Spinners Sharks

[JerseyMike]

Yesterday while enjoying the (South wind 5-10 with 2-3 ft seas) which resulted in small craft warnings... We were in the area of the mud buoy / dumping grounds fluke fishing around 10 am we started noticing a shark swimming by the boat checking us out, then we noticed it wasn't one shark but several sharks, within 20 minutes we had a school of sharks swim by numbering in the hundreds! They varied in size from 4 - 8 ft long. They were like a bunch of roudy kids coming up to the boat and doing tail slaps. Many of them were free jumping and spinning, which leads me to believe these were spinner sharks. Has anyone else seen these sharks? I've been fishing the NJ shore for 40 years, never saw anything like that before...

[bulletbob]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinner_shark
http://www.sharkinfo.ch/SI3_02e/cbrevipinna.html
https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/discover/species-profiles/carcharhinus-brevipinna/


A lot of your description is right on, including the size range... I was interested in your post and did some reading. No where does it say they come this far north very often , but the water is really warm this year, and there is a LOT of food for them, so I don't see why they wouldn't be here... I don't think they are common this far north, yours is the first post I have seen on them over the years in the NY Bight area, but I will defer the the shark fishermen on this board that might have encountered them.. Sounds like a very cool spectacle you witnessed... bob

[parrotinct]

I see them in South / North Carolina all of the time, generally just outside the breakers line. They are like Bluefish the way they school up and push / attach bait. At time's they are mistaken for ocean Tarpon with way they jump and splash. Many of the sharks caught from beach in the Carolina's are spinners.

[JerseyMike]

I gotta admit it was a little unsettling to see that many sharks around the boat, they bit off all our rigs, they had absolutely no fear of the boat and they had a very bold attitude about them. For everyone's sake I'm glad we were several miles off the beach. I would hate to see that situation right on the beach.

[makosnax]

Saturday morning in the same area, the fish finder lit up and two of us hooked up on big fish that nearly dumped our spools. Definitely wasn't cow nose rays, these fish dove and just bulldogged us. Had to snap them off to keep from getting spooled. We made the same drift again with heavier gear but couldn't get any love.

[dakota560]

That happened to us a few weeks back and it was a school of black drum. FF lit up from top to bottom and my sons reel started screaming. A half hour later and a lot of backing down we landed this guy. Could have been what you hooked.

[CaptMarc]

I wasn't too far from you. The water was 79.4. Pretty warm.