Jaws captain dies

Frank Mundus, the legendary Long Island charter boat captain fictionalized in the movie Jaws, died last week. He was 82.

No fisherman, surfer, swimmer or scuba diver for that matter, will ever forget Robert Shaw's character,  Quint, from the 1975 blockbuster.

"This shark, swallow you whole," the rough and tumble charter boat captain told the panicked citizens of a resort town. "For ten thousand dollars...you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing."

In real life, Mundus fished out of Montauk, on the South Fork of Long Island, where he began "monster fishing" in the early 1950s. He once harpooned a 17 and 1/2 foot great white which weighed an estimated 4,500 pounds.

Mundus never though much of the film that made him famous. According to the New York Times, he thought it was "the funniest and the stupidest movie" that he had ever seen. In his later years, Mundus became a quasi-conservationist, switching to circle hooks and participating in government-sponsored tagging programs.

Today, many species of sharks are now considered onthe decline and most forward-thinking anglers refrain from killing these creatures, unlike the famous captain