The Largest Shark Every Caught (video - parts 1 and 2)

08-Aug-2011 09:33 PM

Less than three weeks before his death I interviewed legendary shark fisherman Frank Mundus.

Earlier in the summer of '08, I had gone to Montauk to cover their annual shark tournament.  The catch of sharks was small and few and far between. Conservation was being preached - I heard,  by a guy Mundus.  "Who?" I asked a salty old angler.  "Frank Mundus.  You know, the guy who caught the world's biggest shark on a rod and reel.....Mundus...the Monster Fisherman who was the inspiration for the shark hunter QUINT in JAWS." "Right.  Where is this guy today?" I asked.  "Ah, I dunno back in Hawaii I guess".  A few inquiries later, I  found the old hunter staying with a young couple along one of Long Island's little canals.  I grabbed a cameraman, rushed over, and the rest one of my favorite interviews.

Back inn 1986 Mundus had caught a 3,427-pound great white about 28 miles off Montauk, and only 18 miles from Block Island.  His catch holds the record, not only for just the largest shark, but for the largest fish of any kind ever caught by rod and reel. The capture of the shark was controversial at the time with some saying the shark was feeding on a whale when caught (which would have negated the so-called "Official Record"). The International Game Fishing Association ruled that the catch was legitimate based on photographs. Mundus died on September 10, 2008, due to complications from a heart attack he suffered on September 6, the day he returned home to Hawaii after spending the summer in Montauk. According to his obituary he had spent the last night in Montauk aboard his fishing boat the Cricket 2 which had made him infamous.  Mundus suffered his heart attack in the Hawaii airport immediately after from the trip that included this his final interview. 

I'm a conservationist.  We've raped the oceans through pollution and mass hunting of fish.  (Just try to sit through long-line scenes in A PERFECT STORM without repulsed). Mundus pissed me off.  I wanted to call him on his brutality, but suspected getting his story straight was more important than calling the old troller on the carpet.  Mundus was a cool guy - just from another time - the age of elephant guns, rhino hunts, Gorilla slaughters, and big game hunting. 

I found Mundus intoxicating.  The shark tooth mounted in 18K gold around his neck (look closely) weighed a ton.  I held it in my hand imagining the trophy mounted in its original massive, powerful jaws flying through the oceans looking to rip into prey.  It was a bloody but enviornmentally sound thought.  Suddenly Mundus talked about overfishing, overpopulation and the realities of a world gone consumption-wild.  (SEE PART II BELOW) My thoughts turned to where Mundus' led me, with the shark trapped in some drift net, or dead after grotesque failing on some random long-line.  I  knew I had landed an important interview, I just never imagined it would be the old man's last.

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