Scuba Dive Venice, Florida - Sharks Tooth Hunting

Venice, Florida, is home to some of the state's most beautiful beaches, with unique black sands and fossil-bearing shorelines. There are lots of unique opportunities to find fossils of all types. The Venice area is specifically known for shark tooth hunting along the shores of its beaches and off the coast of its shorelines. Scuba diving in the shallow waters makes for a fun day with friends and family. You can find fossilized shark teeth, whale fossils, and ice age animal remains. You may even find artifacts such as arrowheads from Native Americans who hunted here nearly 10,000 years ago. 

This unique environment has a history of lost predators, such as the giant Megalodon shark. Scuba diving with local charters, such as ours—Fossil Junkies Dive Charters—enhances your chances of scoring these unique fossils. Our trips focus primarily on placing certified divers in the best fossil beds along the coast of Venice. There are all types of different bottoms to hunt from: rocky bottoms full of rocks and bones, soft mushy bottoms with gray clay and black pebbles, reefy bottoms with lots of fish and corals, and sandy bottoms with sand rows full of bones and teeth. Each type of bottom hosts its own unique hunting environment. Depths range from 12 feet deep all the way to depths of 36 feet deep, with our average hunts in the 20 to 32 feet range.

Each of these hunts offers opportunities to find a mix of fossils. Certain areas are more abundant with shark teeth fossils, while others are more abundant with ice age fossil deposits. Most of these environments provide a mixture of everything. I’ll explain the details on hunting each environment and how to be most productive. The four types of bottoms we like to hunt are all good for good reason.

When scanning, we especially like hunting rubble rocky bottoms. Many of the rocks and rubble help trap preserved fossils in between the cracks and crevices of the debris fields.  In these environments we like to swim and turn over bones and rocks by hand, exposing the rubble and pulling it from the sand or clay. A lot of times, when doing this, you will uncover teeth that are buried, sometimes with only a piece of the fossilized tooth exposed, and it may not look like a tooth. That's why it's important to grab and touch any bones or buried rocks. While pulling on these objects, you will occasionally be surprised when a giant shark tooth pops out of nowhere. 

On many occasions, I have pulled giant Megalodon teeth from the rubble that were buried almost fully, with just a piece sticking out. I thought, "No way this is a tooth," until I grabbed it and finally uncovered it. I would estimate that 5 to 10% of the teeth we find in these rubble patches are almost fully buried, especially the giant Megs. Since the 5 to 6-inch Megs are large and dense, they seem to primarily be mostly covered when we find them, with little to no shape showing. This is why it's important to touch everything that looks like a tooth. After storms such as hurricanes or good winter cold fronts, these teeth will get ripped out of the clay and rubble and sometimes tossed right on top, making them easier to spot. Storms help reset these fossil beds and make teeth easier to spot visually. It's not uncommon to find 4-inch and 5-inch Megs flopped out right on top of the ocean floor after storms. 

Rubble areas can be small and patchy, so it's important to take a bearing on your compass and cover the ground in the directions we tell you to head. Shark teeth are not the only fossils you encounter in these rubble fields. They are also one of our favorite areas to discover giant bones and teeth from ice age animals like the Columbian mammoth, and teeth from extinct horses. The fossil deposits in these areas usually hold a great variety of whale and turtle fossils as well, so make sure to grab anything questionable you encounter, as the chances are high that it may be a fossil from a prehistoric animal or mammal.

When it comes to hunting quality shark teeth, I like to focus on hunting primarily soft mushy gray clay bottoms with fine black sandy gravel and a mixture of seashells. These environments can be tricky for some to hunt, as they can be really hard to spot the fossils. These areas often have a high density of shells covering the tacky clay bottom. In these areas, we use the cover ground rule: You have to cover ground in these areas to be most productive. We look for giant clam shell fields in the tacky clay. These giant clam shells seem to be the staple for debris in the area. 

Our theory is that if you want to find larger teeth, look for the larger shells. It seems that most of the larger clams and teeth congregate together, while smaller shells and clams collect with the smaller teeth and fossils. While diving in these areas, I always look for the clam bed fields. They always get me excited. I have found some of my nicest and largest Megalodon shark teeth mixed in these clam fields, stuck in the clay. Keep in mind, these clam fields are not primarily living clams. 

Most of these clams are those that have been eaten by predators or died and split in half, leaving only their shells behind. I think they primarily bury down in the clay bottom when alive, and once eaten, they are exposed on top of the ocean floor and gather together in these fields. The clay bottom is where the freshly eroding, high-quality Megalodon teeth are primarily coming from. When they erode out of the clay, they get trapped and gather in these clam fields. Another thing I like to look for in the clay bottom environment is low-relief limestone outcroppings. The science behind this is that the limestone relief you encounter protruding out of the clay bottom is actually the prehistoric seafloor. 

Millions of years ago, when the Megalodon was hunting the ocean, it would feed on whales and lose their teeth. When the sharks lost their teeth, they would flutter down the water column and land on the limestone bottom. Over millions of years, sand and clay formed over the limestone, locking these teeth in place. So when you find limestone exposure, you are looking at the prehistoric seafloor. The clay has been brushed away by currents and the sea, leaving behind bones and teeth that have been uncovered after millions of years for us to find, just laying in plain sight on the prehistoric seafloor. Look for lots of smaller shark teeth and stingray barbs and mouthplates as well, as these areas can produce hundreds of teeth in a day of diving if you train your eye to spot them. 

As mentioned previously, when hunting for smaller teeth and fossils, make sure you scale down the clams and shells and start looking for areas of less shell and smaller broken clams and shells. The thicker the shells, the harder the hunt, so I encourage you to look for cleaned-out areas of clay bottom with less shells and more fossils. You can find an abundance of teeth each dive if you get in the right areas. A lot of the smaller shark teeth we find in these areas belong to species of sharks that are still around today, such as bull sharks, tiger sharks, sand tiger sharks, and dusky sharks. This shows you just how special sharks really are, to be able to find teeth that were lost thousands to millions of years ago from modern-day species of sharks that still thrive in the oceans today. 

Keep your eyes out for any unusual bones as well, as these areas also produce vertebrae from prehistoric whales and their ear bones and ribs. Usually, the bones in these areas are lighter in color instead of the usual black bones you find here. You’ll also find colorful and pretty bones ranging from orange to light brown. The colors of fossils and the quality of fossils in these areas are what collectors call museum quality. This is what keeps us hunting these areas time and time again. Anytime you can go home with a museum-grade specimen, it's a good day. 

Museum-grade specimens are only about the top 1% of shark teeth we find. Generally speaking, this means that for every 100 teeth we find, 1 or 2 will be museum quality. Museum-quality teeth have perfect razor-sharp serrations, good colors with glossy, shiny enamel, and a nice bourlette. They are perfect condition teeth that were never used to eat by the shark that lost them. Many Megalodon shark teeth have busted tips due to them feeding on giant whales, which makes the museum-quality Megalodons from the tacky clayfields my favorite teeth to hunt, as they combine rarity and quality all in one.

Next, we move on to hunting at our customers' favorite locations. Time and time again, our guests always rave about our reefy bottom sites. These sites are full of marine life and limestone reefs with corals and sea fans, tropical fish, sport fish, sea turtles, and manatees. These are common sights on some of these hard-bottom reefs we hunt. These areas are like an adult Disney World—they are full of fun, adventure, and excitement, with big bones and lots of shark teeth. This is what keeps the reef exciting to hunt. The adventure is endless. 

There is always something to look at, at these locations, plenty to keep you busy, and plenty to discover. It is a different hunt compared to the other hunts. With the abundance of fossils and ocean life, it keeps you engaged. The quality of fossils in these locations is generally more worn and beat-up. A lot of them are also covered in coralline algae growth, a pink-purple organism that grows on reefs and rocks. The coralline gives the fossils an advantage over the diver, as many of the fossils here are covered in it, and you really have to rely on picking out shapes and straight edges with everything camouflaged. You have to slow down and train your eye to spot the chameleon-like fossils. 

Many of the shark teeth here are found complete and in the 4- to 5-inch range. We find a lot of giant Megs on the reefs. There is a strategy to hunting the reefs. You want to look for low-relief areas that are close to the same height as the sand. The higher relief is usually not as good as the lower-lying relief. You also want to hunt along the edges of the low-lying relief. 

A lot of fossils were eroded out of the reef and buried in the sand. Currents move the sand, uncover the fossils, and push them up along the edges of the reef, where they can get trapped. This is why the edge of the reef is good to hunt. You can also go on top of the low-lying relief and hunt the cracks and crevices. Again, this is where fossils have been eroded and then fallen into these cracks and crevices and got trapped, making them easy targets for us to find. Besides Megalodon teeth, we find lots of mammal and whale bones in these locations as well. I think of this area as an ancient feeding ground, where Megs were attacking whales and feeding on them fiercely. 

The abundance of bones in the area can really make your mind wonder. Most of our divers come away with fossilized bones and shark teeth from these reefy environments. They can also go home with mammoth bones and ice age fossils from these reefs. It is estimated that around 10,000 years ago, Florida's coastline extended out nearly 200 miles west in the Gulf, leaving Florida's land exposed. The ocean seafloor today was once dry land back then, where mammoths and other ice age animals grazed and lived. That's how we can discover these amazing fossils right alongside oceanic fossils like the Megalodon shark. 

Some of the best ice age fossils we have discovered have been on the edges of Venice, Florida’s shallow water reefs. The reefs vary in depth, but we generally focus on the ones in the 24 to 32-foot depth range. Something about this depth holds the story and history of the prehistoric fossil remains of our ancient past. At this depth, Florida’s ancient history is being exposed and tells a story reaching back nearly 10 million years.

The last type of environment we like to hunt out here is another customer favorite, especially during the right conditions. This environment is known for its sandy ripples—little hill rows on the ocean seafloor full of black gravel, powdered black sand, and lots of bones and other fossils and teeth. Occasional rock outcroppings appear in the sand rows as well. These areas are full of surprises. The quality of Megalodon teeth that come from these areas are also museum-quality. The sand rows form on top of the tacky clay bottom, forming sand hills as far as you can see. 

When the right storms and conditions create the perfect environment to form these sand rows, they can be some of the best hunting out there. The currents kick up the bottom, forming these rows and tossing Megalodon teeth and bones out on top of the hills and valleys the currents form. As mentioned, they form these hills on top of the clay patches, so in the right conditions, the teeth pop out directly under the rows and can be laying there in plain sight for easy pickings. Sand rows are one of my favorite areas to hunt. They seem to be most productive in the winter months, as the cold fronts come in and form these rows for us to hunt. They also sometimes appear in the spring and summer months after tropical storms or hurricanes. 

It's crazy how storms can impact these environments. They create this beautiful hunting environment, and as quickly as they are created, they can be flattened out and destroyed, burying the fossils within days. That's why it's important to catch these spots when they form. This is why it's important to hire an expert captain or charter boat like us, as we are always staying on top of the ever-changing bottom. It's important, when hunting these areas, to touch and grab any black bone or chunk of fossil you see. Many teeth don’t look like teeth when just a piece is sticking out. 

So be sure to touch, touch, touch! You never know when you have a big Megalodon tooth right in front of you. You want to swim these rows north and south, as they usually form running north and south. These sand row fields can be large areas, and they are very exciting to hunt, as they are also filled with a lot of other fossils and bones. These sand row environments can form at any depth. However, it seems most of the sand rows in the 20 to 32-foot range are where most of the magic happens. It's at these depths in this environment that you can possibly find the giant Megalodon shark tooth you've been dreaming about.

After educating you on the four different environments to hunt, I'd like to discuss the different fossil layers we discover. I’ll explain why some areas expose nicer quality fossils and why other areas produce more beat-up quality. All of the fossils we are finding are from the Pleistocene (10,000-2.58 million years ago), the Pliocene (2.58-5.33 million years ago), and the Miocene (5.33-23.03 million years ago). The Pleistocene epoch was known for the famous Ice Age animals like the Columbian mammoths. The Pliocene had older species of elephants and rhinos such as mastodons and Teloceras. In the middle of the pliocene is when the famous Megalodon shark is thought to have went extinct.  The Miocene epoch was when the Giant megalodon shark ruled the world's ocean's.

The areas that produce beat-up and busted fossils, which are usually heavily worn and broken, are coming out of what we call a reworked layer. A reworked layer is a formation that has been exposed and re-exposed many times in the past, usually an old river bed that dried up and then redirected throughout time, exposing these fossils to the elements. In the past, that's why they tend to be broken, worn, and beat up because they have been pushed around time and time again. Then, all conjugated together into the reworked layer. When it comes to abundance, reworked layers hold some of the highest-density fossil spots that we hunt, full of bones and shark's teeth of many species. These reworked areas are the same areas we like to hunt, all on and around the limestone reefs. 

The reworked layer at one time was buried on the reef when the reef was once land. It had ancient rivers running through it. On the bottom of these riverbeds were these reworked layers. At one time, they were natural and not reworked, but as time changed and the ages shifted, rivers cut through these hard-bottom reefs, exposing the fossil layer. When the ocean rose and land receded to what is now our local shoreline, the reefs sat untouched. What was once an ancient paleo river is now the Gulf of Mexico in Venice Beach. 

The currents moved just the right layers of sand to re-expose these ancient riverbeds and their magnificent reworked fossil layers.  Other areas nearby are very similar. However, an ancient river never formed or pushed through. Our tacky clay patches are new formations that are just now eroding the fossils out for the first time since they were originally covered up and settled here tens of thousands to millions of years ago. It's for that reason these tacky clay-bottom mushy patches hold such high-quality fossils and Megalodon shark teeth, as they have never been exposed to Earth's elements until now. Every storm helps erode out new fossils and helps expose new exposures. 

Each year we discover new patches that hold these incredibly rare, high-quality teeth. You may not find the abundance of fossils in these new exposures, however, you do find the quality—those picture-perfect teeth you can only dream about finding.

Now, if you're not looking to scuba dive and you want to set out on a shark's tooth hunt along the shores of the Venice area, you have many different beach locations to choose from. As far south as Englewood Beach, you have a beautiful beach at Stump Pass. Tons and tons of small shark’s teeth are found here daily, sifting with shark tooth scoopers and picking out the teeth from the shells. Go about waist-deep at the water's edge and scoop up the shells and teeth, sifting through them. Stump Pass is a beautiful beach and a little more popular for quantity.

Next, you have Manasota Beach. This is a favorite for locals and tourists alike. Manasota is located directly in between Stump Pass and Venice Beach. It's known for its beautiful public beach and scenic shorelines, with lots of beautiful homes on this span of the coast. This area is plentiful for small sharks’ teeth and better-quality shark teeth. It also seems to have a few more of the occasional Megalodon teeth pop up at this location. Hunting is done the same way as Stump Pass, waist-deep sifting is ideal.

We also have Brohard Beach and Caspersen Beach, a few miles north of Manasota. Both of these beaches are great for scenery and shark’s teeth. Caspersen has to be the prettiest and most scenic beach out of all of them. Beautiful natural palm trees in an all-natural wild environment. My personal favorite for relaxing in paradise, plus a bonus for hunting and sifting shark’s teeth along the rocky shoreline. Lots of small teeth and the occasional Megalodon are found here as well.

Next, there is Venice Beach. Venice Beach is known as the Shark's Tooth Capital of the World. This world-famous beach used to produce more shark’s teeth than anywhere else in the world. Until the late 90s and early 2000s, when they dredged right off the shoreline and pumped the new sand onto the beach for renourishment. Once this was done, it appears to have covered over the once prolific beach. Nowadays, you still find lots of smaller sharks’ teeth here, but not nearly the volume you used to. Venice Beach also has the Venice Fishing Pier with Sharkey’s on the beach on the south end of it—a fun place to catch dinner, have a couple drinks, and end the day with a beautiful Southwest Florida sunset. 

Just north of Venice Beach is the Venice Jetty, on the north side of the jetty is Nokomis Beach. This public beach is more of the typical beach atmosphere, with locals sunbathing and swimming along its beautiful shoreline. This beach also has shark’s teeth on it. However, it is more crowded with daily beachgoers than the other less crowded beaches I mentioned before. Whether you're down at Stump Pass or as far north as Nokomis, you're sure to have a great time at any of the Venice area beaches searching for shark’s teeth or just enjoying a beautiful day in sunny Southwest Florida.