Tight Lines Y'all!

I'm on vacation down south escaping the January cold in New England, while the ice thickens on my favorite ice fishing spots, I have been doing some fishing on the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

Last week I fished off the jetty at Huntington Beach State Park, south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Google maps satellite view of area

It's a 1.3 mile walk to the jetty from the beach

View from the end of the jetty. Murrels Inlet on right

Here's a little video I took from the day before when it was sunny. I caught a stingray that day, but it got off my hook before I was able to hoist it up the rocks.

The next day I had better luck. I hooked a few Spiny Dogfish, but was only able to land one. 

2 1/2 foot Spiny Dogfish

The other fishermen were only catching dogfish too, and nothing else. Since dogfish have a reputation as a "garbage fish," they were tossing them all back into the water. A fellow fisherman offered me a few, so I left with enough shark for a week. Dogfish is used for "fish and chips" in the U.K. and would be tasty with careful preparation.

Since dogfish have no kidneys, they pee through their skin. They need to be immediately bled, gutted, de-skinned and iced, otherwise their flesh will quickly spoil and smell of ammonia. I was careful to prepare them, and then marinated some for 4 hours in apple cider vinegar and lemons. I soaked the rest in a milk bath overnight to remove any fishy odor and tenderize it..

I found a recipe for Spiny Dogfish Shark in Tomato and Citrus. 

Ready to bake

Ready to eat

The dogfish was delicious. It really absorbed the marinade well; perhaps I used too much apple cider vinegar. The flavor was kind of like chicken. One benefit of eating shark is there are no bones to worry about, just a thin strip of cartilage that runs down the backbone which is very easy to remove. 

The next day, I removed the rest of the fillets from the milk bath, rinsed them in water and marinated them with fresh lemon juice, olive oil and just a little vinegar. Then, I iced it all down for our road trip to Florida. A couple of days later, it had become super tender lemony ceviche. I decided to broil it. It made great fish tacos.

Broiled dogfish

It seems the lowly dogfish is slowly making a comeback in the culinary world. Check out Eat Magazine's article, "Spiny dogfish makes history as first sustainable shark fishery." 

Meanwhile, I'll be fishing along Florida's "Forgotten Coast." Tight lines y'all!