Dogfish are the bastards of the Mississippi River. Supposedly, they destroy habitats. So they're lumped among carp and suckers, in that lowly category of bottom-feeders.

Just look at the dogfish: its bullet-shaped head, its eely long fin, carnivorous jaws . . . its barbels, its fangs. No wonder they're feared. They come from nightmares.

It's the last blue light of night beneath the power plant. The fish you catch here aren't good for eating, but it's a good place to sit and watch the sunset. Upstream, you can see the downtown skyline, the dome, the barges, the sky full of bridges. Downstream, the chromatic museum takes on dimension, reflecting gold, copper, silver. It's a colorful place to wait for a monster.

So that's what I'm doing. And the dogfish beneath me are swarming in the spillway. Their population is up. I've been waiting years for this. I caught my first dogfish in Minnehaha Creek when I was a kid and kept it alive in a 10-gallon tank. For years it hovered there, rippling its fin, until it formed fungus on its bone-plated head. Then it died, but it wouldn't go away. I kept seeing dogfish in unlikely places, like along the tracks, miles from the river, all dried up like mummies-or frozen in a stream two feet beneath the ice.

They caught my attention.

In 1956, the largest recorded dogfish was 24 inches long and 24 years old. But I'd seen them longer. And older. And fiercer.

Dogfish are pure muscle. And instinct. And teeth.

And lungs. Or rather, they have lunglike organs. When creeks go dry, they roll themselves in the mud and wait for the floods. Dogfish can breathe air.

But what's even more amazing is their madness. Largemouth bass, northern pike, lake trout-they just don't get as crazy as dogfish. A dogfish can leap six feet in the air and thrash harder and longer than any muskellunge. If you've ever fought a fish in the sky, and then on land, you know you can't just reel a dogfish in. You have to exhaust it.

Which is why most fishermen decide to brain it as fast as they can. The lash of a dogfish can knock out a tooth. Or give someone a black eye. It's a lot easier to hold onto a juvenile delinquent than it is to grip a dogfish.

But where are their myths?

Sure, there are stories-but none that are written. I mean, even the Chippewa choose not to remember. The windigo exists among all northern tribes, but there are no stories of dogfish. Similarly, the Devil has a place in literature, but Isaac Walton and Henry David Thoreau never met a dogfish.

In fact, you won't find anything written about dogfish unless it's scientific. All cultures have rejected them, which is strange, considering that dogfish have been around just as long as sturgeon and gars and coelacanth. They're from the oldest living fish family on the planet-but their history doesn't exist.

There are no legends of dogfish.

WHAM! A dogfish hits my line. And it's the biggest damn dogfish I've ever seen, flopping around like a great silver salmon beneath me. I play the drag, pulling it toward the bank. POW! It's in the air. It hits the concrete. SLAP! It's back in the river. ZZZZZ! I beach it on the petroleum sand.

As it climbs down the wall, I note there's no spot glowing orangely on its tail, which means it is female. And not only that, but there are two more fishing lines coming from its mouth, as well as two trailing from the anus.

The dogfish is more beaten than any that I've ever met. Its under-jaw is covered with abrasions, open sores, and healing scars. But then again, all dogfish are lepers.

I gaze down on it, and it looks up at me-two creatures regarding each other. And then I do something I never do: I grab it beneath the gills. And it doesn't resist. I heft it up.

What's this? This dogfish defies the description that I've just given. She is slack and doesn't even try to escape. I hold her and feel her breath on my wrists. It's such a weird sensation that I can't put her down. To feel the breath of a fish on your flesh is to realize your connection with it.

But then I set her down and kneel beside her. I work the hooks from her mouth, then bite the lines behind. The dogfish just lies there, pretending she's dead.

So I walk her to the current and place her in the flow so she can feed and seed and propagate her species so that all warm waters shall one day swarm with the gnashing jaws of this terrible underdog.

And she rolls belly up. She's lost all her will. I right the dogfish and walk her out further. I let her go again. And again, a wave rolls her over. But this time, she fights to stay upright.

And I know she will continue to fight. Yes, she will fight and fight and fight, like a gang kid just released from jail, making his way back to some urban hell. Or a battered woman leaving a shelter-with no place to go. This dogfish will survive.

Mark Spitzer is a Minnesota native now living in Louisiana.

This article appeared as "Gone Dogfishin'" in the October 1997 issue of Minnesota Monthly. Copyright Minnesota Monthly.