What’s with your nickname?
It all started with that book and a movie.
JAWS
Here goes. A reporter dubbed us the Shark Brothers in 2005 during field productions for a documentary about the Real JAWS Story.
Featuring a man largely responsible for inspiring Peter Benchley’s best selling novel and Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster movie adaptation. JAWS.
He is the authentic character who inspired Captain Quint and the Orca. The Monster Man of Montauk. Frank Mundus.
End of an era. Frank 'the Monster Man' Mundus steers the real JAWS boat, Cricket II, home for the last time.
Never got credit for his contributions to JAWS, but Frank’s real-life exploits at the helm of his shark fishing boat, Cricket II, provided content of substantial value for the book and movie.
Fair to say, Benchley may not have written JAWS, if not for the Mundus legend.
Frank was was fond of saying, “They added 10 pounds of Hollywood bullshit, and didn’t make me ugly enough.” His fans ate that up every time.
The Shark Brothers on board the Cricket II with Frank Mundus at the helm.
When JAWS released in 1975, we watched wide eyed in a packed theater with our parents. It left marks on our young, adventurous minds. Strange but true. Exactly thirty years later. We lived the REAL JAWS story
After becoming fast friends in 2005, Frank Mundus invited us to join a small team assembled the following year to legally repossess the Real JAWS boat, Cricket II.
According to Frank, "The guy I sold the boat to has a problem making payments". The Cricket II was located in Beaufort, North Carolina. We needed to get her to Montauk, New York.
Sean Paxton, Brooks Paxton and Frank Mundus in Montauk with a replica of ‘Big Boy’. The world record 3,427 pound white shark caught from the Cricket II on rod and reel.
After a successful repo mission, we got to work restoring the vessel back to a seaworthy state for the five-hundred nautical mile trek north. While that unfolded, Frank was living in Hawaii. Growing pineapples, and preparing for his return to the spotlight.
A deadline was set for the summer fishing season, and Frank's last shark fishing charters out of Montauk, NY. Where it all started in the 1950s.
It took a couple years that include living on the Real JAWS Boat for a summer. With the Monster Man. We experienced some of the best, and many of the oddest of times. Life tends to be that way around the Monster Man. Plenty of truth far stranger than fiction. Shared many a meal together on the deck of the Cricket II. Among Frank’s signature dishes was porcupine meatballs, prepared to perfection in his prized pressure cooker.
We lost Frank in 2008. The friendship and time with him is a notable chapter in our shark-infested history.
There’s no doubt he would’ve been involved with other sharky things we instigated. Like us, Frank was a proponent of catch-and-release fishing, so he would’ve enjoyed the Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge.
An annual event we created and produced to popularize a format for all-release shark fishing tournaments. We combined a world-class competitive angling competition, science, satellite-tagging, and live-streaming of the offshore action to festival crowds. Competing teams went all in for big money prizes and high-tech bragging rights. Audiences couldn’t get enough, and anyone could follow the movements of released sharks on the internet.
While Discovery Channel cameras roll, Brooks Paxton tail-snares a male blacktip shark prior to tagging, measurement, hook-removal and release.
Sean Paxton with another pretty female blacktip shark measured, tagged and released for Discovery Channel cameras in Charlotte Harbor, Florida.
Discovery Channel Shark Week thought it was cool enough to feature in a documentary. “How JAWS Changed the World”. You can watch that below.
There’s more, but the point is our nickname followed us no matter where we went or what we did for a long time. So it stuck.
We’re the Shark Brothers, and it’s nice to meet ya.
Discovery Channel Shark Week Features the Shark Brothers
“How JAWS Changed the World”
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