Can you keep a sharks (most species — see notes for exceptions) in Virginia?

Closes each year Closed May 15 through July 15

54 inches fork length, 1 shark per vessel, closed May 15 through July 15. This is the general rule for species like blacktip, bull, lemon, nurse, spinner and tiger shark. It does not apply to every shark: hammerheads need 78 inches fork length, mako need 83 inches (female) or 71 inches (male), and Atlantic sharpnose, bonnethead, blacknose and finetooth sharks carry no minimum size at all (bonnethead and sharpnose are capped at 1 per person instead of 1 per vessel). Species on Virginia's Recreationally Prohibited list — including Atlantic angel, dusky, sand tiger, sandbar, white and bigeye thresher shark — may not be taken at all. Every shark that is landed must have its head and fins attached; spiny dogfish carry no size or possession limit and are not covered by any of this.

VMRC source page

What we left out on purpose

• A full 'Virginia Trophy Season' for striped bass (36 inches, a permit, May dates) appears on this page but sits inside an HTML comment and is immediately followed, in visible bold text, by the Commission's May 28, 2019 action eliminating that season for the Bay, the Potomac tributaries and the coast. It is left out entirely as abolished, not carried as a fourth striped bass region.
• Kingfish, pompano, crevalle jack, dolphin, swordfish, tuna and wahoo are on VMRC's page only as tournament-citation species (an angler awards program) — none of them carries a Regulation, Minimum Size Limit or Possession Limit field. Tuna, swordfish and wahoo are managed federally under NMFS HMS permits; kingfish, pompano and crevalle jack simply carry no state size or bag rule.
• Federal-waters exceptions are noted by VMRC for black sea bass, scup and summer flounder without giving the federal numbers themselves — those numbers are set by NMFS/the Mid-Atlantic Council and are not carried here.
• The Potomac River and its Virginia tributaries follow Potomac River Fisheries Commission rules instead of VMRC's for striped bass and summer flounder — a bi-state body this schema has no field for.
• Blue catfish (36-inch DWR rule) is left out — that agency and its whole freshwater/tidal-freshwater regulatory set is out of scope for a silo that compares coastal species.