Megalodon Hunting in Venice

[MermaidPrincess]

Hey Everyone!!

I am brand new to the site and recently dive certified! I live up in Tampa, but was hoping to make the trek down to Venice sometime next week to go diving for shark teeth (in hopes of finding some good megalodon teeth).

I saw Megalodon charters does a 2 tank boat dive and has some pretty good reviews. For those of you experienced in the area, is this the route to take, or do you suggest shore diving? If so, is Caspersen Beach the best place to potentially find the big ones? I used to go to Venice all the time before they resanded the beaches and made it substantially harder to find teeth along the shore.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!
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[packrat12]

Take the dive boat. I took my family on it (Florida West/Megalodon Charters) and we came out with really nice teeth and fossils. Two were very good teeth and were larger (3" and 2" which my daughter found and mounted as a necklace). We did the south sites which sound like they are better than the north sites but cost a little more.
As a new diver, the boat should provide you with a much better experience as you will not need to 'lug' around your gear as much as well as the swim out and back. Keep in mind that you need to be conscious of your air supply as you might get distracted by the hunt but the depth it is not deep. The depth is only 20' or so and the visibility can be anywhere from 0 to 20'. My young daughter did this as an early dive in her certification and loved it.
The boat captain will give you instructions on how to search for fossils and what you are looking for. They bring a box of fossils to show you what to look for. At the end of your dive, they will go through your stash and tell you what you got. At first grab almost anything you can pick up, later you will get an idea of what you are really looking for. They can also help with how to clean the teeth and bones. We used Apple Cider Vinegar with ours. We bought the mesh bag from them and think it was a good price. The cookies are great also.
Have a great dive and good luck.

 

[MermaidPrincess]

Thanks so much! I appreciate it!!!!!

 

[2TH DIVR]

Check out the Venice fossil divers section of the florida forum Venice Fossil Divers

it contains a wealth of info

 

[chris.evans]

I would say that most of these charters are solo diving. I went and they dumped 11 divers in the water with 11 dive flags. Solo diving, with 11 lines in the water, and terrible vis is not really for people who just have gotten an OW cert (IMO). I will say that the experience will make people much more comfortable in the water. Bring an SMB, in chop it's hard for them to see the flags, I floated a good 10-15 mins before deploying an SMB to get attention.

 

[monoxide]

There are a few charters in Venice I know megladon charters and aristikat charters are both good ones. Aristikat was pretty cheap to check out there websites for full details in pricing


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