Frank Mundus, shark fisherman, died on September 10th, aged 82
弗兰克•蒙杜斯，鲨鱼猎手，逝于9月10日，享年82岁
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号，而不是Orca号。不过，当来到船上，看到那些高低不平的气垫，那些船尾的钓竿拖曳线，以及那些固定在甲板上的旋转斗鱼椅时，就会发现这和 Orca号一样。他捕鱼的方法与众不同：用铝质啤酒桶而不是木桶作为浮子，因为木桶会瞬间破裂;不用鱼叉，因为鱼叉的不锈钢镖头会折回，从鱼身上滑下，他更喜欢用带有三英寸鱼钩的手钩，鱼钩进入鱼身后就固定在那里了。此外，看他工作时，用勺子从装满血淋淋鱼饵的垃圾桶里舀出一些鱼饵洒在海里，或者听他厉声让其客户拉紧打捞器，踩下制动器时，就会发现这和Orca号船长一样。弗兰克•蒙杜斯坚信他就是昆特船长，彼得•本切利小说《大白鲨》里的鲨鱼杀手。即使彼得•本切利不承认(他经常这样做)，蒙杜斯自己也注定会引起轰动。
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.
关于蒙杜斯的故事很多。他曾在死鲸的尸体上跳舞，而周围是一群发狂的蓝鲨在咆哮。(”我最先站到鲸鱼上，看看是否能引诱鲨鱼上钩，这条鲸鱼很新鲜，嘴里还在淌血”)。他曾抓住一条长尾鲨的尾巴，把它拖到了船上(”它的尾巴肌肉非常发达，并且非常灵活。人被抽打上就像被一辆卡车辗过一样”)。他曾用活猫来喂鲨鱼。(”小猫不行。我们用路边捡回的死猫喂鲨鱼，但鲨鱼不感兴趣”)。不过，千真万确的是，有一次，他抓住了正游过船边一条鲨鱼的背鳍，而另一侧的船边另一条鲨鱼的嘴巴离他的头只有三英尺，近得他都能看到里面每颗牙齿。
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.
他在长岛捕到的鲨鱼是所捕获鲨鱼中最大的几个：1964年叉到一条4,500英镑(2,000千克)的大白鲨;1986年用钓竿和钓丝螺旋轮捕到一条 3,400英镑的鲨鱼。他在把两条鲨鱼弄到岸上，准备进军第三条时，这条4,500英镑的大鲨鱼出现了，之后游向了远处，又用了5个鱼叉才把它杀死。这条 3,500英镑的鲨鱼先是与手钩抗争了一个半小时，又挣扎了一个小时，之后才被尾绳套住。蒙杜斯把它拖到哈得逊的时候已是半夜，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，他就把这条鲨鱼的一颗牙齿戴在脖子上，此外，还戴了一个环形大耳环和一顶澳大利亚的帽子。昆特船长在书里穿着T恤和褪了色的牛仔裤，在屏幕上则以大胡子和印花大手帕示人。虽然昆特船长的穿着比蒙杜斯更简朴，但是带有嘲讽意味的短笑，罗马鼻子，以及一生与鲨鱼的缠绵，这两人是完全一样的。蒙特斯也曾经上演过《大鲨鱼》里的经典镜头，把一条长75英尺的大白鲨叉到了孩子们正在游玩的海滩上。
（责任编辑:allen）
