Before you drag heavy shark tackle onto a Cape Cod beach this summer, check the map. Massachusetts wildlife officials are reminding shore anglers that the state's shark-fishing regulations are fully in force, and the rules around heavy gear, chumming and drones are stricter than many beach fishermen realize.
The timing is no accident. White sharks have returned to Massachusetts waters, and a great white landed and released off Nantucket on June 7 put shore-based shark fishing back in the spotlight. Elliot Sudal, who has fished for sandbar sharks and other species off Nantucket's south shore for more than a decade, hooked the roughly 8.5-foot, 300-pound fish from the beach in front of a crowd and let it go immediately. White sharks are a prohibited species in U.S. waters and cannot be intentionally targeted. Nantucket, as it happens, lies outside the zone where the state's heavy-gear ban applies.
That ban grew out of safety scares. The Division of Marine Fisheries enacted shore-based shark rules in 2025 after anglers apparently fishing for white sharks from the beach repeatedly put swimmers and surfers at risk — including an episode at Wellfleet that rattled surfers in the water. Working alongside the Massachusetts Environmental Police, the agency built the rules to steer anglers away from targeting white sharks close to crowded sand.
Within the restricted area, anglers cannot fish from shore using a baited hook with an inside gap wider than 5/8 inch combined with a wire or metal leader longer than 18 inches — the gear signature of someone after a big shark. The zone runs from the northernmost tip of Plymouth Beach along the shoreline around Cape Cod Bay and the Outer Cape, including all of Chatham Harbor, Stage Harbor and Monomoy Island. Anglers can still use lighter tackle there for other fish.
Heavy gear is allowed outside that boundary, but anglers may not chum from sunrise to sunset — no baiting sharks toward the beach during the hours people are most likely to be swimming. And one prohibition holds statewide: deploying bait with any mechanized, compressed-propulsion or remote-controlled device is banned for all shore fishing. Drones, bait cannons and remote-control boats are out; kayaks and kites, which move bait by hand, remain legal.
The Division of Marine Fisheries also laid out best practices for releasing a shark, treating survival of the animal as seriously as public safety. Keep the shark in the water and its gills submerged, officials say. Minimize handling and release time instead of pausing for photos. Never sit on the shark's back. Use a long-handled dehooking device when you can, and carry wire or bolt cutters to sever the leader or hook fast if the release stalls.
The Environmental Police handle enforcement, and breaking the rules can bring fines or other penalties. With the white-shark population off the Massachusetts coast still climbing, the agency is urging anglers to study the full regulations and the map of restricted shoreline before fishing — because the squeeze on beach shark fishing is unlikely to loosen any time soon.