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Frank Mundus, shark fisherman, died on September 10th, aged 82
弗蘭克•蒙杜斯，鯊魚獵手，逝于9月10日，享年82歲
HIS boat was called Cricket II, not the Orca. But when you climbed on board, mentally noting the lumpy cushions, the rods trailing wires at the stern and the swivel fish-fighting chair bolted to the deck, you knew you were in the same place. His fishing methods were different: he used aluminium beer barrels as floats because wooden ones would break up in a minute, and rather than harpoons, with their stainless-steel darts that folded back and slipped right out of the fish, he preferred hand-held gaffs with a three-inch hook that went in and stayed there. But as you watched him work, dipping the ladle into a garbage pail of bloody chum and spreading a slick of it into the sea, or listened to him snapping at his customers to tighten the drag and hit the brake, you knew this was the same man. Frank Mundus was convinced he was Captain Quint, the fisher of monster sharks from Peter Benchley’s “Jaws”. And if Benchley denied it, as he always did, Mr Mundus was still determined to make a splash of his own.
他的船叫Cricket II號，而不是Orca號。不過，當來到船上，看到那些高低不平的氣墊，那些船尾的釣竿拖曳線，以及那些固定在甲板上的旋轉斗魚椅時，就會發現這和 Orca號一樣。他捕魚的方法與眾不同：用鋁質啤酒桶而不是木桶作為浮子，因為木桶會瞬間破裂；不用魚叉，因為魚叉的不銹鋼鏢頭會折回，從魚身上滑下，他更喜歡用帶有三英寸魚鉤的手鉤，魚鉤進入魚身后就固定在那里了。此外，看他工作時，用勺子從裝滿血淋淋魚餌的垃圾桶里舀出一些魚餌灑在海里，或者聽他厲聲讓其客戶拉緊打撈器，踩下制動器時，就會發現這和Orca號船長一樣。弗蘭克•蒙杜斯堅信他就是昆特船長，彼得•本切利小說《大白鯊》里的鯊魚殺手。即使彼得•本切利不承認（他經常這樣做），蒙杜斯自己也注定會引起轟動。
The stories surrounding him were legion. That he had danced on the floating carcass of a dead whale while blue sharks, in a frenzy, foamed round it. (”I was the first one to stand on the whale and see if you could…get the sharks to take the bait; that whale was fresh, blood was still coming out of its mouth.”) That he had grabbed a thresher by the tail and pulled it into his boat. (”That tail is all muscle, and it knows how to use it. It can give you a bruise that looks as though you’ve been run over by a truck.”) That he had fed live kittens to sharks. (”No kittens. We tried ‘em with a dead cat that we found on the road, but they didn’t want it.”) It was true, however, that he once grabbled a shark by the dorsal as it swam past the boat, and that another crashed up over the side and snapped its jaws three feet from his head. He was close enough to see the serrated edges on every three-inch tooth.
關于蒙杜斯的故事很多。他曾在死鯨的尸體上跳舞，而周圍是一群發狂的藍鯊在咆哮。（”我最先站到鯨魚上，看看是否能引誘鯊魚上鉤，這條鯨魚很新鮮，嘴里還在淌血”）。他曾抓住一條長尾鯊的尾巴，把它拖到了船上（”它的尾巴肌肉非常發達，并且非常靈活。人被抽打上就像被一輛卡車輾過一樣”）。他曾用活貓來喂鯊魚。（”小貓不行。我們用路邊撿回的死貓喂鯊魚，但鯊魚不感興趣”）。不過，千真萬確的是，有一次，他抓住了正游過船邊一條鯊魚的背鰭，而另一側的船邊另一條鯊魚的嘴巴離他的頭只有三英尺，近得他都能看到里面每顆牙齒。
He had also caught, off Long Island, some of the largest sharks ever landed: a 4,500lb (2,000kg) great white harpooned in 1964, and a 3,400lb one, big as a Volkswagen, caught with rod and reel in 1986. The 4,500-pounder had swum up just after he had landed two sharks and was battling a third; it then took off for the horizon, needing five more irons to kill it. The 3,500-pounder resisted the first gaff for an hour and a half and thrashed for another hour before they got the tail-rope round it. Mr Mundus towed it into Amagansett at midnight to find crowds already waiting.
他在長島捕到的鯊魚是所捕獲鯊魚中最大的幾個：1964年叉到一條4,500英鎊（2,000千克）的大白鯊；1986年用釣竿和釣絲螺旋輪捕到一條 3,400英鎊的鯊魚。他在把兩條鯊魚弄到岸上，準備進軍第三條時，這條4,500英鎊的大鯊魚出現了，之后游向了遠處，又用了5個魚叉才把它殺死。這條 3,500英鎊的鯊魚先是與手鉤抗爭了一個半小時，又掙扎了一個小時，之后才被尾繩套住。蒙杜斯把它拖到哈得遜的時候已是半夜，有好多人都在等待。
He wore a tooth from that shark round his neck ever after, as well as one big hoop earring and an Australian hat. Quint, who in the book wore a T-shirt and faded jeans and in the film had a beard and a bandanna , was a plainer dresser. But his “short, derisive bark” of a laugh, his Roman nose, and most of all his life with sharks, were just the same. Mr Mundus, too, once made the centrepiece of a classic “Jaws” scene, harpooning a great white in 75 feet of water off a beach where children played.
自那以后，他就把這條鯊魚的一顆牙齒戴在脖子上，此外，還戴了一個環形大耳環和一頂澳大利亞的帽子。昆特船長在書里穿著T恤和褪了色的牛仔褲，在屏幕上則以大胡子和印花大手帕示人。雖然昆特船長的穿著比蒙杜斯更簡樸，但是帶有嘲諷意味的短笑，羅馬鼻子，以及一生與鯊魚的纏綿，這兩人是完全一樣的。蒙特斯也曾經上演過《大鯊魚》里的經典鏡頭，把一條長75英尺的大白鯊叉到了孩子們正在游玩的海灘上。
