Dan's Papers - July 27, 2007 - Meet Killer Shark Captain In Montauk Anytime

The evening sunlight only highlights the weathered look of this veteran seaman. The eighty plus years have taken a toll but around his restored fishing boat, he smiles and jokes of times and days long gone. As he sits on his boat docked at the Star Island Marina in Montauk, Frank Mundus is still at it. He is still chasing the idea of catching the next great white. The man who inspired the movie Jaws is once again living on the Cricket II as he did back in 1951 when he first arrived in Montauk with his wife and daughter. "I'd leave them [wife and baby daughter] at the dock when I'd go out in the morning," says Frank of his first days living on the Cricket II. "Finally I rented a small house for a hundred dollars a month." After three great years -- 1988, 1989, 1990 -- Frank sold everything and moved out of Montauk. After living in Hawaii for fifteen years, Mundus has returned to the South Shore for one month each of these last three years to get back into the game.

He has partnered with Sean and Brooks Paxton II to restore the Cricket II and takes out small parties to fish and film. They are planning to launch a TV show featuring Frank filmed on the Cricket II at sea off the cost of Montauk.

The boat has a nice story to it. In 1946, Frank went down to the Virginia side of the Chesapeake Bay to pick up his new, custom made fishing boat, Cricket II, driving a $25 Model A Ford that was twenty-something years old. When he paid $10,000 for the custom made Cricket, Frank had a dilemma -- what to do with the car. "I put the car in the well of the boat and motored the boat to Jersey," he says proudly. "Hell, the car cost $25, so I had to take it with me. When I got to Jersey, I had a charter so I didn't have time to take the car off the boat, so I just took the group out with the car on board. What a mess the car was with all the mackerel we caught that day."

When asked about some unusual groups he had taken out, Frank recalled a "bunch of nuns back in the fifties, fishing for mackerel." But Frank's legend was built on the landing of the largest great white sharks with road and reel (over 3,500 pounds) and the largest overall great white shark caught -- 4,500 lbs -- caught with harpoon and barrels, just like the one in the film Jaws. The funny thing is, the story of Jaws mirrors the catching of the 4,500-lb great white because Frank told Peter Benchley, the author of the book the movie Jaws was based on, every detail of the catch. He never received a dime, but Frank would like to thank Roy Scheider, the star of the movie, for acknowledging that Frank Mundus was the real Quint recently in a TV interview. "All I ever wanted was one word, Thanks, I never got it." He lamented, but then he smiled. He is friendlier these days because "I no longer drink two bottles of booze [bourbon] a day. That tended to bend my attitude."

Then the conversation shifted over to fishing, as Frank told stories of when, in 1961, after a tuna contest, he filled his boat with discarded 350-lb tuna' left at the dock after the tournament. "No sushi back then. I used it for shark bait." That thought had him chuckling. Now, that same tuna is worth $10 a pound.

When asked about Montauk, his answer was twofold. "When I came here in 1951, there were three motels now there are over 100, but the docks, the boats, and the fishermen, that will never change, the talk at the dock, that will never change."

Then Sean and Brooks Paxton ushered a small boy onto the boat to meet Frank. Mundus signed the boy's copy of his book, "Fifty Years A Hooker," posed for a few pictures and then made the boy smile and laugh. Again he looked around and took in the beautiful night, then he looked at me, said no words but said everything. Has his life been perfect? Probably not. But he has taken so many men out for the adventure of their lives. The stories center around what Frank Mundus said and did on those memorable days out off Montauk. By dialing (941) 416-5073, one can still book Frank Mundus and his restored Cricket II for a day of fishing adventure here.