our 12 pound DR ball about 6" away, I think studying it to see if it could eat it?

They are not really smart, just hungry. A big blue shark followed us out in the ocean quite a few years ago. It was funny as a small log of about 6" arouind and 3 feet long got between us. It was butting it with its head and then biting it. It did this several times before giving up. I had the camera on the seat for a while to get some good shots of it. When I ran up to get the camera for some shots, My wife put it away, so I missed it. My guess is it was trying to figure out if it could eat it.

About ten years ago I aw a shark off Patos Island that was 6-7 ft long, way, way thicker than a dogfish it's pectoral fins probably had a 3 ft spread, I was told by the guy I was with that it was a salmon shark. We got a good look it swam right underneath the boat, maybe that's what it was?

Could've been a six gill shark. They get up to 200 lbs or so.

I've seen BIG dog fish on the beaches - like 5+ feet long.

Last weekend a guy cleaned a salmon and threw the carcass (head/tail/spine all intact) into the bay and sure's hell, a dog fish attacked it, thrashing around the shallows like it was a fresh fish that might get away.

Dorsal to the tail +/- 36 ". Looking at some photos, dorsal to the tip of the tail is a little bit more than half the length of a dogfish. That would make your fish around 5-6 feet long. According to a NMFS publication, maximum size for a spiny dogfish is around 5.25 feet. So I guess it is possible that you saw a huge dogfish. But you said it didn't look like a dogfish - In what way?

There's also what we called sand sharks. We used to catch them when we were kids. About 3 to 4 feet long and gray but the following article doesn't mention them.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20000215&slug=4004949

Unless there's a different one, I've always thought that when folks around here say "Sand Shark" or "Mud Shark", that they are actually referring to Spiny Dogfish.

Out in MA9 last week every king we brought up would have six or eight doggies following it all the way to the net, and they were not small ones...several in the 4 foot plus range every time.

If you were unlucky enough to hook a bullhead or flounder, the sharks would be on it in a few seconds if you didn't immediately get it up and off the hook, and several times we reeled up dogfish hooked on the back of flounder, reeled 'em both up.

More often we just reeled up the back half of a flounder.

Fish on...

Todd

While diving a sheer ledge out on the Sunshine Coast of Canadia, as I was hovering along side the ledge doing some decompression obligations, I got to watch a 4-5' doggie swim out from the green abyss and run right in the middle of my chest. It never tried to bite me - was more like a moronic dogfish torpedo. Just came out of nowhere with me in it's sights, and hit me center of mass. Fortunately, the sharkhead must have been a dud, as it didn't explode.

It sorta bumped (hard) off of my chest, did a couple of quick turns in the water and then swam off back in to the green abyss as I tried to grab it's tail.

Of all the thousands of dives I did off of Alki and up in Barkley Sound, I've still never personally seen a 6-gill, or any other oceanic shark while diving.

Just some chinarks.

Poor buggars

When i was a kid, it was more or less a given that fishermen would kill every dogfish they caught. I remember one time when my Dad took a knife and slit open a big dogfish and then cut the line. I saw the the dogfish swim around beneath the boat eating its own guts. Pretty cool. Obviously left an impression on me.

Maybe they were six gill pups? In fact my dad's bro from MN brought two back to the house once. Why? Who knows. But definitely grey and not even close to being a dog fish.

"It sorta bumped (hard) off of my chest"

It was marking you. He made you his.....


Mudshark legend:

http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/mudshark.asp

Guy at work was fishing Whidbey yesterday and caught a doggie well over 4' from the beach.

NOFISH--aint them hooks a bit far apart?

The mudshark has an theme song by Frank and The Mothers of Invention, so they got that going for 'em.

I think I see barbs too, Cheater I always thought the six gilled chinarks stayed deep, like over 300' deep. Maybe not? I've caught some big doggies in my day, but none over 5 feet.