Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
I don’t remember very much about catching my first fish. I caught it on my Dad’s old 36-foot Trojan, called “Fine and Dandy”. It was a small sand shark. I know this because I have seen pictures of it.
My grandmother on my Dad’s side, all of the grandkids called her Nana, came to the boat and made me get a picture with it. I was in my underwear and terrified! I am pretty sure I was crying too. Apparently, three-year-olds do not like touching dead fish, or at least this three year old didn’t. Yes, I still have this picture, and no I will not give it to Larry for publication. Actually, maybe I will. But only if Capt. Monty or Wes can verifiy $500 in new donations to the Ocean City Reef Foundation. We can call it the “Little Franky in His Skivvies Fund” or something like that. Don’t worry, I was much cuter and less hairy in my early years. I don’t think I was shaving until I was at least six or seven years old.
Anyway, back to that first fish. I also know that I caught it because my grandmother on my Mom’s side, I called her MomMom, had a local taxidermist make a skin mount of it. This mount hangs in my man cave to this day. The proportions don’t look quite right compared to the picture, but I also don’t think that a local taxidermist in National Park, New Jersey had much experience with mounting saltwater fish of any kind back in 1976, let alone sharks. If he is still around, he probably still doesn’t. Although, that being said, one of the local bars has a pretty sketchy skin mount of a small wahoo hanging over its coat rack near a Budweiser neon sign. I am still proud of the mount of my little shark, not that sketchy wahoo.
My first fish has gained more character over the years. I had to superglue one of the pectoral fins back on to it after a late night, impromptu, drunken wrestling match on Christmas night in 2002 with my good friend Sea Bass. Yes, we call him Sea Bass, and yes we call him Sea Bass after the line in that Dumb and Dumber movie. I think the only butt that Sea Bass kicked that night was a 26-year-old long dead sand shark’s. But the mount gained a little more character.
Dad talks about that little shark regularly with our charter customers on the “Last Call”. Back when I caught the fish, Dad had just started running charter fishing trips on the Delaware Bay. Sea trout, they call them weakies up there, flounder and bluefish were the normal targeted species, but large sand tiger sharks soon became his primary target.
The first Jaws movie had just come out the summer before and Dad caught “shark fever” like the rest of the country. He decided he wanted to catch sharks. His first catches were little sharks like mine. If there were little sharks in the bay, there must be big sharks in the bay. After lots of lost tackle and a whole lot of trial and error, Dad became successful at targeting and catching big sand tigers. Many times he used little sand sharks like mine as bait to catch the big sand tigers. They became the staple of his fishing trips.
Conservation had barely been invented yet in the mid 70’s so most of the sand tigers came home to the marina. They caused quite a stir on the docks when Dad backed his boat into the slip. He had a teak swim platform on the back of the boat and he would have the shark, or sharks, tied from side to side on the platform. People would come running out of the restaurant that was next to the marina to see Capt. Frank’s sea monsters.
As the summer went on, many times the diners were leaving “scallop” dinners on their table to look at the sharks my Dad caught. Little did they know that most of the time their “scallops” were actually pieces of shark that had been cut into scallop shaped pieces and sold to the restaurant next to the marina. Dad had figured out that the sand tigers made decent table fare, as long as he gutted them when they were freshly caught. He also figured out that tiger shark guts make great chum for other tiger sharks. Recycled chum. Dad liked stretching his dollars, even back then, so this was a win/win deal. Dad also figured out that you shouldn’t tell people they were eating shark. He once brought fresh “Delaware Bay Fish” to our neighbor’s cookout. Everybody loved it until Dad let slip what type of “Delaware Bay Fish” it really was. Somebody at the cookout wanted to fight him for feeding them a “Man Eater”! Anyhow, Dad still loves to tell our customers about my little shark.
Dad first came to Ocean City in the late 1970s. After years of catching fish in the Delaware Bay he wanted to expand into the Ocean. Of course, after catching that little shark, I was addicted to fishing. Hooked as they say. So Dad made the “big trip” down to Ocean City, MD from New Jersey. He didn’t know much about offshore fishing, but his brother-in-law did, so Dad asked my Uncle Chal to rig him up with everything he needed to catch a marlin. Looking back, Uncle Chal was really generous. He gave Dad a cooler full of rigged squid, mullet and eels. He also gave Dad a lure called a Green Machine. Things were getting high tech! With all his weapons, Dad set out to catch offshore fish, so he headed to the Jackspot. The first catch was a nice gaffer dolphin. We used to have a mount of that fish also, but it stayed in our old condo in town when we sold it. He lost a mako next to the boat when it broke the leader before he could gaff it, and somewhere a little east of the Jackspot that day, Dad missed a white marlin.
Last week, Larry contacted me to see if I was interested in writing a weekly column for the Coastal Fisherman. We have talked about this before, but the timing was never right or the paper space was filled. When I got Larry’s message, my immediate response was YES!!! I have been reading this paper since 1983. Every week as a kid, I couldn’t wait to see what everybody caught and Dale used to write a weekly, fictional story about a guy named Ben Sykes. That was my favorite. I miss Old Ben. So after my initial excitement was over, I thought about it. What could I write about each week? What was Larry looking for? What would people want to read about? So after a few more texts, Larry told me I could write about fishing, current events, some how-to stuff or maybe even a little local history. That’s when I thought about my little shark.
I have been fortunate enough to fish in a bunch of places. Some of the best fishermen on this planet are my good friends. I have known many colorful characters and have been lucky enough to meet more than a few fish. But it all started with that little shark. It is not the biggest thing I have ever caught. It was not a glamorous fish. It is not even that good looking of a mount, but that little shark has a lot of history. It has been the start of many a good fish story, and that is what I plan to write about each week. There will be some history. There will be some how-to advice and I’m sure I will even opine on current fishing events, but mostly it will be fish stories because, just like my little sand shark, every fish has a story.
Don’t forget to make donations to the Ocean City Reef Foundation. When we hit $500 I will get that picture to Larry!
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Fishing Center.
