Just got off a watch and a half of dogfish sampling, and it was encouragingly productive.  I had been intimidated by the low catches we were getting off of Delaware and north of the Chesapeake Bay but as soon as we crossed the North Carolina state line it was like someone flipped on the dogfish switch.  There haven’t been any obnoxiously huge dogfish catches so far, but it has been a comfortably steady 6-17 dogfish per trawl today.  I stayed for a few tows after my shift was over to make sure I had extra coverage for the North Carolina stations.  Here’s the scoreboard as of right now:

7 North Carolina stations towed
53 North Carolina dogfish lavaged
17 dissected to gauge efficiency (all others released, some of these were from outside NC waters)
All sharks were females over 70 cm total length

I’ll have pictures and commentary up tomorrow (plus a whole new day of sampling), but for now I am beat.  I’ll be having visions of spiny dogfish circling my head.