Northwest Dive Club

I am curious when was the last time you saw Spiny dogfish ( Squalus acanthias ) while diving.
I used to see them occasionally at Keystone, Driftwood Park and Possession Fingers.
My last sighting of the local little shark, was back in July 2011. I miss them :(

Haven't seen one since the fingers a year ago

We usually see them mid to late summer, last summer we found them (or they found us) as usual in The Hood.
don

I saw last Spiny Dogfish at T-Dock in Mukilteo few months ago.

Hi Jan
We saw a rather large one on 11/25/13 at Redondo. The fall before that I saw quite a few tiny ones at Redondo at night. Dogfish have never been a frequent encounter for me. The fall before last was when I was seeing them most -- even as shallow as 15 feet! Hope you see more soon!

-Eric

I've run into them in the deeper parts of Three Tree, but haven't seen one since 2012.

Don - Do you usually run into them at certain sites, or just randomly? I'd love to get some video of them!

I saw a few down by the Man at Mukilteo last week.

Thank you all for input, for while I was worried that they are all gone since I don't see photos of them posted lately...

Jan K wrote:Thank you all for input, for while I was worried that they are all gone since I don't see photos of them posted lately...

They're very hard to take photos of ....they're rare, fast, skiddish, and many of us use macro lenses!

Here's the one from 11/25 via a macro lens Do you have any good ones from the archives?

Not much ...

I hadn't seen one in sometime, but had one join me for the majority of my dive at Sund Rock on Saturday evening. We specifically stuck around to do a night dive, and it paid off. Very cool dive.

Saw one Saturday at Flagpole. I followed it around with my camera and apparently I was NOT recording. GRRR it was my first, but at least I got a lot of other great footage.

If you want to see thousands head up to Pelican Beach (named after a sailboat not fauna) on Cypress Is. at night during the next full moon. They should be around munching on the millions of spawning candle-fish. It would be quite a night dive.

Sounds cool! Where is Pelican Beach?

Funny, EJ and I were just talking about Dogfish and I realized I had not seen one for a while. I went back through my pictures and my last encounter was August 2012 at Redondo.

renoun wrote:If you want to see thousands head up to Pelican Beach (named after a sailboat not fauna) at night during the next full moon. They should be around munching on the millions of spawning candle-fish. It would be quite a night dive.

Hey I have done some Googlin' on this and am not coming up with anything solid. Can you give me some more info on this?

Norris wrote: Hey I have done some Googlin' on this and am not coming up with anything solid. Can you give me some more info on this?

Sorry, got too involved in adding the hyperlink and forgot to add "on Cypress Is.". Cypress Is. is on the East side of Rosario Straight North of Anacortes/Fidalgo. Pelican Beach is a campground that is part of a Wa. DNR reserve on Cypress and is located on the East side of the North end of the Island overlooking the Cone Is.

It isn't a good place to anchor but there were some mooring buoys installed in the past. I've usually gone there on a beachable boat and camped ashore. An overnight stay in the bay by Cypress Head would be more comfortable unless it is a calm night. There's some nice day hikes on the island too, especially up Eagle's Bluff.

I think they tend to be a warm weather critter. We catch tons of them during the summer all over the San Juans while salmon fishing, especially if using bait vs. lures. Then in the winter time, not a single one... I catch half a dozen a season in my crab pots. The only ones I've ever seen were at Patos Isalnd and Sucia Island during the summer.


-Mathue

renoun wrote:If you want to see thousands head up to Pelican Beach (named after a sailboat not fauna) on Cypress Is. at night during the next full moon. They should be around munching on the millions of spawning candle-fish. It would be quite a night dive.

Very cool. Sounds very interesting, I'm sure a bunch of people would be up for checking that out! Have you done it, or are you planning to? Tell us more... is it all full moons, or only specific ones? how do you know about this, etc



Thanks!
-Eric

YellowEye wrote: Tell us more... is it all full moons, or only specific ones? how do you know about this, etc

I've seen the spawn (with feasting dogfish) several times in the mid to late 1990's. The knowledge imparted on my by people who had been going there for decades was that the spawn was during the full moon in the early summer. The next full moon is on July 12th which is about the time I have seen this in past years. I haven't really kept up with these folks but I'm sure that somebody here has a better idea of typical candle-fish spawning behavior.

I saw one in 2012 at Saltwater State Park on a surface swim, back when I still had a snorkel.

Man, I miss that snorkel.

Saw two today at 3-Tree. Saw one last week at Sund Rock and another couple of them last week at Point Whitney.

Seaslave wrote:I think they tend to be a warm weather critter. We catch tons of them during the summer all over the San Juans while salmon fishing, especially if using bait vs. lures. Then in the winter time, not a single one... I catch half a dozen a season in my crab pots. The only ones I've ever seen were at Patos Isalnd and Sucia Island during the summer.


-Mathue

While I've never thought of it before, this matches my experience. My biggest sighting of dogfish occurred in Waddington Channel in Desolation Sound. The summer water temperatures there approach tropical. We ran into a large school there. We had another summer warm water sighting of a large school of dogfish on the wreck of the GB Church off Portland Island. In both instances we encountered dozens of fish. Otherwise, I've seen occasional random individuals in all of my dive sites.
-Curt

Jan K wrote:I am curious when was the last time you saw Spiny dogfish ( Squalus acanthias ) while diving.
I used to see them occasionally at Keystone, Driftwood Park and Possession Fingers.
My last sighting of the local little shark, was back in July 2011. I miss them :(

Saw a good sized one a TTN last week!

I saw a small one at Cove 2 yesterday.