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Mundus was born in Long Branch, N.J., in 1925. His family moved to Brooklyn, N.Y. while he was still very young. Mundus started his fishing career in Point Pleasant, N.J. aboard his 42-foot charter boat, the Cricket II. Prior to the 1950s, no one had really conceived of sharks as gamefish. When Mundus moved his business to Montauk in 1951, it was with the intention of running a charter and commercial fishing operation for local fish like striped bass, bluefish and tuna. This is when he accidentally discovered sportfishing for sharks. “We were chumming for bluefish to sell in the market, but there were so many sharks we couldn’t get any blues. It was so much fun catching the sharks, we decided to start taking charters out.” Initially, no one was interested in shark fishing, so Mundus dubbed it “monster fishing.” Eventually, sportfishing for sharks became wildly popular, and Mundus led the way.

Who among us hasn’t fantasized about a life at sea unfettered by the demands of the daily grind? What would it be like to live catching marlin? There are still concerns; you buy groceries a month at a time, you calculate gas mileage at 27 knots vs. 30 in order to not get stranded at sea, oil pumps break, reels malfunction, and weather turns bad. Regardless of the demands, or perhaps because of them, it’s a rare way to live.

Shark fishing reached a new frontier in 1960 when Mundus and his partner Donnie Bradick harpooned a basking shark and dragged the carcass off Amagansett Beach, in the Hamptons. The corpse attracted several massive great whites. He and Bradick harpooned one of the sharks, and the rest is history. According to Mundus, the first great white was a little over 17 feet long. It took him and his crew close to two hours to put the first gaff in. After another hour of struggle, Mundus was able to attach the fish to the back of the boat with a tail rope and drag it back to Montauk. This was before the creation of shark cages, before the documentaries of “Shark Week,” before anyone had thoroughly studied these creatures. Initially Mundus and Bradick targeted great whites to sell their jaws and teeth as souvenirs, but hook and line sportfishing charters seemed like a better business.

It’s a commonly held belief that the story of Mundus harpooning great whites not far from a quaint fishing village helped inspire Peter Benchley to write his famous 1974 novel “Jaws.” According to the documentary “Shark Hunting With Frank Mundus,” Benchley and Mundus fished together in 1966. Though Benchley was vague about his inspiration, many similarities exist between Mundus and Benchley’s cantankerous and sometimes self-destructive Captain Quint.
         According to the monster man, 1951 to 1981 was the heyday of sportfishing for sharks. During that time Mundus honed his craft and landed many massive sharks, including a 1,080-pound world record mako shark on 50-pound test. But like many who have witnessed the oceans change over the last half-century, Mundus is now a conservationist. “When we started out, it was like everybody else who starts a fishery. For the first 10 years, we knocked the shit out of them.” But when he looks at the past 50 years of sport and commercial fishing for sharks, he is contemplative. “We created a Frankenstein— something we couldn’t control.”

Mundus is of the opinion that captains have been careless with treatment of sharks they catch. He references marine cinematographer Peter Gimble’s films from the 1960s in which blue sharks take the bait and hook into their stomachs in one gulp. According to Mundus, they more often than not swallow the hook, causing their stomach to tear during the fight. “No matter if you release him or not, he’s likely going to die from his injuries,” says Mundus. He laments that if more people had gone to circle hooks and catch-and-release fishing, the marine ecosystem would be in better shape today. “I told those idiots 30 years ago what to expect, and now they got it. If you keep killing blue sharks, you’re not going to have anything to fish for.”

Mundus came out of retirement this summer for one last season of chasing sharks, but this time with an emphasis on catch-and-release and tagging. Sean and Brooks Paxton, two filmmakers and outdoor fanatics, documented Mundus’s adventures aboard the infamous Cricket II. The Paxton brothers hope to create a reality-based television series with anemphasis on action and conservation. With the depletion of the shark population around Montauk, great whites are rarely seen nowadays. Mundus noted the changes in the coastal town. “It’s been built up on land and cut down at sea,” he said. According to Mundus, this past summer was a relatively slow season.

Though great white sharks are now protected, Mundus and the Paxton brothers did catch blue, thresher and mako sharks this summer. Makos are Mundus’s favorite because they put on an aerial show and the client gets a great deal of excitement. As for his own sportfishing, he says, “It’s no fun for me if I can’t look over the side of the boat and see a fish over 500 pounds. I don’t fish anymore for fun. I’m spoiled.” After witnessing the ocean go through so many changes over the years, maybe that’s all one can expect.
For more information, check out Mundus’s autobiography, “50 Years a Hooker.” You can also visit his website at www. fmundus.com