by Steve “Tuna” Tornovish
American society was simply not prepared for the impact of the movie Jaws when it arrived 50 years ago. Nope, never saw it coming. Producer Steven Spielberg caught lightning in a bottle and just like that Jaws became the highest grossing movie in history (until another Spielberg flick called “Star Wars” showed up in 1977).
I was a 14 year old kid when Jaws hit the big screen at the Dreamland Theater. I remember how obsessed we all were with all things “Jaws.” The cool summer kids would recite the little bit of memorable dialogue: “It’s a tiger shark,” followed by, “A what???” Try as I did, I couldn’t get the cool effect that those guys did. Oh yeah, those fun teenage years…
Being the geek that I have always been, and working near The Hub (delivery boy for Nantucket Pharmacy – riding my bike all around the downtown area, dropping off controlled substances), I read everything I could about the big time shark movie that was filmed just one major island away from my home. There was a quick-to-market book that dished all about the movie: struggles of filming in the Atlantic Ocean with a mechanical shark that was somehow allergic to salt water, visa problems with one of the main cast members (Robert Shaw) and other logistics nightmares. Oddly enough, the book left out the drunken poetry ravings of that same star and the cocaine binges of another (all revealed many years later in an off Broadway production called “The Shark is Broken”). Hey, it was 1975, ok? No internet yet – the struggle was real!
It aggravated me to discover that Peter Benchley, the author of the book adapted for the Jaws screenplay, had envisioned Nantucket as the mythical Amity Island, not our stinking rivals to the northwest! Of course I read Benchley’s book – yikes! There was some racy stuff going on in there that didn’t quite make it to the big screen. Mrs. Brody sneaking around with Matt Hooper? Wowza – that was some crazy stuff for a 14 year old to digest!
Sharks took a beating after this movie came out, of course. Every type of fish with a prominent dorsal fin was being killed for no good reason other than the subconscious sound of the John Williams movie soundtrack (da-DUM, da-DUM!). Poor Peter Benchley felt guilt about having inadvertently starting this snowball down the hill that turned into sharknado avalanche. Mr. Benchley dedicated a good portion of his life to shark preservation, reminding everyone how vital sharks are to our ecosystem.
So here we are now, 50 years post-Jaws. How’s our relationship with those toothy critters going? I decided to check in with some people who know a lot more than I do about such things. Charter Captain Brian Borgeson has a unique perspective on the shark world. Brian’s charter boat has an elevated control tower that allows him to see a lot more sea life than those at water level. I asked him if he’s seeing more or fewer sharks around this year. He told me, “Guys like me and Mark [Charter Captain Mark Genthner] who sit up high see them all the time. It’s fun to see them. Yeah, we lose some fish to them. Up in the Monomoy area (the shoals off of Chatham, not the village by Polpis), there was one Great White that would be there year after year, ripping our striped bass off the lines. It’s part of the deal.”
I asked Captain Brian how his charter customers reacted. “They love it! The kids go crazy when they get to see a shark. It makes their whole trip. When a shark takes your fish and all you get is the severed head, it’s life changing. When a seal does the same thing, it makes you crazy.”
No argument here, Brian! I got to test this theory last week when my client, Kevin Mahoney, hooked up on a nice bluefish up on Coatue. I ran to place my fishing rod into a holder and was heading to assist him when KA-BOOM! A big explosion of white water, followed by another. Kevin and I watched in amazement as a brown shark chomped down on his bluefish, breaking the line. It happened about 50 feet from the beach. Kevin told me, “I’m not used to catching anything and had only had my first ever catch an hour earlier, so I had nothing to compare it to. I actually thought for a moment that I had caught the shark! This was an unforgettable adventure!” I agree, Kevin and even though it was the same result, the shark taking the fish was so much cooler than a seal doing the same thing.
A recent post by my childhood friend and fellow beach fisher Chuck Duce showed a nice brown shark that had latched on to Chuck’s striped bass lure as he was fishing on the south shore one night last week. Chuck’s caption read, in part, “That hurt!” I asked Chuck about his experience with sharks while fishing at night. “This was the second shark ever that I caught and got to the beach on light tackle. Every year I usually come across one or two that either take half of my fish or just completely spool me (stripping all the line off of the reel) and send me home cursing. The sharks have been there a lot longer than I have, and they own the house. I’m just grateful that I can enjoy the water and the nighttime with them.” Chuck has always been a wise man.
I asked Chuck what he remembers about the movie Jaws, seeing as we’re almost the same age. He recalled the following: “We were coming back from a Little League game on the Vineyard, and we passed the boat that was towing in the mechanical shark from Jaws. It was in a crate. The movie was one of my favorites, and I don’t think I went out in the water past my waist for a year after that!” Same here, buddy!
How rational is this fear of sharks? Well, not very. Captain Brian told me, “I have clients, people who own houses here, who won’t go in the water. It’s a crazy misguided fear. I tell them that you’re more likely to have a piano land on your head than be attacked by a shark. Sharks are a vital part of the ocean.”
My friend Doug Lindley is a very cool guy. He flies a small Piper Super Cub airplane (check him out on Instagram @44_zulu) that allows him to fly low and slow for a long time. Doug spots fish for a variety of harpoon boats who are featured on the Discovery Channel show, “Harpoon Hunters.” Doug can fly, communicate with the boats on the radio, and take awesome pictures while doing so. He sometimes spots Great White sharks for a company out of Chatham that will take customers out in their boat to see the sharks. Doug told me, “I’ve seen a decline in the number of Great Whites around the Cape and Islands for the past two years. According to the pings from the tagged sharks, they’re moving up to the Gulf of Maine or even as far north as Nova Scotia. Brown sharks are everywhere around the island. At any given time you’ll see a bunch in Great Point rip or on the shoals. I’m also seeing a lot of giant rays everywhere this year. It seems that the seal population has declined a bit in Monomoy and the Nauset area. Maybe they’ve gotten smarter and are staying on the inside bars where the big sharks can’t go. Same thing at Great Point. Not sure if it’s the sharks, but the numbers seem smaller.”
I tend to give sharks of all sorts a good leaving alone. But some of my friends fish for them and quite enjoy catching and releasing sharks. When Tyler O’Brien and his friend Logan Mead were up at Great Point last week, I saw that they were hooked into something big that was giving them a hard time. I watched for a few minutes before moving on in pursuit of bluefish. I asked Tyler the next day what they had landed. He sent me a picture of a monstrous rough tail ray. “It was about six feet across!” Tyler got a great picture of Logan with the behemoth before they safely released it.
Please note the key word mentioned – SAFELY! My friends who fish for sharks take great efforts to ensure that both they and the shark are safe after their interactions. Yes, we’ve all seen the video of the unfortunate guy who was bitten on the lower leg when releasing a brown shark. Lessons learned, right?
Jaws was a great movie in the manner that it made an irrational fear seem rational. As Alfred Hitchcock said about suspense: “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” So let go of that anticipation and enjoy the wonderful water, folks! You’re not going to end up like little Alex Kintner —there’s my cool Jaws reference…take that, you cool summer kids!
Steve “Tuna” Tornovish is a Nantucket native who has spent his life fishing from the beaches of his beloved island. He loves to introduce clients to the joy of fishing with his Nantucket Island Fishing Adventures: stevetuna.com
