Molly
09-14-2008, 07:36 AM
http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2008-09/42335566.jpg
Frank Mundus (right) at the Montauk Marine Basin with a record 17-foot shark he caught in August 1986 with charterboat captain Donnie Braddick
They called him the Monster Man. His business was the stuff of tall tales. Gear for the day might include a harpoon, buckets of blood and the patience to wait for a shark to come along and take a bite.
"I was the pioneer of sport fishing for sharks," Frank Mundus, a legendary shark hunter, said in his trademark blunt style on his Web site.
The Monster Man's own words sum up perfectly a life said to have inspired the movie "Jaws" and its roguish Captain Quint, played by the late Robert Shaw. Mundus died Wednesday of complications from a heart attack suffered Sept. 6, just after he returned to his Hawaii home from a fishing trip in Montauk. He was 82.
"He wanted to be remembered as a pioneer in his sport," said Mundus' wife of 20 years, Jeanette, 46. "He was an extrovert, a straight shooter. He never held back."
The New Jersey-born Mundus came to Montauk in 1951 to be a fisherman. He quickly became a local celebrity, running a charter boat business and taking thrill-seekers out into the Atlantic Ocean to catch sharks.
Great whites, threshers, makos, blue sharks. Whatever it was, Mundus caught it, and he soon earned a reputation as a man who spearheaded a new fishing craze on the East End.
Read more... (http://www.newsday.com/ny-limundus0914,0,7561328.story)
Frank Mundus (right) at the Montauk Marine Basin with a record 17-foot shark he caught in August 1986 with charterboat captain Donnie Braddick
They called him the Monster Man. His business was the stuff of tall tales. Gear for the day might include a harpoon, buckets of blood and the patience to wait for a shark to come along and take a bite.
"I was the pioneer of sport fishing for sharks," Frank Mundus, a legendary shark hunter, said in his trademark blunt style on his Web site.
The Monster Man's own words sum up perfectly a life said to have inspired the movie "Jaws" and its roguish Captain Quint, played by the late Robert Shaw. Mundus died Wednesday of complications from a heart attack suffered Sept. 6, just after he returned to his Hawaii home from a fishing trip in Montauk. He was 82.
"He wanted to be remembered as a pioneer in his sport," said Mundus' wife of 20 years, Jeanette, 46. "He was an extrovert, a straight shooter. He never held back."
The New Jersey-born Mundus came to Montauk in 1951 to be a fisherman. He quickly became a local celebrity, running a charter boat business and taking thrill-seekers out into the Atlantic Ocean to catch sharks.
Great whites, threshers, makos, blue sharks. Whatever it was, Mundus caught it, and he soon earned a reputation as a man who spearheaded a new fishing craze on the East End.
Read more... (http://www.newsday.com/ny-limundus0914,0,7561328.story)