Sharks · Saltwater
Spinner shark
Carcharhinus brevipinna
Warm-temperate to tropical requiem shark of the western Atlantic and Gulf of America continental shelf, using beaches, bays, and river mouths as well as offshore pelagic water; well known for spinning leaps while pursuing baitfish, a behavior that gives the species its name.
- Surf
- Inshore
- Nearshore
- Regulated context
- 4 of 4 overlays reviewed
- Reviewed 2026-08-27
Before you target this fish
Regulated context — check the rules for the exact water
Where this applies Federal Atlantic HMS EEZ waters (NOAA Fisheries) and Florida state waters (FWC) at minimum; every other Gulf and Atlantic coastal state sets its own rules again.
The reviewed context, unedited
Federal Atlantic HMS rules (NOAA Fisheries) govern federal EEZ waters; Florida state waters are governed separately by FWC, and every other Gulf/Atlantic coastal state sets its own rules again. The two regimes do not match field-for-field. Spinner shark is one of the more consistent cases: both NOAA's federal rule (grouped with hammerhead, bull, lemon, nurse, blacktip, tiger, blacknose, finetooth, blue, porbeagle, and thresher at a 54 in fork-length minimum, 1 shark per vessel per trip) and FWC's state-waters Group 2 (54 in fork length, inside a 1-per-person-per-day / 2-per-vessel bag) agree on the 54 in minimum. The two regimes still differ on the permit/endorsement structure, the bag-limit accounting (per vessel per trip federally vs. per person per day in Florida shore fishing), and hook/gear rules — verify the version that applies to the water and platform (vessel vs. shore) in use. A proposed federal rule (Federal Register, published 2026-01-05, comment period closed 2026-03-06) would revise blacktip and spinner minimum size to a default 48 in and move Atlantic sharpnose and bonnethead bag limits from per-person to a per-vessel default with an annually adjustable range; as of the last check this session made, it had not been finalized. Confirm current status before relying on any figure here. Misidentification carries legal exposure: several similar-looking requiem and hammerhead sharks are federally and/or state prohibited, and a prohibited shark must be released without removing it from the water. Verify identification and the rule set for the exact water (state vs. federal) before harvest.
Rules for this fish change at a state line and sometimes inside one. Check the ones that apply to the exact water you are standing on before you act on anything here — this record is biology, not permission.
Take this somewhere
This page is the record. The reading is what happens when you add water, a season and a temperature to it — that is where the families below get ranked against each other instead of just listed.
Those three links carry the fish and nothing else. No conditions were declared on this page, so none travel, and the link says so rather than sending an empty reading.
The half nobody publishes
What this record does not know
Everything else on this page comes from a named agency or peer-reviewed source. This is the other side of that: the questions a reviewer went looking for an answer to and came back without, and the fields the record leaves empty because filling them would mean guessing.
It is here rather than at the bottom because a page that only shows what it knows is easy to read as a page that knows everything. For Spinner shark there are 12 of them.
Named by a reviewer
9Somebody looked for this and wrote down that they did not find it.
- Behaviour
No NOAA/agency species-overview page for spinner shark was found this session (only the ID guide, fin guide, FishBase, and the Australian FRDC report), so this dossier is thinner than blacktip's and is marked partial.
Diel tendency, current-facing, depth movement, and thermal-driven behavior are all unsourced for this species.
Western Atlantic/Gulf-specific reproduction timing (mating season, gestation, litter size) not found.
- Identification
No western Atlantic/Gulf-specific average length, typical weight, longevity, or age-at-maturity figures were found; all size/age figures available this session come from an Australian stock assessment or a global FishBase maximum and are flagged as such rather than presented as U.S.-stock figures.
Sexual dimorphism not resolved.
- Forage
No agency (NOAA/state) diet account was found for this species this session; the only diet source is a synthesis database (FishBase), which is why this dossier is marked partial rather than reviewed.
Seasonal and life-stage diet detail not sourced.
Whether crustaceans form a meaningful part of the diet (as they do for blacktip and Atlantic sharpnose) was not confirmed.
- Season
A full seasonal calendar (winter/spring/fall entries, thermal thresholds, inshore-offshore movement timing) was not sourced for this species this session; only a thin summer entry is supportable. This is the weakest of the four sharks in this batch and should be prioritized for follow-up research before being treated as complete.
Absent from the record
3No reviewer wrote a gap here. The field is simply empty, which is its own answer.
- Water temperature
No agency or peer-reviewed temperature band for Spinner shark was found that a review would accept. The reading runs without one rather than borrowing a number from a related fish.
- Identification
No reviewed image. A photograph is only in this catalog when an agency or a named creator labelled the subject, and nobody has cleared one for this species yet.
- Population context
No regional population profile is registered. The species-level reading stands on its own; it does not silently become a local one.
Where the record puts it
Water and range
Surf
3 reviewed holding classes- Surf trough
- Inner sandbar
- Rip channel
Inshore
2 reviewed holding classes- Creek mouth
- Channel edge
Nearshore
2 reviewed holding classes- Nearshore reef
- Inlet mouth
DepthFishBase gives a depth range of 0-100 m; no finer inshore/nearshore depth preference was found.
Moving waterDescribed in the sources reviewed as using coastal habitats including beaches, bays, and river mouths as well as offshore pelagic water and nearshore nursery bays; not resolved to a specific current-use pattern.
LightNot resolved from an agency or peer-reviewed source in this review; recorded as a gap.
Thermal band
Temperature
No reviewed temperature band
Nobody publishes a preferred or active temperature range for Spinner shark that a review would accept. Borrowing one from a related fish would look like knowledge and behave like a guess, so the reading runs without it and says which parts of the answer that weakens.
How it uses water
Behaviour
Described in sources reviewed as using nearshore bays as nursery habitat and offshore pelagic water otherwise; a specific U.S.-stock social/schooling account was not found. The species' well-known spinning leaps typically occur while driving through and feeding on baitfish schools, which implies at least loose aggregation around concentrated prey.
FishBase describes the diet as mainly pelagic bony fishes plus small sharks, cuttlefish, squid, and octopus — a pursuit-feeding pattern on schooling and mobile prey, consistent with the spinning-leap feeding behavior the species is named for.
Not resolved from a sourced account this session; recorded as a gap.
Spawning (conservation context)An Australian stock assessment (different population) gives age at maturity of about 9 years for males and 10 years for females; a western Atlantic/Gulf-specific mating season, gestation length, or litter size was not found in an agency source this session. Recorded as conservation context and a gap, not as location guidance.
Where the general rule stops
- Spinner and blacktip shark are frequently confused with each other at boatside; a size that clears blacktip in Florida state waters (no minimum) does NOT clear spinner shark, which carries a 54 in minimum in both federal and Florida state waters. Confirm the species before assuming the state's no-minimum rule applies.
What it can eat
Forage
- Small forage fish
- Mollusks
FishBase describes the diet as mainly pelagic bony fishes, with small sharks, cuttlefish, squid, and octopus (mollusks) also taken. This is a global/synthesis source rather than a U.S.-stock-specific agency account; no crustacean component was found in the source reviewed, though it would not be surprising for a coastal requiem shark of this size. Diet capacity is not evidence of a current bait event.
- Feeding style
- Opportunistic
- Feeding zone
- Pelagic
Diet capacity described here is not proof that a bait event is occurring on any given day. Observed current forage still comes from a user observation or Hatch Match.
Through the year
Season
Summer
- Where they sit
- Coastal habitats including beaches, bays, and river mouths, per the sources reviewed.
- Feeding
- Pursuit of pelagic baitfish schools, consistent with the species' spinning-leap feeding behavior.
What that changesRun-and-gun cast to visible surface activity in the surf/nearshore zone, plus chum-established drift and live-bait slow troll, are the reviewed families that fit a pelagic, schooling-bait pursuit predator.
What would count against it
- predicting a specific bite window from season alone
Spawning · Unknown
An Australian stock assessment (different regional population) gives age at maturity of about 9 years / 209 cm for males and 10 years / 225 cm for females; a western Atlantic/Gulf-specific mating season was not found in an agency source this session. Recorded as conservation context and a gap, not as location guidance.
Recorded as conservation context. No spawning site, staging concentration or migration bottleneck is named anywhere in this catalog, because naming one is how a population gets fished out.
Telling it apart
Identification
What to look at
- Snout is pointed, as long as or longer than the width of the mouth — more sharply pointed than blacktip's rounded snout (NOAA tagging-program ID guide).
- First dorsal fin is fairly small with a rounded apex, originating over or just behind the free rear tips of the pectoral fins — set further back than blacktip's taller, forward-set, pointed dorsal fin.
- In animals larger than about 2.6 ft, the anal fin, first and second dorsal fins, pectoral fins, and lower caudal fin are all black-tipped — described in the NOAA guide as looking 'dipped in jet black paint.' The BLACK-TIPPED ANAL FIN is the key mark separating spinner from blacktip, whose anal fin is white.
- Pectoral fins show black markings on both surfaces (top and bottom); blacktip shows black mainly on the underside (NOAA fin ID guide).
- No interdorsal ridge.
- A light wedge- or Z-shaped band runs along the flank, widening toward the pelvic fins and merging with the white belly.
- Average adult length
- Not resolved to a western Atlantic/Gulf-specific average from an agency source; FishBase gives a maximum of 300 cm total length (about 9.8 ft) and 89.7 kg (about 198 lb) without separating this from other stocks.
- Common angling size
- Federal and Florida state-waters minimum is 54 in fork length in both jurisdictions (see targetContext).
- Typical weight
- Not resolved to a typical (as opposed to maximum) figure from a source reviewed this session.
- Maximum documented
- FishBase: 300 cm total length, 89.7 kg maximum published weight. An Australian stock assessment separately gives a maximum age of about 31 years for that population; neither figure is confirmed as western Atlantic/Gulf-specific.
What it gets confused with
- Blacktip shark
- NOAA's tagging-program guide calls this pair the most difficult to distinguish. Blacktip's anal fin is white (spinner's is black-tipped); blacktip's first dorsal fin is taller, more pointed, and set further forward (over the pectoral fin insertion) versus spinner's smaller, rounded dorsal set further back (over/behind the pectoral free rear tips); and blacktip's snout is rounder and less sharply pointed. Do not rely on fin-tip color alone — it fades with age in both species.
- Sandbar shark (Carcharhinus plumbeus)
- Federally and Florida-state PROHIBITED. Has a pronounced interdorsal ridge (absent in spinner) and a very tall, forward-set first dorsal fin.
- Dusky shark (Carcharhinus obscurus)
- Federally and Florida-state PROHIBITED. Has an interdorsal ridge (spinner lacks one) and a heavier body with generally unmarked fins.
- Bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas)
- Open under the same federal 54 in group as spinner, so not a legal-status risk, but distinguished by a stockier body, short blunt snout, small eyes, and a rearward-sloping, typically unmarked dorsal fin.
What follows from all of that
Presentation families
Surf
Run-and-gun cast
Cast into visible surface activity without running the school over.
- approach up-wind and off to the side
- cast to the edge of the bust
- fast retrieve
- leave before you scatter it
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Low
- Sensitivity
- Moderate
- Casting distance
- Long
- Weight range
- 3/4–3 oz
- Cover resistance
- Low
- Line visibility
- Secondary
- Retie frequency
- Moderate
Surf bait soak
Hold a natural bait still on the bottom of a trough or cut and let moving water bring fish to it.
- enough lead to hold
- read the trough
- let the rod load
- reset as the tide moves the bar
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Low
- Sensitivity
- Moderate
- Casting distance
- Long
- Weight range
- 2–8 oz of lead
- Cover resistance
- Moderate
- Line visibility
- Secondary
- Retie frequency
- High
Tide-line drift
Fish the visible seam where two bodies of water meet, letting the rip do the work.
- find the colour change
- present up-current of the edge
- let it wash through
- re-run the line
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Moderate
- Sensitivity
- Moderate
- Casting distance
- Moderate
- Weight range
- 1/4–3 oz
- Cover resistance
- Low
- Line visibility
- Moderate
- Retie frequency
- Moderate
Inshore
Chum-established drift
Establish a scent trail and drift baits back through it at the speed the current is already moving.
- consistent trail
- unweighted or lightly weighted drop-back
- match the sink to the drift
- do not outpace the trail
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Low
- Sensitivity
- High
- Casting distance
- None
- Weight range
- Unweighted to 2 oz
- Cover resistance
- Low
- Line visibility
- Low
- Retie frequency
- Moderate
Live-bait slow troll
Move live bait just fast enough to cover water while it still swims naturally.
- barely-moving speed
- bait leads the boat
- let it swim
- drop back on a follow
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Moderate
- Sensitivity
- High
- Casting distance
- None
- Weight range
- Unweighted to 4 oz
- Cover resistance
- Low
- Line visibility
- Low
- Retie frequency
- Moderate
Nearshore
Chum-established drift
Establish a scent trail and drift baits back through it at the speed the current is already moving.
- consistent trail
- unweighted or lightly weighted drop-back
- match the sink to the drift
- do not outpace the trail
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Low
- Sensitivity
- High
- Casting distance
- None
- Weight range
- Unweighted to 2 oz
- Cover resistance
- Low
- Line visibility
- Low
- Retie frequency
- Moderate
Live-bait slow troll
Move live bait just fast enough to cover water while it still swims naturally.
- barely-moving speed
- bait leads the boat
- let it swim
- drop back on a follow
What it asks of the tackle
- Depth control
- Moderate
- Sensitivity
- High
- Casting distance
- None
- Weight range
- Unweighted to 4 oz
- Cover resistance
- Low
- Line visibility
- Low
- Retie frequency
- Moderate
What moves them for this fish
Reviewed rules that push particular families up when the conditions match. Each one names the conditions it needs and why it exists, so you can disagree with it.
Spinner sharks are named for leaping while driving through baitfish schools, a pursuit behavior on visible surface activity rather than a wait-and-scent style of feeding, so a still bottom soak is a worse match than casting to the activity when forage fish are actually present.
When
Surf · Small forage fish
Moves up
Run-and-gun cast, Surf bait soak
Reviewed 2026-08-30
Where every sentence came from
Sources
Agency
NOAA Fisheries, Shark Identification for the Cooperative Shark Tagging Program (S-W species)
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families; identification. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
NOAA Fisheries, Shark Fin Identification Guide (NOAA Technical Memorandum)
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families; identification. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
NOAA Fisheries, Recreational Atlantic Shark Fishery Statuses, Minimum Sizes, and Retention Limits
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
NOAA Fisheries, HMS Recreational Compliance Guide 2025 (permit, shark endorsement, circle hook rule)
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Agency
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Synthesis
FishBase, Carcharhinus brevipinna species summary
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families; identification; behaviour; forage; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-27.
Synthesis
FRDC Shark Report Card, Carcharhinus brevipinna
Used for behaviour; season. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-26.
Synthesis
Used for habitat, thermal band and presentation families. Read 2026-08-27, next check 2026-11-27.
Synthesis
FRDC Shark Report Card, Carcharhinus brevipinna (Australian stock; size/age context only)
Used for identification. Read 2026-08-30, next check 2026-11-23.
A source with no link predates the rule that one has to carry a URL. It is still a real citation and still checkable; it just takes a search rather than a click, and that is worth knowing before you rely on it.