July 8, 2015 — There was a time when dogfish was all the rage and local fishermen couldn’t reel them in fast enough for connoisseurs as far as away as England, Italy and Germany.
The smooth and spiny sharks were a delicacy in England, where they was called chipfish – the “fish” in fish and chips.
Then came the 1990s, when the dogfish supply in the Eastern Atlantic got frightfully low.
“We needed to be regulated because we were catching 20,000 pounds a boat per day, and lots of people were doing it,” said Spot MacDonald of Spots Fish Co., on Lynnhaven Inlet. “They shut it down overnight.”
That shutdown came from the National Marine Fisheries Service out of fear of a population collapse.
Now the fish is back. The Fisheries Service is allowing limited commercial and full-scale recreational fishing. But this time around, the industry isn’t that interested.
“They’re getting 14 cents a pound for them, and I’m getting 28 cents by the processors up in New England,” MacDonald said. “Who’s going to put much of an effort into that?”
Read the full story at the Virginian-Pilot