Topics: Commercial fishing and shellfishing

Julie Dykens buys dogfish from fisherman Doug Feeney at the Chatham Farmers Market. COURTESY PHOTO

CHATHAM – For a number of years now, the spiny dogfish has been a mainstay of the town's commercial fishing fleet. Along with skate, it is by far the largest species by volume landed at the fish pier.

Most of that fish, however, is shipped to Europe, where it is used for fish and chips, among other things. Not only does that create a fairly large carbon footprint, but local fishermen don't get a lot per pound when the dogfish are iced up and sent across the pond.

While there have been inroads in creating a local market for dogfish which would both pay fishermen a higher per-pound rate as well as reduce the impact of long-distance shipping, getting the species on the plates of local residents has been a struggle.

But folks can now buy fresh-off-the-boat dogfish filets, which fishermen say if processed correctly will rival the texture and taste of traditional whitefish such as cod.

“It's beautiful white meat,” said Doug Feeney, a commercial fisherman and member of the Chatham Harvesters Cooperative, which is now selling fresh dogfish fillets. The Coop's permits and equipment allow consumers to get the fish in vacuum-sealed packs for $10 per pound the day after it is caught.

The Coop has been selling dogfish fillets are the Chatham Farmers Market on Tuesdays and at its Commerce Park location on Saturdays for a few weeks now, and the reaction has been positive, said member Brett Tolley.

“People seem to like them,” he said while tending the Harvesters' pop-up sale at Chatham Works last week, the last of the season.

Dogfish can have a strong flavor, not unlike bluefish, but if processed carefully it can be more like a typical whitefish, Feeney said. While he still sends much of his daily catch overseas, he's been taking about 20 to 40 pounds and bleeding the fish, gutting it and putting it in salt water brine to chill before filleting. That way the meat comes out looking more like whitefish, with fewer dark red streaks that can characterize dogfish.

“You get it, you process it and chill it right away,” he said. Quickly vacuumed packed, “it's as fresh as can be.” He's able to bring fish caught on a Monday into the Harvesters facility and process, fillet and pack it for sale the next day at the Chatham Farmers Market.

With a USDA Value Added Producer Grant, Feeney and the Coop worked with fish processor Red's Best to get dogfish onto the menu at Massachusetts state university cafeterias and other institutions, but getting the species onto the tables of families has been a challenge. During the pandemic, he tried to get the state interested in distributing dogfish and mackerel to those in need, but couldn't find a way to make it work. Rhode Island did take thousands of pounds of the fish. Feeney said he just wants to help feed people.

“It just baffles me that people are hungry and we have this product that is overabundant,” he said. Dogfish can be prepared just like any other whitefish, pan seared in oil with light seasoning or in any other recipe that calls for whitefish, he said. Tolley recently posted a video on the Harvesters showing how to cook a dogfish BLT.

While dogfish stocks plummeted from overfishing in the 1980s, Feeney said a 10-year rebuilding plan overestimated the species' gestation period and stocks had rebounded within four or five years. Now, the limit on dogfish is 7,500 pounds a day (up from the previous 6,000 pounds per day), and in a good year, Chatham's fleet can land as much as 17 million pounds of dogfish. Stocks continue to be monitored to ensure that they don't decline again.

Because the fishery has proven to be sustainable, “we've got to get American consumers eating this product,” Feeney said. Most people don't realize that when they order cod at a Cape restaurant, they're getting frozen fish from Iceland. “We've got to stop eating what we want from the ocean and start eating what the ocean provides us.”

Tolley said he believes the recent sales are the first time a local fishermen has been able to sell dogfish directly to the community. This “offers a glimpse into a future win-win scenario for our community where people get more access to a public resource and fishermen might get paid much better,” he said in an email. “From an eco-system perspective, it's also a win because we're eating what is actually abundant in the ocean rather than demanding the same fish 365 days a year, which is fundamentally not sustainable.”

Dogfish, as well as monkfish and other locally-caught species, are available at the Chatham Farmers Market, held every Tuesday from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Local Color Gallery in West Chatham (next to Job Lot), and at the Chatham Harvesters Cooperative, 95 Commerce Park, 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.

A float in the 2003 Harwich Cranberry Festival Parade marked the 50th anniversary of the Harwich Historical Society. The society’s museum was a school for many years, though it’s not clear if they actually used a dunce cap for unruly students. FILE PHOTO

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