In honor of the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week (starting this Sunday at 9 pm) I thought I’d post this photo I took a few weeks back. It’s a replica of the largest fish ever caught on rod and reel, a 3,427 pound, 17-foot-long great white caught by the legendary Capt. Frank Mundus along with Donnie Braddick off of Montauk, New York, in 1986.
The re-created behemoth hangs in the Star Island Yacht Club, coincidentally right in front of one of the best dive breakfast joints I’ve ever eaten at. I can’t remember the name, but it’s not hard to find, it’s the one with the giant shark hanging in front of it.
Mundus is rumored to be the inspiration for Quint in Jaws, the tough-guy shark hunter who [SPOILER ALERT!] gets chomped in half at the end of the movie. One of the reasons Mundus was legendary is because this was actually not the biggest fish he caught. There’s a 4,500-pound white shark that he harpooned hanging in Salivar’s bar in Montauk. Safe to say Frank Mundus, who died in 2008, lived every single week of his life like it was Shark Week.
