Spiny dogfish and smooth dogfish are ideal targets for those fishermen, who want to experience a top quality adventure during their fishing, when they can fight for their catch and, if enough witty, be a winner.

First, what dogfish sharks are and where they inhabit. Spiny dogfish has a variety of names, which count more than fifteen English language names only. They are spiny dogfish, blue dog, darwen salmon, grayfish, rock salmon, etc.  Spiny dogfish are found in the western Atlantic Ocean from Greenland to Argentina and in the eastern Atlantic from Iceland and the Murmanski Coast (Russia) to South Africa, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. In the western Pacific Ocean, spiny dogfish occur from the Bering Sea to New Zealand, while in the eastern Pacific, this species are found from the Bering Sea to Chile.

The distinctive features of spiny dogfish include a slender, elongate body and a moderately flattened head. It has a brownish color with a lateral raw of small white spots along each side, which are meant for disguise when the fish is immature, and in the process of growth, they fade or disappear. The average size of spiny dogfish is 28-39 inches (70-100 cm). Mature females reach weights of 7.1-9.9 pounds (3.2-4.5 kg), with a maximum recorded weight of 21.6 pounds (9.8 kg). They live up to thirty years.

The common names for smooth dogfish contain smooth dogfish, Atlantic smooth dogfish, dogfish, dusky smooth-hound, grayfish, nurse shark, smooth dog and smooth hound in the English language. Smooth dogfish is one of the most abundant sharks on the east coast of the U.S. It is also found in the northern Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and Bermuda.

This shark is an olive gray or brown, and may have shades of yellow or grayish white. It is easy to distinguish smooth dogfish and spiny dogfish. The spiny dogfish has one spine in front of each of the two dorsal fins, while the smooth dogfish lacks dorsal spines. Length for the smooth dogfish is approximately 59 inches (1.5 m), with a maximum weight of 27 pounds (12 kg). ). Data indicates that females live to sixteen years and males can live to ten years.

What is their importance to humans?  In certain areas, the flesh of smooth dogfish is marketed as fresh or dried salted for the human consumption. It also widely used as a lab animal and in a public display at aquariums. In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the commercial fishery for smooth dogfish, since people have shown more interest in the smooth dogfish meat.

Spiny dogfish is the prime ingredient of the popular British dish "fish and chips", as well as it is marketed extensively for food, fertilizers, pet food, and liver oil.

Finally, how to catch them? Spiny dogfish are known to drive off commercially caught fish, comprising mackerel and herring, while eating large numbers of them. They bite through nets to get at fish, releasing many in the process. The masters of fishing consider that spiny dogfish rarely feed during the winter months, as they stay in deeper waters, based upon their very thin appearance in early spring in the coastal waters. You can catch dogfish primarily with otter trawls and sink gill nets.