biggest dogfish youve seen
- Thread starter Diesel298
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matt_unique
Guest
Diesel298:
Wow - I have never seen one larger than about 3'. You sure you were looking at a Dogfish and not a Blue Shark or such?
--Matt
Arduous
Contributor
Sorry they don't grow to 6 feet, you were looking at something else.
adshepard
Contributor
Arduous:
So unless the estimate is off then it was not a dogfish. More likely a blue shark or sandbar shark which are known from the area.
I have encountered a 6'+ sandbar shark off southern Cape Cod and it was much thicker than a dogfish.
DSDO
Alan
Maximum recorded length of spiny dogfish is about 4.5 ft, and normally they are much smaller. The smooth dogfish gets to a maximum of 5 ft, and again most are much smaller.
Could have been a lot of things, but just going by the size, where you saw it, and the fact that you thought it was a dogfish my guess is you probably saw a sand shark (Carcharias taurus), not to be confused with the similarly named sandbar shark (Carcharhinus plumbeus) also found around here (and already mentioned). Some fisherman even call the sand shark the "dogfish shark", but it is not really a dogfish.
Could have been a lot of things, but just going by the size, where you saw it, and the fact that you thought it was a dogfish my guess is you probably saw a sand shark (Carcharias taurus), not to be confused with the similarly named sandbar shark (Carcharhinus plumbeus) also found around here (and already mentioned). Some fisherman even call the sand shark the "dogfish shark", but it is not really a dogfish.
jchaplain
Contributor
Cool pics!....looks like a sand shark to me....but then I always thought sandshark and dogfish were the same. Glad to get the education here that they are not the same. ( Thanks Chris!)
At any rate...they don't look too threatening..very cool to see though!
John C.
At any rate...they don't look too threatening..very cool to see though!
John C.
Me and my big mouth! So, that actually IS a spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) after all! Great pictures by the way!
I was just going by your description of the size because like everyone else said it shouldn't be possible for a dogfish to be 6 ft long. They should max out at about 4 ft. However, the pictures are definitely a spiny dogfish. You can even see the spines on the front of the dorsal fins if you look closely.
I did a quick google search and found a link with some good pictures if you want to compare them. The top picture on the page isn't great, but look at the 4th 5th and 6th pictures down, its a dead ringer for your friend:
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/SpinyDogfish/SpinyDogfish.html
I was just going by your description of the size because like everyone else said it shouldn't be possible for a dogfish to be 6 ft long. They should max out at about 4 ft. However, the pictures are definitely a spiny dogfish. You can even see the spines on the front of the dorsal fins if you look closely.
I did a quick google search and found a link with some good pictures if you want to compare them. The top picture on the page isn't great, but look at the 4th 5th and 6th pictures down, its a dead ringer for your friend:
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/SpinyDogfish/SpinyDogfish.html
matt_unique
Guest
That looks like one good sized Spiny! Unless there is something funky going on with the camera I think I would have had a double take as well.
--Matt
--Matt
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