There is no directed fishery for dogfish, but they are allowed as bycatch, up to 20 percent, in federal and state waters. However, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game recently issued a special permit to a single vessel to harvest up to 100,000 pounds in a targeted fishery, and similar permits would be available to interested vessels, according to Charlie Trowbridge, management biologist with the Homer office of Fish and Game.
Markets for dogfish have been the stumbling block to a viable fishery in Alaska, even though the product is popular in Europe and Asia. However, Deep Creek Custom Packing in Ninilchik stepped up to buy the product from the boat that was issued the special permit on an experimental basis. That experiment was a costly learning experience, according to Deep Creek owner Jeff Berger.
Berger said Deep Creek processed about 12,000 pounds and sent them to Japan, but were not able to find a market that paid enough to continue.
“That’s it for now until we can either fish for them cheaper, or we can get more money out of them, or we can process them cheaper. I think maybe a combination of all three,” Berger said.
He said that volume and a higher price are the keys to making it work. Volume means around 400,000 pounds, and the price needs to come up 20 to 30 cents per pound to his plant, according to Berger. He said that processing dogfish is complicated if done right, and involves removing the bellies, fins and tails, which have their own market, and then skinning the “logs,” which are used as fish and chips in Great Britain. It is too labor intensive for a small plant without the proper machinery to do it cost effectively. Berger said there are machines to do the skinning, but they are quite costly, which comes back to needing a large volume and higher price.
Berger said the fisherman who caught the product didn’t make out much better in the experiment.
“My model was based on paying the fisherman 20 cents,” he said. “Under the scenario that we’ve harvested this small sample, he’s not going to get anywhere near that even, because it was a joint venture sort of a deal.”
Although this first attempt was disappointing, it is not the end of the line. Berger said that he is looking for a better market.
“The next step is to find somebody that’s willing to pay 20 or 30 cents more for it,” he said. That’s a direction he is actively pursuing. “We’re always looking for things to do to be able to make a living.”
“It’ll probably come together kind of the way cod did,” he continued, “where for years and years it just isn’t quite worth enough to even harvest it, and then okay, it’ll be barely worth it, and then it’ll be kind of worth it, then hopefully there’ll be a time when it’s profitable, and then everybody will be doing it.”
Cristy Fry has commercial fished in Homer since 1978. She also designs and builds gear for the industry. She currently longlines for halibut and gillnets salmon in upper Cook Inlet aboard the F/V Realist. She can be reached at cristy-fry@excite.com.
Anecdotal evidence in recent years points to an increasing biomass of dogfish in areas where they have not been seen previously. Longliners, sport fishermen and even gillnetters have reported a larger bycatch of dogfish over the past three to five years, often in areas that formerly produced mostly halibut and cod.
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