Fisherman who caught record shark finds empty glory
Six years ago Captain Clyde "Bucky" Dennis hooked a world record 1,280-pound hammerhead shark. He hopes to best his own record this weekend at the Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge Tournament and Festival, but this time the catch will be released.
By Chris Anderson
Herald Tribune
Friday, May 4, 2012 at 4:51 p.m.
It was the battle of a lifetime, like something from the hallowed pages of Hemingway, and it took place between a former high school wrestler and a colossal hammerhead shark.
How long had Clyde "Bucky" Dennis been dreaming of landing a creature so great, one of world-record caliber? Ever since "Jaws" came out in 1975, at least.
Ever since he was a kid and the movie left him terrified, yet fascinated, by the creepy monsters with the hollow eyes and knives for teeth.
He was 36 years old now, the morning of May 23, 2006, when the gargantuan shark bit the stingray in Boca Grande Pass and bolted west for the Gulf of Mexico at a strong and steady clip.
The ultra-competitive son of a marine biologist, Dennis knew he would eventually have to kill the shark to verify if, indeed, it was the world record he long sought.
Fine, because he was an unabashed trophy fisherman with little regard for the conservationists and their catch-and-release ideals.
They could not possibly understand the thrill of being pulled by a 1,280-pound hammerhead for 12 exhausting miles, so far that land was no longer visible and cell phones no longer worked.
Or the pride of posing next to a 14-foot conquest that took more than five hours to fight using 130-pound test line.
As for his struggling fishing guide business, just think of how many people would pay for his services once word traveled that he owned an all-tackle world record.
Finally, after years of broken lines and broken dreams, the mighty fish was landed and weighed and the glory all his to embrace.
Catch and release? Not the man who caught the biggest hammerhead shark ever documented in the world, never.
A really big sharkThere were those who wanted the shark fisherman dead.
When it was revealed the catch of a lifetime was about 50 years old and had been pregnant with 55 pups, a firestorm erupted and Dennis was the target of harsh criticism on Internet message boards from people around the globe.
"All the big world records, if you look at them, the big tarpon or bass, they are all big females loaded with millions of eggs," Dennis said. "At the time I didn't really think about it.
"I just knew I had a really, really big shark and I wanted to make my little mark in history."
And when he caught another world record in 2009 — this time a 1,060-pound hammerhead on 80-pound test line — Dennis was again vilified.
"I hope Bucky Dennis dies a slow and painful death," was one note posted on a message board, and there were many more just like it.
"They were making it sound like I'm out there killing all these sharks," said Dennis, who lived in Englewood at the time. "I documented two sharks my whole life and I've probably caught a few thousand.
"A lot of people sat behind a computer and ran their mouths instead of knowing who I really was."
He is the son of a former science teacher at St. Petersburg Gibbs College who used to take his classes on shark fishing trips.
He is 42 now, lives on the water in Charlotte Harbor, has four children and once pulled his brother from a burning house.
He is still haunted by a regional wrestling match he lost while at Port Charlotte High, and he still challenges the guy who beat him to a rematch: Daniel Edwards, the current Port Charlotte coach who was inspired to join the Coast Guard because Dennis taught him how to fish when they were kids.
And he is no longer consumed with world records, because that would mean killing another hammerhead to document it, an act now illegal in Florida.
"He got so much criticism he finally realized there is a better way to approach this," said Bob Hueter, director of Mote Marine Laboratory's Center for Shark Research, where the first world record fish was donated.
"Dragging a shark to shore to hang upside down with blood dripping out of its mouth to show how macho you are is 19th century thinking."
Shark Brothers
The Guy Harvey Shark Challenge, a release tournament taking place this weekend in Punta Gorda, is in its third year.
It is gaining notoriety, too. The Discovery Channel will be on hand filming a documentary for its popular Shark Week shows later this year.
When Sean and Brooks Paxton — "The Shark Brothers" — first began organizing the tournament in 2010 they received a call from a name they knew well.
"Bucky was the very first angler to contact us to be a competitor, and as far as we were concerned that was complete validation of how we wanted to approach this," Sean Paxton said. "A lot of people cautioned us to say no, but he was very firm.
"He said, 'I'm done hanging sharks for world records.'"
Sean Paxton said he is an advocate of sporting rights and has no problem with anyone exercising their legal right to harvest an animal.
"However," he said, "I do draw the line with wasteful practices and I think killing for sport, for a trophy, to cut the jaws out and throw the body in the Dumpster, I don't agree with that.
"I would say from the use of the resources it was wasteful, but it did provide some scientific value and since then they will not take other large animals," said Sean Paxton said, meaning Dennis' first record catch and the Mote donation.
According to Hueter, research on the first world record shark revealed nothing to warrant scientific publication, but the number of pups inside the shark remains the most ever observed.
"The fact older animals can produce more pups is very valuable and it also supports the idea that we should not be killing them," Hueter said.
'Bucky's Baby'
The owner of the all-tackle hammerhead world record received some free fishing line from a company for a while, and that was about it.
Though his charter business did improve, no big money came his way.
"He sort of found out about the glory that comes from that," Sean Paxton said. "You're not showered with sponsorships. It's not necessarily a lottery ticket."
Maybe the records do not mean as much anymore.
Inside his house there is a framed certificate from the International Game Fish Association recognizing his first world record.
It is on his bathroom wall, hanging on a hook, above the toilet.
"I didn't care about conservation then," Dennis said. "It didn't matter to me. Now, I'm all for these guys.
"If I caught a big world record shark right now, no I wouldn't go document it. I'd probably just take pictures of it. I promised these guys I wouldn't do it again."
Maybe he has changed.
In the 2010 Guy Harvey tournament, a 400-pound bull shark was caught, the largest to date. It was tagged with a satellite and tracked in the Gulf for research purposes.
The shark was named "Bucky's Baby," after Bucky Dennis, the world record fisherman who caught and released it and then watched it swim away.
0 comments:
Post a Comment