Capt. Tom's Guide to New England Sharks
  Updated March 20, 2008    - Scituate, Massachusetts
  e-mail  me at   mailto:capt.tom@comcast.net
  This site is primarily about the New England shark species. 
  There is also general information on Sharks   
  This site also contains recreational shark fishing information.       

                 Photos of New England sharks  would be appreciated.

Eyes are located forward, just above the front of the mouth.

Teeth have serrated edges,  are close together with overlapping bases on the upper front jaw.

The new IGFA 528 lb. blue shark record is going to be hard to beat. 
That shark is about at maximum weight for a blue shark.

Tom Burns photo 

Blue Shark   Prionace glauca
     Blues are named for their blue coloring.

IGFA Record - 528 Lbs.......Mass. record - 454 lbs.    

Slender body, with a blue back and white bottom. Dorsal fin is well behind pectoral fins.  Has a nictitating membrane to protect the eye. Body gradually tapers into tail.  Pectoral fins are long , swept back. Tips are usually pointed.  Typical sharks tail with upper tail much longer than lower tail.

Bluesharks are incredible ocean travelers. Some of the sharks tagged here in the New England will go up toward the Flemish Cap,  go across the Atlantic toward England and turn south and go off the coast of Africa; and then make a return trip to New England  sometimes via the Caribbean.

The male and female blue sharks separate after breeding, and the big males, some of them world record size, trickle into Mass. Bay in early July, and reach fishable numbers in late July.  The blues start to leave the area in mid October but a few are still here into early November. 

There are many blues here in the summer, and some will venture inshore into waist deep water, surprising the new groups of wading fly fishermen casting to stripers on Cape Cod's flats.  A fly fisherman told me he was wading at Monomoy on Cape Cod in 1998, casting to stripers on the flats; when nearby anglers shouted; Shark!   He turned around and a 9 foot blue shark swam so close to him that the  tip of the pectoral fin hit his leg.  

In July 1996,  a non fishing wader, in Truro Mass., receive 46 stitches in his leg from an encounter with a blue.  Reports of blues in shallow water have also been made in the Boston area, and one was witnessed by a friend of mine chunk baiting stripers, inside Minots Light, Cohasset.

Blue sharks in New England are among the largest in the world.   It is not uncommon for a Massachusetts shark tournament to have a 250 lb. or even a 300 lb. minimum weigh in for blues.  Several blues over 400 lbs. have been entered in Mass. shark tournaments.

The fork length of a blue shark rarely reaches 10 feet.  When they get over 9 feet the weight can range considerably as they just seem to get wider and plumper.   For example tournament weighed  9-1/2 Fork Length blue sharks have weighed  between 337 lb and 407  lbs.  So weight tables are approximate.

You hear often the female sharks are bigger than the males. That is not so in every species. . Personally I have felt the male blue sharks are bigger than the females but can't seem to see it stated authoritatively one way or the other.

Capt. Steve James who runs the Oak Bluffs shark tournament  has sent me a list of sharks 300 lbs and over, taken in the tournament from 1987 thru 2002. It has the weight and fork length of the sharks.

In that tournament every blue shark over 300 lbs was a male.  There are male and female bluesharks in the fishing area so females are as likely to be caught as males but no females over 300 lbs were caught. 

Here is the breakdown of blueshark weights:  300- 320 lbs= 44 fish,  321-349 lbs= 30 fish, 350- 390 lbs=15 fish and over 400= 3fish at 406-407-454 lbs

Surprisingly the fork length in feet for the 400 pounders is essentially the same as the 300 pounders They just get fatter. 406 lbs= 9.1FL,   407 lbs= 9.6FL,   454 lbs= 9.3 FL,    350 lb. = 9.8 FL,   
377 lb.= 9.6FL,    337 lbs= 9.5 FL

Now maybe somewhere on the planet there are bigger females but these male blues we get here set IGFA records which have world wide entries to compete with. So why aren't big females caught in other parts of the world. I believe because they are not as large as the males.

In our species the males are heavier and taller than the females but I can find some females that would be exceptions and be taller and/ or heavier than the average male,  so an occasional anecdote won't cut it. Where's the beef?

At the tournament a few weeks ago a shark biologist came onboard and I asked him about the sizes in the bluesharks. He told me coincidentally he had come to the same conclusion that I had, and he has written a paper which would be out shortly with the same conclusion that the male bluesharks are bigger than the females. 

He told me the growth curve was identical until the females breed and then they don't grow as fast as the males.

Note:  There is a new IGFA world record blue shark that weighed 528 lbs caught at Montauk, New York on August 9, 2001 by angler Joe Seidel. That fish will surpass this fish for the all tackle world record.

This  454 lb. blue on the right, was caught at Martha's Vineyard Mass. on July 19, 1996.   It was taken during a shark tournament, by my good friend Capt. Steve James, and angler Pete Bergin; on the “Quality Time,” out of Scituate Mass. The head mount of that  blue shark may be seen upstairs at the Mill Wharf Restaurant in Scituate, Mass. 

An IGFA women's line class blue shark record set in Mass. Bay, and still surviving   from the 1960s is Martha Webster's  410 lb. blue , taken Aug17, 1967.

When blue sharks get around 400 pounds their heads get bigger and wider and their snouts will appear shorter. 

Capt. Steve James and the former IGFA  all tackle record 454 lb. blue shark.  (This shark is the   Massachusetts record blue shark.)

Notice the 1st. dorsal fin is located well behind the long pectoral fins.

Next in sequence   The Lamnidae shark family The Lamnidae shark family This family contains 5 members:  the white,  porbeagle,  salmon shark,  shortfin mako and longfin mako.