Falling in Love with a Killer (cont.)

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Outsid Magazine July 2001

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Falling in Love with a Killer (cont.)

WITH A SHARK hanging by its tail, you can show its teeth by grabbing its nose and lifting up like you're bending the neck back. I learn this trick by watching the photo shoot taking place at Star Island Yacht Club's awards ceremony. The anglers pose next to a 364-pound shark's head, making growling faces to show their own teeth. One of the fishermen says, "Be careful, they'll bite you hours after they're good and dead."

With no whopper shark to weigh, the Blue Fin IV gang decided to skip this circus. There's a crowd of several hundred people, including TV journalists and newspaper reporters. Families of tourists mill around. The women and children are completely unabashed about their amazement at the toothy sharks. The men stare at the fish with practiced nonchalance, like they would have caught a bigger one had they tried.

Of the 30 registered boats, only five caught makos, and the 364-pound beast takes first prize. It was caught by a group of cigar-smoking Long Islanders, led by a local captain. Once the sharks are down from the hanging hooks, scientists from the University of Connecticut start picking at them. One, a zoologist named Gaines Tyler, is a young, clean-cut guy in a baseball cap. He works with the National Marine Fisheries Service, and he's looking for parasites on the sharks. One parasite, Clistobothrium montaukensis, was discovered for the first time in a shark caught here at a tournament, Gaines tells me. It's not known yet whether the parasites have any greater scientific significance; for now, Gaines is just trying to catalog new types.

Things slowly wind down on the docks, and the zoologists pack up their equipment and their parasites. The calcuttas have been handed out, the news people got their stories, the charter captains got paid, the spectators got their fill of gore and Instamatic photos. Everyone has migrated up toward Star Island's bar, which is jumping. Live music will be kicking in soon. When the last mako is dragged off, it leaves a trail of blood leading down the dock to a large white cooler. A little girl in a pink T-shirt and baby-blue sandals is making a game of skipping from one splotch to another, smiling on down the chum line.

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