Sharks on a Line 101 



After finding a place where bait-fish, such as whiting or porgies, are 

 abundant, and the water 50 to 150 feet deep, they chum. Whalemeat is 

 the favorite chum of Frank Mundus, Montauk's most famous and suc- 

 cessful shark-fishing charter-boat captain. He also recommends using 

 small, live fish for bait. On calm days, his advice is to fish close to the 

 surface, using cork floats. When the sea is choppy, he suggests fishing 

 about halfway down. 



Mundus tries to make shark fishing as sporting as possible by urging 

 his patrons to fight their sharks standing up, in a belt harness, rather 

 than in a fighting chair. He also prefers that they use nothing heavier 

 than 45-pound test line. For real sport, his customers sometimes use 30- 

 or 20-pound test line. The Mundus-preferred tackle is a heavy-duty 

 star drag reel and a glass rod. Aboard Mundus' "monster-fishing" boat, 

 Cricket II, fishermen have also been known to use crossbows and arrows 

 on sharks. 



"Of all the game fish in the sea, none— when fighting the hook and 

 line— can outjump the Mako shark," one of Mundus' passengers ecstati- 

 cally reported, telling how a Mako (I sums oxyri?ichus) ran out 100 

 yards of line from Mundus' boat, then made four successive vertical 

 leaps 10 to 15 feet out of the water. It is fight such as this that has given 

 the Mako a reputation as one of the gamest fish in the sea. 



"The Mako shark, which can jump as high as any fish, run faster 

 than most, and pull as hard as any, seems to me to be a true fighter," 

 Ernest Hemingway wrote of this aggressive shark. "He will deliberately 

 leap at a man in a dory who has hooked him on a handline ... I have 

 seen a Mako, after being clubbed and tied up, come out of the effect of 

 his clubbing and wait quietly until someone would come within range 

 of his jaws." 



The Mako shark of the western Atlantic is a very close relative of 

 the Blue Pointer (I sums glaucus) of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, 

 which is also sometimes called a Mako. The Blue Pointer, in turn, is a 

 name given by some South African fishermen to the shark elsewhere 

 known as the Great White, called in Australia the White Death or White 

 Pointer. The mix-up in nomenclature stems from confusion over the 

 word mako, which originally was a Maori word for a certain kind of 

 shark. Out of all this confusion, one thing is certain: the Blue Pointer of 

 South Africa, by any name, is a fighter. And the pursuit of it has produced 

 some of the most exciting battles in the annals of shark fishing. 



The scene of these battles is the South Pier of Durban, which stretches 

 out from the beach for about 700 yards. The pier, made of great con- 

 crete blocks, is about 40 feet wide. More blocks have been dumped, 

 helter-skelter, along both sides of the pier and around its tip. They are 

 covered with seaweed and barnacles and provide a precarious perch 



