Great white sharks, others catching fishermen's eyes off Florida's Atlantic coast

Deep sea fishermen have always known sharks of all sizes roamed off Florida’s coast but a growing body of research above and beneath the Atlantic Ocean is revealing in much greater detail just how many great white sharks are out there.

“We are learning that white sharks are more common in Florida’s Atlantic waters than we originally thought,” said Michelle Kerr, a public information specialist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. “This is especially true during the winter months.”

[READ MORE: Fisherman off Florida coast reels in area’s first great white shark]

[PHOTOS: Sharks off the coast of Central Florida]

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In the past two weeks, great whites have been spotted off the coasts of Flagler Beach, St. Augustine Beach and Fernandina Beach by the commission’s North Atlantic right whale aerial survey team. The great whites were seen anywhere from 15 to 23 miles offshore on Saturday and Monday, said biologist Katie Jackson with the right whale team.

Sharks tagged by researchers collaborating with OCEARCH also have pinged off the coast, even farther to the east.

One shark has had a busy winter.

Hal, a 12-foot-6-inch shark tagged by OCEARCH on Sept. 29 off Nova Scotia, arrived off Ormond Beach on Dec. 16. Hal then swam north again as far south as South Carolina, pinging off Murrell's Inlet on Jan. 4, according to its satellite track on the OCEARCH website. Over the past week, Hal has pinged east of Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and Flagler Beach, pinging last more than 40 miles east of Daytona Beach on March 12.

Miss May, a 10-foot-2-inch, white shark tagged by OCEARCH east of Mayport on Feb. 15, swam as far south as Jupiter by Feb. 26. Between March 4 and 7, she pinged several times east of Flagler Beach and Daytona Beach. On March 13, her satellite tag pinged far east of Jekyll Island.

The commission’s researchers spotted a school of sharks about 13 miles east of New Smyrna Beach. The school was probably spinner sharks, but could have been silky sharks, Jackson said.

Further to the south, Stephen Kajiura and other researchers at Florida Atlantic University’s Elasmobranch Research Laboratory have seen large schools of blacktip sharks in the ocean off Palm Beach during research in February and March.

The number of migrating blacktips is up this year compared to last year, Kajiura said Thursday. But, he added, the numbers are still low compared to the numbers found when the study began in 2011. “Last year was abysmal in terms of total shark numbers,” he said. Some scientists have attributed that to warmer ocean temperatures offshore, as a result of the changing climate.

Blacktip sharks are one of the species most often credited for the nips suffered by surfers along Volusia County's beaches, routinely earning the county the title shark bite capital of the world.