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Do you know what a legend is?
A legend gets started out by somebody telling a story.
"I caught a fish this big."
Now, the guy that spread the story
said it was this big.
And by the time it goes to ten different people, guess what?
"It was this big. It really was."
And that's how a legend gets started.
It doesn't mean anything.
It's a story.
Anyone that has not been able to hook a shark
from a land based position wouldn't know what it's like.
The tremendous amount of power of this fish had.
Now when most people think of sharks,
they automatically think of Jaws.
That Hollywood shark that bit its way
through more than a few bodies,
leaving behind a lot of blood and gore.
So what is it with these guys?
They jump right in with the shark.
They beg them to come on over.
They're not crazy.
They've just caught shark fever.
Actually, just holding the rod, that gave me the fever.
I was just a little kid.
Hooked me for life.
I've taught a lot of kids, and they become good.
They become better than me.
And Rene was one of them.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Hauling in a shark is no small chore.
Yet challenges like these are what Rene de Dios lives for.
The Miami Beach resident is considered by many,
the best shark fisherman around.
Being a fanatic is one big secret and I don't like it
I love the sport of catching shark.
Are there really sharks in Miami Beach?
South Beach?
If you ever questioned whether the waters
off of South Florida beaches are filled with sharks,
this should answer the question.
And I'm like yeah, when you're swimming.
They were swimming next to you.
You just didn't know.
I grew up on South Beach, South of fifth.
My old man, Seaweed, grew up with these guys,
with Rene, Hammer.
He's a special case because he's really carried this
in his blood, living in South Beach for so many years.
I mean, before me, it was a special era
that was, it was just totally different.
South Beach back in the day, it was just a place
where the hub of the action was, where everybody was out here
trying to make a name for themselves.
The surfers, the shark fishermen.
It was a lifestyle.
It was like crack brother.
It was like so addictive, man.
You know, if you lived in South Beach,
you surfed there, you skated, you fished there,
you had to congregate there.
It was criteria.
Everyone wanted the biggest shark.
Everyone wanted to outlast the next guy that came along.
The guys that were at the top,
they weren't going to give up that spot.
And the one guy that stuck out was Rene.
Rene de Dios was completely caught up
with the shark fishing.
He's on, baby! He hit the one on top!
He was aggressive, very competitive.
World record.
Look at the size of this shit.
And he would tell you, "I'm number one."
Rene is an icon in the history of South Beach.
As a kid we thought, man this guy's a god.
This guy's a bad ass.
He'd project things and then it happened.
He would risk life and limb to catch a shark.
He caught a twenty foot great white shark
that dragged down their small boat.
I believe the story.
If you told me that story, I'd say no.
Blood's in the water. Now blood's in the water.
And that's when everything went downhill.
He was one of my young kids that I brought up
that became one of the best shark fishermen
in the United States.
He proved it every day
but he died, proving it.
You can put jaws on there, it's not coming off.
I like to be ready for whatever.
Whatever I encounter out there.
The two people I look at as legends right now
are JD Hammer and Rene for two different reasons all together.
People tell me like-- "What are you doing? You're crazy?"
I don't even come close to Rene.
I had stories where he was suicidal
to put him in a little raft and let him go.
'Cause he just wanted to die out there with the shark.
Well, Rene taught me how to be an aggressive
balls to the wall shark fishermen like--
Man, I don't even want to be out there in a big boat.
I'm not going out there in this kayak.
"Don't be scared. Go out there.
"You know, you got to go right now."
But Hammer, he taught me how to follow the winds,
how to follow the seasons.
He wakes up, no Weather Channel,
"Oh no, we're not going there anymore,
"we're going here now."
And then boom, we're on the fish.
He is the god of fishing.
I can tell you back in the days
if you want to hear another story, because guess what?
I'm a storyteller.
And do you know, throughout history
there's been storytellers.
And I feel like I'm one of them.
I'm one of the storytellers.
So, I can tell you a great story
about the South Beach Shark Club.
Miami Beach, specifically South Beach.
I could compare it to a...
what would I compare it to?
In the old days,
it was totally different, it was uncrowded,
it was relaxed,
it was laid back.
You could actually be a surf bum
and make a living with a cast net netting mullet.
Two out of every three people on South Beach
have no car and no access to one.
Half the people here live on less than $150 per month.
South Beach was in decline.
There was a lot of the old people
who came to retire on South Beach.
Just feeding the birds or just waiting to die.
Basically, it was a retirement home.
The southern tip of Miami Beach
has a high concentration of elderly residents,
perhaps higher than any other area
of comparable size in the world.
Fifth street was called Miami Beach Boulevard.
South of fifth street was a community in itself.
You know, imagine you have this retirement community
of these zillions of elderly old people
and then this little bunch of younger people.
So, we all knew each other.
There are only 50 low rent housing units
in Miami Beach, all clustered at the very tip of South Beach.
If you lived south of Fifth,
it was basically like very decrepit.
Our parents were very poor.
We lived in small apartments,
you know, no air conditioning, you know, jalousie windows.
For the most part,
Miami Beach from Sixth Street south, is not a pretty place.
It's very old.
One of the oldest neighborhoods in South Florida.
It was a dump site, is what it was. It was a rough scene.
It wasn't like it is now.
Have you been to South Beach lately?
Probably not.
Most of us try to avoid the old rundown area
of Miami Beach, south of Sixth Street.
The city of Miami Beach has
declared it a blighted area
and rezoned it for renewal.
South Beach, a ghetto in the sun,
a place where old people and old values
are making a lonely final struggle.
There's a lot that's truly depressing,
sites many of us would like to eliminate,
but there are others too, young people
who feel at home on one of the few pieces of real beach left
in Miami Beach.
And new ethnic groups,
Cubans and blacks, families
bringing young children back to these weary streets.
What's different today than back in the days?
Back in the days it was so free out there.
Nobody would hassle you.
I mean...
it was just a different time, a different place.
Never, ever will it be like that again.
It's gone.
95% of the people that live on Miami Beach now
are transient or just showed up on Miami Beach.
They have no idea what it was back then.
South Beach,
what a beautiful place.
You know, I always tell people, South Beach, South Point,
this is the last sand beach,
like ocean beach on the whole East Coast.
Everything else is just like, you know, it's not a beach.
It's not.
The geography of South Beach was a captive audience in itself.
That's where A1A ends.
I mean, now it's only ocean south of us and east of us.
So people would just walk and just take it in.
You had the projects on the south side,
the parking lot, the dog track.
Then you had the chicken shack. Then you had the surf shop.
You had this bar in the corner where all the Hells Angels
and these motorcycle guys would hang out.
A restaurant that it was only like for high class people.
You know, we didn't go inside there.
There was a fish market called Sanitary Fish Market.
They were the projects.
It was like a surfing town surfing, fishing town.
Locals.
South Beach. It's like a funnel.
It's a magnet for very strange people, very strange kids.
It was very dynamic. It was very diversified.
You had like a motley crew of people there.
There was just a group of us that were from south of Fifth.
We were surfers, skateboarders and fishermen and divers.
I think I discovered the pier in like 1978.
I was basically just skateboarding down Ocean Drive,
and I saw it in the distance
and I just kept skateboarding until I found out what it was.
The pier was on First Street and Ocean.
That's where I did most of my fishing.
Was at night on the pier or right off the surf on the beach.
You had the brotherhood of the South Beach guys,
the surfers, the skateboarders, the shark fishermen.
Everybody knew each other.
And we would just congregate on the pier
all day, every day.
It was really localized, the turf.
I mean, you didn't just pile next to the pier
with a bunch of guys who knew each other
and you were unfamiliar.
You were either welcomed or you weren't.
And if you weren't,
you were either physically moved out or worse.
You couldn't fish that area.
It was very territorial on the pier,
on the beach, the waves, same thing, even in the parking lot.
If you were not a local, if you didn't know anybody there,
there was certain areas where you can't-- you can't go.
If you were a young kid,
you knew to take your place and learn
and try to build your way into the group.
But you understood who was at the top.
Once the sun started setting,
the right hand corner of the pier belonged to the shark guys.
Nobody messed with that.
The whole thing was based on
who got the biggest fish that day
and who now is which we would call the Kahuna.
So the Kahuna, many times Rene, would be on that pier
for more than 10 hours a day.
The guys were at the top,
they weren't going to give up that spot.
And the one guy that stuck out was Rene.
Every time he went out on the pier,
it was like his last night on the pier.
And that's how he approached every bait he put out.
That was going to be the big one,
and he went every night, every free night that he had.
He was on that corner.
That was his corner.
That was the corner that reached
what we called "the monster hole" back then.
There was only one guy.
He was the master.
He became the guy that out fished the teacher.
He made the teacher look like crap.
That's how good he was.
Who was the teacher?
I taught him how to fish.
Topping the list of the great and famous
South Beach pier fisherman is a 20 year old
Miami-Dade Community College student, Rene de Dios.
As a kid, we thought, man this guy's a god.
He kind of had that, you know,
he'd project things and then it happened.
He had this aura about him.
Like you could tell that he achieved something amazing
that he wanted to do.
I think Rene was born to do that.
About 10 o'clock last night,
the jaws of a 9 1/2 foot long man eating tiger shark
clamped down on the bait at the end of de Dios' 14/0 reel.
Rene came around. Rene became the big kahuna.
It's like the king of the pack. You know, the top dog.
Kahuna, man, the guy who catches
all the big fish, man, the hot shot.
Why do you pursue sharks?
I guess it was kind of born with me.
It's like a fever.
If I give you my rod and you get that feeling,
the big fish, it sticks to you and you can't let go.
It's a fever that sticks to you.
It's a big emotion
because, you know everybody's watching you.
And then you want more and more. It's like a drug.
It's just the same.
Who taught Rene how to fish?
I know JD Hammer--
Jimbo had a lot to do with it, and he quietly--
I remember the story of when Rene
hooked his first shark on the pier.
He put out his rod and like, there was those higher powers.
And it was really
it wasn't like your average fishing pier
that you go to Palm Beach now
and it's like controlled with security and stuff.
There were some bad motherfuckers out there
that would just put down on you,
like, straight up like, "Hey, man, give me that rod you know."
Like snatch your rod out of your hands,
and he's fighting a shark.
And I forgot who it was.
It was this big...
I think they called him Moose.
It was the Moose,
he was like this big, big,
like scary dude on the pier who was a shark fisherman.
And Rene, I think he was like 15, hooked his first shark.
And the guys like, "Man give me that rod,
"you don't know what you're doing kid."
And was taking the rod away
and that Hammer came and grabbed the rod
he's like, "No man, let the kid catch his shark."
And since then, you know Rene looked up
"Oh, man, this guy's nice."
And he learned a lot from Hammer.
I know that.
When I met Rene, he was 14.
He didn't know anything about shark fishing.
I said, "Rene, what do you got?"
And he goes, "I got a yo yo."
I said, "Partner, you're not going to catch
"nothing with that."
He followed us
because we were already there shark fishing
and he was just starting.
So yeah, he took out our bait.
When you're first starting you have to go through, like,
a rookie training.
You know, you might as well say.
I had to take out bait for somebody on a surfboard,
and Rene had to take out my bait.
When Rene caught his first shark on my rod in 1971,
there was a 300 pound dude out there
trying to take the rod away from him.
You know what I told him?
I said, "Leave the kid alone."
That was Rene's first shark.
Yeah. The guy could have beat my ass,
but he respected me as being one of the elders.
So he left me alone.
And Rene caught his first shark.
And from then, till whenever he was a monster.
Any angler has a dream as to a big fish.
Rene's was to catch the biggest shark possible.
I don't know if he came close to his dream,
but I know he had some hookups that were impossible to stop.
In 1974, Rene caught a 14 foot hammerhead
and it came out in the Miami Herald,
and that drove him to extreme heights.
The 14 footer that he landed?
Oh, he never let that go.
No, that was his bragging rights.
That was his thing.
The pier was alive with people
raving over this giant hammerhead
that's part of his legend is that, that 14 foot hammer,
people talked about that forever.
That was the bar back then.
I heard it from the elderly peoples
down on Fourth Street, Fifth Street,
this guy landed this 14 foot hammerhead
and then hearing it from Rene,
I think I believe he tied into two reels.
Back then, when you would get stripped,
you would run down the pier
and cut the line and splice it into another line.
As you're running out of line.
One of your buddies would peel out all the line
so the shark wouldn't feel the tension
and that would give you time to pull that out
and tie it to a second rod to keep fighting the fish.
I don't know where that idea originally came from.
I cannot say it was Rene's,
but I cannot say it wasn't either.
It was crazy.
Having spliced and then brought those reels back in
and having caught that shark.
That set Rene at the epitome of land based
shark fishing around the world.
That 14 foot hammer. He was always bragging about it.
And he was always telling me and you know he's number one,
no one can ever beat him.
Everybody wanted to out fish each other
and try to equal what Rene was doing.
And we wanted to be part of that.
Rene became obsessed with this.
His demeanor, his stamina.
He attacked shark fishing with a fury,
like it was the last thing he was going to do every day.
He was like King Kong on the pier,
this little guy with muscles, with a big mouth.
And then Jaws came out in '76 and that was it, man.
It was like a fire out there.
Shark, tiger of the sea.
Of all sea terrors, the shark is the meanest, the most crass.
Merciless. Tremendous strength, with an uncanny sense of smell.
The men throw out the chum,
the fish swarm about the delectable morsels
but now this is where the sportsman gets into action.
He took it all right.
Hook, line and sinker.
Jaws put sharks and shark fishing on the map.
All of a sudden, you had tournaments all over the place.
The University of Miami is sponsoring
a shark fishing tournament this weekend in the Keys.
Shark research will be benefited by the second annual shark hunt,
which is scheduled for April 15th through the 17th.
Rene started winning a lot of these tournaments
and he'd come back to the pier and show off his trophies.
Those early tournaments,
it really showed that what he could do.
You never beat Rene. Rene always won.
You know, you could beat him in one category,
but he'd beat you in three.
Rene wanted to be in the newspaper.
He wanted to be in your face.
He wanted to beat everybody.
So he brought shark fishing to a new, volatile level.
The guy was fearless.
This guy's a bad ass.
He wanted to catch Jaws now.
Rene was Captain Quint.
Hooper! Reverse it!
Got him! Get us off the anchor!
When he caught a shark, he became someone else.
He would turn into like an animal
when he would hook sharks.
He would just go berserk.
You know, he went into a frenzy.
There you go!
He's on, baby.
He hit the one on top!
I knew it,
he hit the bottle, man.
Oh, my God.
Where is he, wait. See where he is.
I need somebody in the back.
The fish is completely,
it's completely under on the boat Jorge.
You know, he wanted the biggest shark.
The meanest shark.
Rene was chasing the Goliath of sharks.
Rene de Dios is only 156 pounds
and stands about 5'5",
certainly not the world's biggest shark hunter.
But he says size doesn't matter.
You've got to have it in your heart
and it's got to be in your blood
if you want to be the world's greatest shark hunter.
CT Taylor with the upcoming world's greatest shark hunter
on South Beach for Channel 4 news.
Oh, this guy was crazy.
No doubt about it.
I'm not saying anything against Rene.
He's the guy that took it a step further
and went beyond the average shark fisherman.
And I tell some of these young shark fishermen
that fish today and they're like, "Hey, am I like Rene?"
And I'm like, "There's no one like Rene."
He had to be number one every day.
You're not going to be number one long,
when you put that kind of pressure on yourself.
I've never put that pressure on myself to be number one.
I love shark fishing.
And when I get a chance, I go out.
He had to be number one every day.
Look at this day.
Look how beautiful it is.
If I wanted to order this day for shark fishing,
even though we're not getting too many bites right now,
this is what I'd order.
A nice, cool breeze, beautiful sun,
nice people to hang out with and have a good time.
Catching the shark is not important.
And when I get a new kid and I'm teaching him how to fish,
I tell him, "It's not important.
"Don't make it your everything to catch a shark.
"There's many more things that are more important
"than shark fishing."
Oh!
The current. It's just the current.
My dad would work really hard every day,
so I didn't have my dad there.
I would only see my dad early morning or late at night.
Rene was like an older brother, father figure
and kind of guiding us in the right direction.
We kind of raised each other.
I don't know what was going on
in the households of the other kids,
but it seemed like we were kind of feral.
There was no curfews.
Nobody was making sure we went to school,
didn't seem like there were sit down meals.
You know, like breakfast, lunch and dinner
where mom's cooking dinner.
I mean, yeah, I guess that was happening.
Wasn't in my household.
We would, not go to school too much.
We were basically hanging around people
that were a lot older than us.
We were the young ones.
I would spend at least four or five nights a week
on the pier on a sleeping bag.
I couldn't stay in school.
All I wanted to do was surf and fish.
So, by eighth grade I was done.
Rene really drew a lot of people to the sport on that pier
because of his personality, his character.
You wanted to be like this guy, you saw what he did
and you were just driven to be next to him
and hear his stories and fish with him.
You know, Rene was pretty good at calling meetings
and getting things done with young minds
who wanted to be in his good grace.
Whether you like it or not,
if you hung out with Rene, you became a shark fisherman.
What specific items do you look for that would tell you
that there are shark fishermen out there?
Very heavy tackle, large reels, dead bait.
We didn't realize what we were doing
with the sharks and whatnot.
We really had no basis on where it was going to go from there.
He actually took us under his wing
because basically we were derelicts.
Our major objection is that it's a public beach.
There's swimmers out here.
We've got a good fishing pier here.
It's a public pier.
And the sharks, you know, they run off any decent fishing
we might have and it's bad for the swimmers.
It would be dangerous.
The rules for the old pier back then was there wasn't any rules.
We would just do basically whatever we really wanted to do
because we just ran that pier.
Oh, we'd piss people off all the time
because they didn't understand our wild ways.
The old people, they came to the beach to relax and die
and we were out here living life to the fullest
so people-- "Kid move over, get out of the way."
And we were like running over people to get a bait out.
When was the last incident that this happened?
Just last night as a matter of fact,
I asked a boy to leave because he wanted to shark fish.
He bought the bait off of me as a matter of fact
and he killed it right out front.
I told him, you know, that that wasn't allowed.
I explained to him that it wasn't allowed.
I don't think he was aware of our ordinance here.
I mean, we had the run of the beach.
We thought that we actually owned that beach.
We were there every day. We were there fishing.
We were there doing whatever we want.
You wanted to identify yourself with what was
so we identified ourselves as South Beach Pier Rats.
You were proud to call yourself a rat, a South Beach Rat.
Really.
The rats, they used to call us, "Oh here comes the rats."
We were these little troublemakers.
Pier rat is someone that lives on the pier, man.
Your life revolves around the pier.
I was a pier rat. We skateboarded, lived, slept,
hung out, surfed, everything was the pier.
Rene was definitely like the Pied Piper.
Where he'd have all these kids out there,
even the surfers and the guys who were skateboarding
would sit around and listen to his stories.
We started hanging out with JD and JD and Rene would have us...
I always hated this.
They called us "Ginos" and I hated it.
Rene had the proprietary language on the word Gino.
He had the rights, the exclusive rights.
You were a bonded servant or an indentured servant.
We didn't have any money, so our job was to
make ourselves useful, paddle out baits, buy baits,
go to Collins Market, get sodas, a can of tuna, a loaf of bread.
We were errand runners.
You were given a number.
Gino number one or Gino number four, five, six.
It was just nice to know that you had a Gino number.
You just knew you were part of the group.
Everyone had a number, not a name.
"Hey, number four, Gino Four, Gino Four,
"Gino Four, go get the food. Gino Three, get the barracuda,
"get the bait out.
You felt like a cohesion.
Like, wow, I got a number. I'll paddle out.
Even if it was midnight, we would paddle the baits
out on the surfboard.
You get on your board, which you threw over the side on the pier,
they lower the bait to you.
You put the bait under your chest
and you paddle the bait out as far as you could,
and then drop it and then paddle back.
Some people would say you're crazy
for getting on a surfboard
and swimming out into the ocean with sharks.
- It's not crazy. It's just dedication.
Its just once you go out there,
you don't even think about sharks.
You just sing a song in your head and you just go out.
We were surfers, you know, so we were okay with that.
So the Kahuna guys would look for the surfer guys
to take bait out.
Rene would like to cut the bait in half.
So he would, like, give it to you
and there's, like, blood dripping on you.
Literally, you'd have to hold it down with your chest,
with the hooks and everything.
And you're paddling
and you're just like bathing in the blood.
You know, we're thinking about getting the bait out there,
but you didn't think about like, what could have happened
if a shark would have been behind us.
They would actually from the scent of the bait,
blood trailing, they would trail the surfboard.
We thought that's it, he's gone.
He got-- he got eaten up!
And then all of a sudden, he'd show up soaking wet,
the boards all messed up.
"Something hit the surfboard."
"It was a shark!"
I was forced to paddle out bait for Rene.
It was inadvertently when Rene would force me, Rene de Dios,
would force me to paddle out bait at all hours of the night.
People were proud to say
yeah I was Gino Five, I was Gino 0.76,
I was Gino number Two, you know.
Hey, I wasn't a shark fisherman,
but I did it because I loved Rene.
He always had words of encouragement.
And so I did it because I wanted to appease him.
Rene was very extreme.
The story has it that he had a beautiful wife
and he was so obsessed with being number one,
winning these tournaments, beating Hammer,
beating Kevin in these tournaments
that his wife was warning him,
she was like, "Look, you know I'm going to leave you.
"You know, I want a normal life."
A wife wants to go out to dinner and wants to go out dancing.
You know, he wanted to go,
"Hey, baby, you want to go shark fishing?"
"Hey, tomorrow. Hey, after, you know, after work
"you want to come with me shark fishing?"
You know, that was every day.
So that was Rene. Rene was an extremist.
Woah! Yeah. Okay.
Hauling in a shark is no small chore.
Yet challenges like these are what Rene de Dios lives for
the Miami Beach resident is considered by many
the best shark fisherman around.
Being a fanatic is one big secret and I don't like it.
I love the sport of catching shark.
It was probably in the late 70's
when, when I heard, you know, the formation of a Shark Club.
The South Beach Shark Club, not, you know,
not the Miami Beach, the South Beach Shark Club.
Rene went ahead and was like,
"I'm going to grab all the locals.
"All the rats flock to me.
"We're going to have a club, we're going to fish,
"we're going to beat everybody in tournaments.
"We're going to beat the boat tournaments.
"We're going to beat the land based tournaments.
"South Beach is going to be on the map.
"We're going to be better than everybody in shark fishing."
And right from there, woof! Took off.
We definitely identified ourselves.
When we show up in a tournament
there'd be a group of us, maybe 30 guys.
And we were like the South Beach Rats.
You know, all the guys that were from the pier.
On his boat, The Shark Hunter,
Rene and his crew rack up the big score.
We all grew up together, you know?
We all put in that little extra effort.
And everybody had a certain amount of power
in what they had to do and what's expected of them to do.
It was kind of like a gang at one point.
Once you're in you're in.
And you would be in.
Part of the ship, part of the crew,
part of the pier, part of the crew.
We were young, nothing mattered.
We just wanted to go out there and make this happen.
We wanted to show who we were to some of these other clubs
and tournaments around Florida.
That brought them to another level of publicity.
This six footer was caught off South Beach
by Captain Rene de Dios, a licensed shark hunter.
The name of this boat is Shark Fever.
And the reason we named the boat Shark Fever
is once you get this, it's like a disease.
You can't get rid of it.
Every time you hook a fish
and the fish is pulling the other end,
your blood just pumps and your adrenaline goes.
This is the place right here.
This is ground zero
for the South Beach Shark Club.
It was just like a following,
it was more than just a fishing club.
You were in the South Beach Shark Club.
It meant a lot.
Fidel Castro must be having the last laugh tonight.
With one foul swoop, he rid Cuba
of thousands and thousands of undesirables.
He emptied his prisons.
He cleared the bums off the streets of Havana.
Murderers, thieves, perverts, prostitutes,
the retarded, crippled, the winos.
All were rounded up, sent to Mariel Harbor
and put aboard boats bound for Miami.
Over 3000 refugees arrived in a 12 hour period.
Officials say by tomorrow,
the number of Cuban refugees brought over
on the Mariel boatlift will total over 100,000.
The Mariel boatlift was in 1980,
and that impacted the beach in a very negative way.
You'd have drugs up and down the beach.
The crack epidemic. You'd have robberies.
You had so many criminals that now we're hovering amongst us.
The perfect storm of this sleepy Holocaust survivor retirement
ghetto converging with the Mariel boatlift
made this a very sketchy area.
The community had changed.
Many of the Marielitos came to South
Beach because of the rents.
And as they moved into buildings,
as they populated buildings,
the elderlies would move out of the building.
So now you had buildings
with a different tenant profile,
which was not what it was before.
What's happened to the crime rate on Miami Beach
since these people started arriving here?
It has soared.
It has soared in the worst possible areas,
and that is crimes against persons.
Aggravated assaults, rapes,
robberies are up tremendously,
in excess of 100%.
South Beach got more dangerous
because now they would break into the cars,
which was not common and now became more commonplace after
1980, 80, 81, 82, 83.
My apartment had gotten broken into,
you know, three or four times in a row.
And I saw someone just getting completely almost killed
in front of, in front of the pier one time.
And a guy pulled out a bat and not even hesitating
whacked the guy so hard on the face, busted all his teeth.
I thought he was dead.
"Oh, shit. What just happened?"
You know?
Some fights on those piers occurred
that people got thrown overboard.
They were found dead ten miles away on another shore.
One time, Rene got beat up out here
by a couple of guys who broke a bottle over his head.
It was sad to see, but this is the kind of stuff that happened.
As a result of the crime problem
the city commission today adopted six ordinances
which will deal with the situation very forcefully.
The parks, beaches and piers
will be closed after 10 o'clock at night.
The Mariel boatlift was a negative,
and I think it was part of the reason
that the pier was taken down in '84.
The beach was in a downfall.
Downward spiral.
We may not be able to stop crime,
but we certainly will chase crime away from this city
because we've sent out a message concise and clearly
that crime will not pay on Miami Beach any longer.
The people who realize that you contributed the money
to make this day possible.
I want to thank you for being on your team
and being one of the members of the commission
that properly spends your money.
The proof is in the pudding.
When that pipe starts to flow you'll say,
"Well, by golly it wasn't all for nothing."
Yeah, that was the first time
I ever went to the South Beach pier.
In probably '69 or '68.
I was just a little kid
and that's where the fascination started.
The pier was starting to fall in disarray
and it was going to cost like X amount of dollars
to fix the pier.
So there were people starting to voice.
That they were disgruntled, it was an eyesore.
They called it an eyesore.
The South Beach Pier as it stands today
is a bridge into the past.
It's a daily reminder of the hard times
that has hit this area.
Miami Beach city officials are now trying
to forget the bad times.
And the demolition of this pier will serve as an example
of how Miami Beach is trying to rebuild for the future.
We were just drawn to the pier.
It was like our home away from home,
it's where we wanted to be.
That pier was our sense of identity,
it was part of who we were.
And then, you know, obviously our hearts were broken
when they dredged the beach and the pier
eventually they tore it down.
With virtually no discussion,
the beach commission approved a $125,000
demolition plan to clear away the old pier.
The land will be used to expand the beach for bathers.
And we all kind of broke up that whole thing.
Everything just kind of--
everyone started going different directions.
That was the, that was the end of what South Beach was
in terms of skaters, surfers and the shark fishermen.
They went their own ways.
I mean, this is this is what happens.
No more. It was all gone.
It was just like memories left behind.
Then everything changed.
Fishing was terrible.
The migrating bait would just pass over Government Cut
and continue south to warmer water.
And then for many years afterwards,
it was just, like, dead.
And it was sad, there was nothing we could do,
nothing we could do. It was just happening.
What you had south of Fifth Street in those days
was something very, very special.
And then, you know, once the pier was demolished,
that was the beginning of the end of the magic of South Beach.
The magic tour was over.
It was finished. That was it.
When I lost the South Beach, I lost a piece of me.
I went with it.
When they tore that down, part of my heart went with it.
Now you have to--
You have to get creative.
You have to go to other, other places where the fish are.
After the pier was knocked down in '84,
we felt so devastated.
We had to go look for the next big spot
where we can fish and fish hard and nobody bother us.
I always get good sunset.
Me too.
Look at that.
Oh, my Lord.
I told you.
Where are the sharks at, man?
Sometimes the bites not on.
I'd say the bites not on.
I think so.
That's all right.
We'll fish a little here and a little outgo--
Incoming, then I'm out, partner.
Yeah, me too.
I'm whipped.
You're leaving tonight?
Well, my storytelling gets, at this age,
a little complicated
because I'll be telling you one story,
and all of a sudden,
I'm, like, thinking to myself, wait a minute.
I went from one story to two stories, to three stories,
and I never got to the point of what I was trying to tell you.
So it does get kind of rough. It does.
And as far as legends, legends can be born every day.
It's just who's telling the story
about what you actually did.
Shark Club was a positive
for a lot of kids that didn't have a lot of positive going on.
Not much to look forward to other than fishing,
growing up on South Beach, it was either fishing
or, you know you're-- you're cooped up
in your little roach motel apartment.
But here you are. You're a young kid growing up.
You're walking from Friday Night Live
at South Point Park to the boardwalk.
And these guys have out big giant shark rods.
You're seven years old
and it's the biggest thrill that there is.
You want to stay and hear one of these things go off.
So it was, it was, it was the best.
It was, it was something that we look forward to.
The sense of community. It started on South Beach.
I know it's hard to even fathom it or see it now.
Such a glitz and glam, you know, plastic, materialistic.
But back then, all those apartments you see now
that are art deco were all Section 8 or housing projects.
And in these apartments you have lots of kids.
So here you have all of these kids.
And it started on South Beach, the South Beach Shark Club.
So it was, it was like a community.
It was all of us. We were all going to do the same thing.
Everybody jump out of school,
haul ass, and run to the boardwalk, you know,
to see Rene, Hammer and all the old guys
shark fishing on South Beach.
Here, this is like the last thing we have.
Right here, the Keys bridges
is the last thing we have to where
there's no drawbridge, there's no gate,
there's no conformity, there's no security.
We get to go out, be with 30 of our friends and do what we love.
Hear those rods go off, fish, shark fish.
And that was South Beach in--
Shark?
Shark, shark, shark.
You guys ready? You rolling?
The craft and the art of shark fishing from land
is that you are immovable.
You can't get in a boat and chase the shark.
So you have to contend with having a high capacity reel
that has heavy line.
And then it's going be you against that beast.
You've got to be able to stop that fish
before it takes all your line.
That becomes a challenge.
It's not the same as catching a snapper or a snook.
You're dealing with an animal that's large and dangerous.
It's very difficult to get these large specimens.
It takes skill and knowledge.
It's one thing to watch a show about fishing
or sharks and whatnot.
It's another to actually be there
and seeing what actually occurs
and seeing how your body either freezes in the moment
that you don't know which way to turn and before you know it,
you don't come back.
Shark fishing, it's kind of like 12 rounds,
you know, when you hook the fish
you're in a 12 round battle, even if it's a six foot shark
or a it's a twelve foot shark.
You're still running around, you're huffing and puffing.
You know, sometimes they take 20 minutes
and sometimes they take, you know, six hours.
Shark fishing has stayed good in the Keys
for all the years that I've fished here.
Those bridges, are for us, the only real place
your average fisherman, your regular fisherman
who doesn't have millions of dollars
to have a boat are allowed to fish.
Now that I'm retired, this is my second home
and I'm never at home.
So I'm here-- more here than I am at home.
And I love it.
I don't care if I catch a fish.
Are you kidding me?
I won't even put my rod out.
It doesn't matter if I catch.
It's just that I'm here.
And when I know I'm going fishing with Hammer,
just to Long Key bridge, just on that bridge,
I get so giddy inside like I am so excited and happy.
Like it's it's a kid on Christmas.
Like, it was my first time
every time, to go fishing with the old man. Now.
And to a lot of the young guys, they show a lot of respect
and reverence for the old teacher
and hard core guy that's still doing it
even after close to 70 years.
- Hammer's the best man. - No. Don't say that.
Hammer's the best all around fisherman I ever met.
- No, no. - 100%
I wouldn't say that.
When I, when I say how good I am,
I say just to put me in a nutshell,
I'm one of the best. I never, never say that I'm the best.
Because guess what?
There's always somebody out there way better than you.
And I've met him, so
that's why I can't say I'm the best.
This was Rene's favorite bridge.
Me, I wasn't that type of fisherman.
Rene would stay in one spot for three or four days
and die out here.
The heat, the mosquitoes.
Me, I'd move around, hop around from one bridge to another.
So, we were two different kind of fishermen.
But no doubt, he was the best.
And in my mind, he'll always be the best.
There's nobody that could out fish Rene.
And that's true.
That's a true story right there.
Who's getting tired? You or it? You!
- He will get tired. - Yeah.
Rene! Rene! The big one, I told you, Seven Mile Bridge.
Even more so after the pier was knocked down in '84,
the bridges became like our second home.
We'd pack up the cars with rods, stinky bait.
And by Friday night, we were on the road,
like on a convoy of six to eight different cars.
We had to go seeking other areas, maybe driving
four or five hours at a time
just to get to where the fish are.
I went to Naples, Sebastian, Key West.
You know how many people lined up
to go to the Keys with Rene in his van?
Hundreds.
Guess how many made it?
three or four, every time he went.
If you wanted to be in his little clique,
or his little party
then you would have to go under his umbrella.
You couldn't have a rod bigger than him,
you couldn't fish as much as him.
You know, there's certain things you could do
and you couldn't do.
He always wanted to be at the top of his game,
and he didn't want to be outdone by anybody.
He didn't want anybody catching a bigger shark
than him, outdoing him.
And all he talked about was shark fishing
and being the best.
And "I'm number one."
And he would tell you, "I'm number one."
He always wanted to be numero uno.
The biggest shark, the most sharks.
He's always been number one.
Number one has always been Rene.
Rene would have these clashes. Like who was number one?
"I'm number one.
"I'm the Kahuna. You're wiener.
"You get the fucking shit. You take out my bait."
He became possessed with it.
Down with the wieners and up with the Kahunas.
People were terrified of Rene. Rene put fear of death into you.
He would even cut your line off if you had a shark on
so he could get his shark.
Whatever he had to do, he was going to win
by hook or by crook.
I guess some people would call him arrogant
or he made everybody think that he was number one,
but like he'd rub it in your face and tell you.
But he would really do it.
He'd go to the extreme, even sometimes bend the rules.
World record!
Look at the size of this shit!
Rene was very competitive.
Do whatever he had to do to get it done.
He would risk life and limb to catch a shark.
This guy would hook a shark and he'd be like,
"Hey! Tell those motherfuckers to move!
"Cut the line!" He'd come and cut people's lines.
And I'm like a kid, I'm like,
"Oh, my God, we're dying tonight."
Once I started fishing the Keys with JD and watching Rene
and fishing with Rene and seeing what these guys do.
And I just took it to the next level.
Now I'm in the Keys, now I'm in his house.
He pushed everybody to be like him or to praise him
because he was so driven at such a young age to do this.
So it was that drive that people saw in Rene,
that drove other people to become like Rene.
We just wanted to catch sharks.
That's all we wanted to do is catch sharks.
Our ultimate goal was to catch a shark and just to shut Rene up.
And it was very hard to do.
And some of us lost our jobs.
Some of us lost our wives.
But some of us, you know, did it.
Some of us did it. And I...
and I was one of them, I guess.
Well, what happened was Rene caught his giant hammer,
and then all of a sudden, here's a rookie.
His first shark was a black tip.
His second shark was an 800 pound tiger
that blew Rene's, only in weight, hammerhead away.
And from then on, remember,
there's only one room for number one,
you can't have two number ones.
And these guys fought
like you wouldn't believe.
They both wanted to be number one.
Kevin turned into a mini Rene.
My name is Kevin Pagan.
And I came just about 12 o'clock afternoon.
I took out a bait
and about 5:30, 5 o'clock this morning, I got hit.
Fought him for about two and a half hours.
Had 100 pound test, pulled some good drag,
couldn't stop him at first.
Thought I was going to lose him, you know,
it was really burning me a lot.
So I just put a little technique I invented on him
and just stop him cold, turn him on the beach,
just brought him right in.
Where are we right now?
We're on South Beach.
On the new pier.
The pier they built after
they knocked down the old pier or they reconstructed it.
When I was his age, we used to come out here.
There used to be a boardwalk that ran
from the end of that pier all the way across.
And when I was his age, they had Friday Night Live right there.
It was a live stage for live jazz music.
They had bounce houses, vending for food,
and we'd sneak away from our parents.
It would happen every night.
All of these guys would be shark fishing on the boardwalk.
And it's sites like this that are keeping some swimmers
away from the beach, but drawing dozens of shark hunters to it.
This is the scene tonight out on South Point pier.
We'd all go there
and once it was dark, everybody knew Rene, Hammer,
everybody would be taking out shark baits on the boardwalk.
So like that walk over there,
you're like as a kid, you're like,
"Oh my God. Are they going to catch a shark tonight?"
You'll never forget hearing that--
from those senators.
You'll relive that sound, and it's it.
It reminds me of what got me into it.
My name's Kevin Pagan.
I'm a shark fishermen here from the South Florida Shark Club.
Again, the pier was a magnet. You know, it was like a hub.
Everybody would actually go and hang out.
The boardwalk became that later on.
But not too many people knew about it.
I felt it was important for me to continue that legacy
of shark fishing in Miami Beach.
So we carried a little bit of what we were doing on the pier
over to the boardwalk, and that was just a continuation.
And I guess Kevin Pagan was like the last hardcore
shark fishermen that wanted to make a name for himself.
Rene has always been competition.
You know, as I was growing up,
I just didn't feel intimidated by him anymore.
And I wasn't scared of him.
The way that Rene would say it is,
"Man, this little punk man. He's always on my ass."
He would call me Calvin.
Calvin, my name's Kevin.
"He follows me around. He wants to be like me.
"This Calvin, you know.
"I fish South Beach, he's there in South Beach.
"He's always in the hole."
And Kevin was still trying to, like, put his chest out
and show, "Man I'm out here, you know,
"I'm going to catch big sharks like you guys."
But really didn't have anything to show for it yet.
Beautiful night tonight.
And we're glad that
we're waiting for the loser, Kevin Pagan.
We're waiting for Kevin to come out on the bridge.
Mr. Know it all.
No, let him stay right where he is.
Mr. Know it all.
That 14 foot hammer, he was always bragging about it
and he was always telling me-- And, you know, he's number one.
No one can ever beat him.
And then all of a sudden, here I come.
He was like Rene's Gino, you could say,
but then his fucking third shark or whatever it was, he catches
the biggest tiger ever caught on Miami Beach.
And the night before, while he was out
on the boardwalk shark fishing,
a guy pulled out a knife and cut open his stomach.
Filet knife right across here.
Yeah, we were having a little party on the boardwalk
and I got into an altercation with a gentleman,
and he came back with a knife and cut me.
So Kevin called the ambulance, the ambulance came,
they stitched him up.
The next day, I call Kevin.
"Kevin, let's go. Let's fish South Beach."
He goes, "Hammer I don't know if I can man,
"I'm messed up."
"I go, I'll take the bus, I'll go get the bait,
"I'll take your bait out on a surfboard
"because I know you're messed up."
And guess what?
That's when he got his Tiger.
He's so possessed with shark fishing
that he went fishing the next day.
And when he hooked that tiger, he has like his belly cut open
fighting the tiger shark.
I was going over the rail, I was sliding down the boardwalk
with this rod and JD loosened the line
and that thing just started taking off.
So I remember taking that rod and reeling it all the way,
pretty much to the beach.
He got stuck on the sandbar
and when that fish was on the sandbar
and it was just splashing.
I just saw huge amounts of water.
It was dark, we couldn't really see, but that shark
I knew it was a little bit bigger
than what I've ever hooked, what I ever caught.
A lifeguard told him about sharks
frolicking just off shore of South Beach
for the past few mornings.
He caught it right off the pier. Surprise to swimmers maybe.
No surprise to this Shark Club fisherman.
I really wanted to beat that record.
I knew I could because,
you know, records are meant to be broken
and all these other guys are telling me,
you know, I saw another shark you know.
Last year I saw a bigger one and they're out there.
You just got to be at the right place at the right time.
And I never knew what that right time, and right place was,
so I fished every single day until we got him.
Everybody even till today thinks it was Rene on that
with the tiger, because Rene was in every single picture,
he was talking on the news, he stole the show.
Rene was definitely bothered
if you took a little bit of his spotlight.
He didn't like that.
He couldn't stand to be beaten.
He had been undone by a young guy that's showing him off
and he was just driven to go out there
and fish harder.
He's going to have to bring his own Gino now.
Yeah, that's it...
All right.
That's really nuts...
Number one man. Number one.
Number one.
- The new number one. - South Beach!
Number one man, number one.
While one fisherman's good luck is always another misfortune.
But you can bet Rene de Dios will be back next year
in pursuit of the biggest sharks.
Was there a dark side to Rene?
There's a dark side to all of us.
You know, sometimes we drink, sometimes we have frustrations.
Sometimes we look to set a goal
of the very high standard and all of a sudden
that one fish that you really wanted to land,
you saw it. You looked at him.
He looked at you.
Your eyes connected.
You were right there.
And that line just snapped.
And it kills your heart.
It just breaks it, and you never saw that fish again.
Rene wanted to do everything right
so that when the moment or the opportunity presented itself
of hooking the big one,
nothing would fail as far as the equipment
and nothing would fail as far as the man behind the reel.
Rene actually had problems in Bahamas with a shark.
That it actually sunk his boat.
I know that sounds like a...
when the story came up on the beach I said ah, Rene's
doing his acting again. But no, no.
He wasn't acting, he hooked a big one.
He sunk, sunk this guy's boat in the Bahamas
because he hooked a great white.
He ugh, actually he and Luis did,
they said they had a great white.
He would just tell you about, the thing was a monster,
it came up next to the boat.
The stomach looked like two barrels.
And the guy's looking at him, like,
"Man, my boat's sinking." The guy wanted to cut his line.
The guy knew if you cut Rene's line,
you're probably going to die.
Like he's probably going to kill you bro.
His one chance with a great white.
So they sunk, and he's out in the middle of floating
in the water for days because Rene didn't want to cut his line
with a great white.
"20 foot shark drags-- capsizes fishing boat."
I believe the story, I believe-- I know that it happened.
To Luis it was almost like a life and death thing.
To Rene, it was like his biggest adventure to that time.
From the beginning that trip was kind of,
you know, kind of, we went through, like,
it was the nightmare trip.
I think we left around 11 o'clock at night.
in this little 20 footer.
You know, me and Rene, "Luis, we going to go?"
I said, "No matter what we're going to go no matter what."
Rough. It took us like, I don't know, like three and a half,
four hours to get there.
We were all wet. Next day.
We're all like, you know, miserable really,
all wet, me and Rene.
And Rene got all these fishing rods on the floor.
You know, his big reels that he use for shark fishing.
And from there on, we went to catch bait, whatever.
We went fishing.
We were doing great that day. We were catching fish,
like you don't believe, we we're catching groupers
and you know, everything was going great.
We had that cooler full of fish already.
So you know what?
"We're taking a little break here, Rene."
That day we had a huge bait.
You know, one of those huge Cudas, big you know.
And Rene's like, "Can I put that whole thing out there?"
"You can do whatever you want, buddy, you know?"
So Rene's like, "Okay, Luis, I can do this now?"
I said, "Go ahead buddy, do it".
So he put this big ass bait out there.
Something like this kind of reel we had.
You know a little more older, but, like, you know,
like the movie Jaws, same reel.
Same reel from the movie Jaws really,
that's what we were using. The same reel.
I mean top of the line, whatever, heavy duty stuff.
No little shit, Rene don't mess around with this stuff.
Well nothing, we're having a little break there
a little lunch. The reel went--
Like that.
I looked at that reel. My buddy James looked at me.
I looked at him.
He goes, "Eh, little shark out there messing with this bait."
"You know, don't even bother."
Rene's like, "Hey Luis, I'm getting a hit!"
"Hey Rene, little nurse shark or whatever under there.
"Come on, give me a break.
"We taking a little break over here buddy.
"Give me a break, you know."
That rod goes just like that again.
I'm like, uh oh. I look at my buddy James, I go,
"Hey, something big is in there eating that bait."
"Really Luis?" I said, "Listen, something is there."
Rene, "Luis, he's taking my bait!"
And this time that reel is just going--
I'm like, "Lock him up Rene.
"Lock him up, let's put the- hook him, hook him!"
"Luis, I'm going to hook him now."
I said, "Hook him, hook him, put the hook on him, Rene.
"Set the hook on him, set him!
Rene just set that hook on him. We had a little fighting chair
similar to this fighting chair here.
When he set that hook on that fish the whole fighting chair,
I saw the whole bottom of the fighting chair bending on me.
The whole thing bent, the line and everything.
I'm like, "What! Holy shit!"
And that reel started smoking on us.
I mean smoking. I mean, "Get me some water now!"
I'm like, "Okay buddy," and ran and get him some fresh water.
If we don't do it, we melt the line.
You know, the line will melt. You know that.
I know people don't see it, but when you got a big fish
I see line melting on me. Melting, like, like butter.
They melt. So, you have to be careful.
You have to keep that line cold and the reel cold.
And then I know, you know, we're losing light now.
Now the fish. We fish in 126 feet of water,
its a ledge right in front of us, a 400 foot ledge.
I know now, that fish hits that ledge.
We're going to lose that fish.
"Let's go, get a buoy going."
We got the big buoy for the anchor. "Let go of the anchor."
That was it. We dumped the anchor out with the buoy.
And we start chasing that fish.
"Let's do it. Let's chase him. Let's chase him."
We thought we were going to fight that fish for a few hours.
I mean, come on. We never think, you know,
"Hey, it's going to happen." What's going on here?
I look back, and I keep seeing that buoy
just like going further and further away from me.
I'm like, "Uh oh." I'm like, "You know what?"
And Rene's, like, fighting that fish.
And I'm like, Holy shit. This is a big boy here.
And Rene's like, "Luis, big tiger, big tiger Luis!"
I'm like, "You got it buddy. We're going to catch this fish."
"Luis! This is a world record, Luis!
"Oh, my God, Luis, this is the fish we want, Luis!"
I'm like, holy shit. This is not a good one here.
We're in my 20 foot boat, you know, whatever.
Let's do it.
Rene, you know what? I look at my fuel gauge, I open my key.
Look at my fuel gauge. I got like,
I had like almost like three quarter tank.
We hooked that fish at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
An hour went by, two hours went by,
and that fish was not coming up.
That fish was just going down and down and down
and now we already in 1500 feet of water,
2000 feet of water now, 2000 feet of water at least.
3000 feet of water.
And this fish is going down and stopping
and sounding down in 3000 feet,
like a submarine.
And now we start thinking, wait a minute,
what kind of fish we got here?
This is night. Now this is 10 o'clock, whatever,
11 o'clock at night already.
You know, fighting this fish
and now I see Bimini already disappear. No more light.
I see little lights out there. Uh oh. The only land that I see,
little, little tiny light, you know.
In those years, we don't use GPS really,
its like my compass, my coordinates.
So, you know, that was that was my concern too, you know,
losing land already.
"No, forget about it." I was like, "We'll get it."
Around 3 o'clock in the morning,
we start bringing this fish in already.
He start coming up on us.
"Oh, Luis, he's coming up! I'm getting line now."
And I start putting the light on him like that, right.
And I see this thing coming up on me.
You see the line come up, I knew it's coming up out there.
I saw like a dark, like a submarine
coming out of the water.
Voof! Like that. When I saw that thing,
when I saw that dorsal on top of the water,
I looked at Rene and I said,
"Buddy, I'm cutting the line off right now.
"Forget about this shark. We need a bigger boat.
"This is a shark. This the--"
"What the hell you think it is, Rene?"
"Luis, this is it! This is him!
"This is a great white, Luis! Look at the size of that!"
And then when he told me great white,
then he went down on us again
because we got him right there.
Then he went down on us and then I saw his white belly come up.
And then I looked at Rene and said,-
"Oh, my God, Rene, this is the beast."
Then he went down again on us,
sounding again, another 1,500 feet.
Stopped again.
I'm like, "Holy shit." Resting.
And Rene resting, like, "Holy shit."
I'm like, "Rene you know what, buddy?
"I'm done. 3 o'clock in the morning.
"I'm tired, you guys fight the fish. Don't worry about it.
"Let me know if you got him again."
I went to, you know, to rest. I was tired.
Already fighting this fish, this fish was not giving up on us.
"Okay buddy, I got it. I'm all right buddy. I'll be here."
Like 5 o'clock in the morning, he wake me up, you know.
"Hey Luis get up, I got a little water in the boat.
A little water in the boat... "What?"
Right away. "Water! What? Water?
"What do you mean water in my boat?
When I opened up the hatch the water was already in the boat,
already in the bilge inside the hull.
I had a lot of water in that bilge.
Backing up all night to that boat.
You know, my bilge pump,
my automatic switch was not going right.
That's when I told Rene, we're going to have to cut
this shark off or we're going to be in trouble here.
"Luis, let me see if I can bring this thing in one more time."
That's when the shark took a turn on us and it just went--
and Rene locked the reel on us, and the shark
with that little weight on it. I tried to get the boat going,
but it was too late for us already.
It just-- The boat just went voof! And capsized.
Next thing I know, that boat's hitting me
on the top of my head.
You know, just capsized that boat you know,
I was like, "Uh oh."
I see Rene actually, when we capsized the boat,
Rene was still holding the shark on his reel.
He was still fighting that shark.
39 year old Rene de Dios
of Miami Beach says he caught a 20 foot great white shark
that dragged down their small boat.
Meanwhile, the fish is taking me under now.
Rene's side of the story was he was fighting the shark
something like all day and all night
power winching it, he was getting close
gaining on him but that the boat was sinking.
And the own captain of the boat, I guess like to cut Rene's line
you're like signing your death papers.
You know, this guy will probably stab you
with a knife or something.
As they're sinking, I think the captain
with his own boat sinking never touched the line.
And I remember Rene being appreciative of that.
He's like, "He never cut my line.
"You know, when we were in the water, I got the line
"and I bit it with my teeth."
So, do you believe the story?
Yeah, of course I believe everything that he said.
Everything Rene said, I believe.
Like, Rene was powerful with what he said.
He-- sometimes, he'd cheat, you know,
he'll cheat to win a tournament because of his competitiveness.
But as far as a story, if he said, it was probably the truth.
So without any doubt in your mind,
you know that was a great white shark.
Oh, for sure. For sure. It was bigger than my boat.
That thing was bigger than a 20 footer.
You know, that thing was a beast.
It looked like a submarine.
I mean, I don't I don't think nothing else grows that big.
I mean, a tiger shark can grow 12 feet long, 13 feet.
But I don't think it can grow like 20 feet long.
Me and Rene look at each other like, Rene's like,
"You never know Luis, this thing can be a 6,000 pound fish,
"7,000 pound you know, great white."
The world record was in Cuba, they caught him in Cuba.
In Cojimar.
You know, the biggest shark caught was in Cojimar.
They got him on a harpoon, but it was a 7,000 pound fish.
Around 2 o'clock in the morning when he came up
and I saw that big shark come up next to me,
this shark is bigger than my boat that we hooking now.
"What are we going to do with this shark Rene?
"We, we, we 15 miles away from land.
"You know, and we hooking this shark, what are we going to do?
"We going to tie him by his tail and drag him back?
"It's going to be impossible.
"Why don't we just cut the shark and let it go?
"You know just, let's let him go."
And, "No way."
He will die with that fishing rod in his hand there.
Rene said, "Luis this is my dream and forget about it."
I looked at my friend, you know what, he's right.
That's his dream. And we'll let him catch his dream.
We're gonna do whatever it takes that Rene catch this shark.
And that was it. That's when we went for it.
Flip the boat, whatever happened, we alive.
The feeling of hooking a big shark is like
the adrenaline starts going. You feel it.
You're like, "Oh, I want to get him so bad."
And then when you lose him, the highs become just as low.
You know what I mean?
You feel so bad that he got away.
Back on dry land for the first time in a week
the three men still hang on to one of the fishing poles
that first sank them and then saved them.
39 year old Rene de Dios of Miami Beach says he caught
a 20 foot great white shark
that dragged down their small boat.
Another wave came over, swamped the motor.
By that time, all I remember is the boat
turn to the right, rolling over.
I'm in the water next to the cooler
and I'm just doing my best-- he's still fighting the fish.
Meanwhile, the fish is taking me under now.
The three were nothing but a speck
in the trackless ocean.
Incredibly, miraculously,
the crew of the Oceanic spotted them.
So did some passengers with video cameras.
They'd been waving something.
And so we're making a direct turn toward them.
Out of no where the Big Red Boat comes up.
And he seemed like he was going to go away.
And out of nowhere, he makes his turn.
Hits the horn.
When he blew the horn. All the crew.
We all were crying because we knew we were saved.
A lifeboat rescued the three.
They were winched aboard.
And boy, do they have a fish story to tell.
The longest fishing battle ever in history.
We broke this weekend. 14 and a half foot
battle on a great white shark.
And even after the boat capsized,
I was still battling the shark.
I cut it with my teeth and I released him.
I've got so many stories
you guys will tell me to shut up.
I'm going to tell you, it is so beautiful out here.
It's epic.
Look at this.
Look at that.
Up here, it's like beautiful.
My lord.
This sunset is not finished by far.
Just because it went down.
What did I tell you?
The good part's coming now Shannon, watch.
I grew up on South Beach, south of Fifth.
Never crossed Fifth street.
I bounced around section eight
small, hole in the wall, roach infested apartments.
There was also a spiritual side to it, like
small apartment, but surfboards, fishing rods.
You know, your neighbors are frying fish.
My old man, Seaweed, grew up with these guys
with Rene, Hammer.
Seaweed was a South Beach classic.
A free spirit. He was a diver.
He was one of the number one spear fishermen on the pier.
He'd be the one who went and speared Rene
three tarpons or three barracudas
before a big tournament.
They gave him the name one time because they found him
sleeping under the pier
and he was blended in with the seaweed.
Like I said, part of the ship, part of the crew.
Rene saw him and called him, "Hey Seaweed!
"Look, you got seaweed all over your hair," and that name stuck.
My dad was homeless. He lived on the rocks.
He would bring me to the areas on the rocks
because he was like,
"Look, this is where I would sleep
"on the jetties, on South Beach."
From Government Cut, he used to pay
our groceries, my diapers, our rent.
Everything from poaching lobsters and snooks.
The story that my mom told me was,
"I'm looking out the window and I see
"this long, blond, flowing curly hair
"and this man, tanned, with this long sleeved sweater.
"And I fell in love with your dad."
And Shannon grew up in South Beach.
He started five, six, seven years old, walking to the Pier.
And then, you know, the influence of the South Beachers
in a diving world, in a fishing world, and it rubbed off on him.
You know, Shannon's got that,
the Seaweed gene.
My dad was never really a shark fisherman.
I liked to fish, so I would tie fishing line
on a can, go to the pier and drop my can
with a gold hook through a hole, catch little grunts.
And it was like, I was hooked from then.
As soon as I could walk, I was trying to fish.
My dad was pushing me towards surfing and diving.
My mom would take me out here and...
and just catching little grunts out on the pier,
just started spreading man.
From there, I went to hanging out with Rene
and Rene started bringing me along
and before you knew it, I was just,
like, hooked with a passion towards shark fishing.
He was like a protege of Rene.
Rene would take him fishing when he was a little kid.
Later on that was like my teacher.
So I would go with him.
He'd pick me up out of elementary
and I was going to the Keys at eight,
nine years old, camping out for four days.
So he had first hand as a child,
he had it like infused into his being.
He saw all these things. He was exposed to it.
So he had the training to become the next generation.
First of all, Rene had a great quality
of grabbing everybody in the room's attention.
Like, he'd be telling a story, and everybody on this pier
would be like, "Whoa, what's that guy talking about?"
You know, his voice would vibrate,
and he was, like, real good at, like,
"Shannon! Come with me!
"We're going to get the big hammer tonight.
So, like, you're hearing this, you're a little kid.
You're like, "What? I want to go get a big hammer.
"Let's do it," you know? So...
Just that guy, man, his, his passion.
Just it rubbed off on you,
and that guy could tell you to risk your life.
He'd have me risking my life as a child
and it was just like, "Let's do it, you know? Yeah, let's go."
And now you think today and it's...
some of that stuff was crazy.
I remember
Rene on the boardwalk would hook a big shark.
"Shannon hurry up, here, get my wallet
"here's 75 cents go call your dad.
"Go call Kevin. Hurry up.
"Call Calvin, get him out here to the boardwalk now;
"we're tangled on a buoy."
And I remember in my head I'm like, "Man, I'm ten years old.
I'm not fucking walking through that park, man.
Because these people would be sleeping in the pavilions.
You'd have like a gang of 25, 30 dudes
just hanging out, drinking,
wanting to mess with whatever walks by.
So I remember getting the change,
walking to the only payphone,
which was at the end of the-- the curving road
in, in South Point Park
and the innocence of when you're, like, ten,
of the dark, of a noise.
I remember walking, like, hearing noises
and being scared, looking to the left, looking to the right,
and just seeing everything man, seeing, seeing,
stabbings. Seeing people get their heads kicked in.
It was, it was toxic man.
It was, it was pretty gnarly back then.
I was literally born in the South Beach housing projects.
Yeah, it was pretty rough.
It was pretty rough in the 80's, 80's and 90's.
A lot of gangs, a lot of drugs.
Even though you read a magazine and you see the TV,
"Oh South Beach, you know, beautiful Miami Beach,"
you know, and it's, like, not what you're reading.
There's some wild stuff going on.
Fifth Street, lots of crack,
lots of prostitution on Washington Ave.
The Mariel layovers,
walking around the park, talking to themselves.
Lots of stabbings, lots of bottle fights.
Fishing at night, you'd have to be with your head on a swivel.
It was a wild time.
Wild West.
South Florida's most wanted gang at the time
is the South Beach Posse.
From 15th Street down to the pier,
you have, you know, a hundred of the worst gang members
in South Florida at the time.
My first encounters was in our apartments,
on our apartments on South Beach.
So, this block Third and Meridian was just infested
with all of the gang members, all of the South Beach Posse.
Young kids, older kids, leaders.
Like clockwork, every Saturday night.
So all these dudes are all hanging out.
This is their block. They live there.
So these dudes from Hialeah come to the park, before you know it,
you just start hearing bottles break.
Bottles breaking. Screaming.
I would have anxiety as a kid just worrying about my dad
getting into it with these guys
and the whole time there, I'm just like frantic like,
"Oh my God, they're going to kill my dad,
"they're going to burn our house.
"They're going to come back and shoot our house.
My first encounter that little was-- I was scared shitless.
In different ages it meant different things to me,
when I'm seven, eight years old, it's like big fear.
Gunfire shatters the quiet
of yet another South Florida neighborhood.
Welcome to South Florida's teenage war zone.
Not a place for tourists.
Here are kids who came out of families
who went into a substitute family
that is so strict and so harsh
and does not tolerate very much,
which tells you something; that kids want a sense of direction.
They need nurturing.
They need to belong to something.
I actually didn't fully escape from that lifestyle.
My mom died when I was 14, and then I did--
I fell into it because then my best friends were coincidentally
some of the worst ones for our age
that just really sucked me in real quick.
And then three years later, I'm 17 and my dad dies.
So for a good portion of my life of my childhood,
I was I was entrenched in all of it,
in some really, really gnarly stuff.
Some stuff I'm-- I'm even ashamed
to talk about, some crazy-- some crazy things
I've done and seen.
There was two things. There was a bank robbery.
Two armed men in ski masks
robbed the Republic National Bank.
And then there was a shooting on 71st Street.
Where they, they shot some kid. I think they killed him.
And from there they were like South Florida's most wanted.
Everywhere we went, everywhere we went,
to play football, to go fishing.
There was people taking pictures of everything and nobody knew.
It was like, what the fuck are these people
taking pictures for? Pictures. Pictures, pictures, pictures.
They shot pictures forever.
You'd be jumping off the pier.
Pictures.
Like what the fuck? We paparazzi?
You know, these dudes are paparazzi?
And in one, in one shot just threw a net.
And netted... Even if you were just hanging out,
you know luckily, I was too young
when that happened.
When the indictment happened,
they got them on a huge racketeering,
like what they do for the Mafia. Front page articles.
86 gang members arrested.
South Beach Posse, RICO Act, racketeering.
Penned up everybody, they put a net around everybody.
They were taking pictures for years.
I just saw there was just shit at the end of this road.
It was going to end bad. It was going to end bad.
I was already doing things out of my character.
I was already ashamed of things I was doing to people.
You know, like I told you, my mom raised me
with a lot of love.
So when I saw it all crumbling, you know,
my best friend got deported,
my other best friend got murdered.
All my friends are in jail.
All my other friends are smoking crack,
you know, 18 years old, hooked on crack.
You know, I'm like, this is, this is not...
This is going to end bad. I need to get out of this shit.
If your mom and your dad are your rock,
once they're dead, it's basically either, okay,
let's just keep on nosediving or how much do you love life.
If you don't have some luck or you don't have
some good guidance, like,
there was all that bad stuff going on
but you had, you had the Hammers,
you had the Renes who were taking you fishing,
keeping you away from that.
That's your, your way out of that.
Yeah Shannon was a, hung around very tight
with Rene, at the very end of Rene's life.
You know he died really fast.
He died abrupt, abruptly. He died suddenly.
It was unexpected.
This would not be Rene de Dios' day.
This head is all that was left
of the 14 foot hammerhead that would have won the tournament.
Rene hooked it, but lost it to a bigger shark.
You know Rene was like I said, Rene you know
he never took care of himself.
Be on that bridge all day in that sun,
that thing will kill you, that sun.
I used to tell him, "Rene, what are you doing?"
Well, you know-- "No Luis, I have to catch the big one."
"What do you mean?" "I'm here catching
"the big one Luis. I'm looking for..." You know, that was Rene.
He likes to be there. He doesn't care.
The only thing he cares about, that shark.
That was his lifestyle.
He just wanted to be out there shark fishing.
He didn't care about his health.
He didn't care about anything else.
There you go.
He's on, baby!
He hit the one on top.
I knew it, he hit the bottle man.
But just seconds later...
The ledge man, the ledge, I knew it.
Rene, who lives to hunt the shark was crushed.
Try as he may, his face couldn't hide the disappointment.
Him and Jimbo went down to the Keys.
They went shark fishing.
Rene had a minor stroke, Jimbo noticed it.
Jimbo, I think, stood with him at the hospital.
He says he wanted to go back fishing.
He didn't want to be in the hospital.
So Jimbo went back to the Keys with him fishing.
And he should have been, you know,
he should have been in a hospital,
but he wanted one more shark,
he wanted to catch one more shark,
told Hammer and Hammer, took him to Seven Mile Bridge,
caught him his last shark before he died.
I think he died shortly after that.
Rene was very competitive.
He was always number one.
He died being number one.
Believe it or not, he was one of my young kids
that I brought up, that became
one of the best shark fishermen in the United States.
He proved it every day, but he died proving it.
Can you tell me where that nickname comes from?
From Hammer. You know which one I'm talking about?
-Jimbo? -Not that.
The old man.
The old man. Yeah, I do.
I know exactly where it came from.
The old man. Because this is how it goes.
Rene was the ultimate contender, the number one.
"I'm going to let you know I'm the best.
"Everybody's attention. In the newspapers.
"Everywhere, everywhere.
"I'm number one."
Even though Rene, competitively speaking,
like for tournaments, for world records,
what have you, if you would put those two against each other,
Rene's probably going to win, you know,
nine out of ten tournaments, nine out of ten competitions.
Rene's going to figure out a way to beat him.
So many people only know Rene as the best.
However, on the flip side, Rene had such a respect for Hammer.
He had more respect for Hammer than any other man.
That was his number one.
Just the respect.
It's almost like, you know,
you're the old man, you're the originator,
you're the-- the old Kahuna, you know.
He knows when the fish are going to bite.
He knows where the fish are going.
He knows where they're going to be next week.
Rene was good like that, but Jimbo off land,
nobody could touch Jimbo.
With JD, his success is just that
he didn't get stressed out about anything.
He was just there for the moment
and he just did his thing and it fell together.
And if it didn't, it didn't.
Even today, when you look at JD Hammer, it's his life.
He doesn't care about anything else
that's really important to other people.
He just wants to fish.
And so that is the epitome of the obsession of the fishing
and what the ocean life does to a person.
The thing is, as you get older,
you drop out, you know, people drop out of skateboarding,
people drop out of surfing in their 20's, 30's.
But when you see surfers out there in their 40's, 50's, 60's,
You have to admire that. When you got J.D.
who's probably in his 60's still shark fishing,
hardcore, dedicated,
very much applied for the love of shark fishing.
Yeah you have to admire that dedication.
You know, you have to.
There's no ego in JD.
JD's like full of humility, man.
JD Hammer is a soul fisherman
and I'm sure he is still today.
As far as legends go, it's just, you know,
I think my legend is longevity.
You got to say that, here I am almost 70.
I'm still here.
And my next legend is teaching young kids like Shannon,
like my sons, like their friends, how to fish.
And keeping them out of trouble. Doesn't always work, you know.
But that makes me happy.
And yeah, I told you that before, right?
I don't care. It's not about me.
The one that bit Papi. Remember this?
Remember the one that bit me real quick
and I was bleeding everywhere.
So those sharks, when they migrate,
are in the water by the thousands, Dante.
I'm talking everywhere you look.
When, before we kayak out the bait.
You see fins swimming by the beach.
Oh, this scares me just talking about it.
The wind's howling.
Waves are getting bigger, crashing on the shore.
So, Papi gets in the kayak
and I start taking off.
I start kayaking out.
I start getting far.
And I know this is the last bait,
we want to go way out for the big boy.
I keep going further. I start looking back
and I'm looking for Hammer.
I don't see any more light.
I don't see Hammer.
But then it happened.
This man has steered so many troublesome teens
into fishing and changed their lives.
I'm talking it's in the hundreds, beyond the hundreds.
- I was one of them. - And Rene was one of them.
JD Hammer's the one who actually put me
into the second level of fishing.
You know, I looked up to JD and Rene and some of the older guys.
JD Hammer is another father to me.
Here's a young kid, he stays out of trouble
because he's always preparing to be a shark fisherman.
You just ain't got time to go out and be a bad person.
It teaches them in the best way that I know
to stay out of trouble is to fish.
It could steer a kid for me,
I wanted to do a bunch of bad stuff
right after my dad died. I was thinking nothing but negative.
And before you knew it, I was-- I had no time.
I was like, man, I want to go fishing with Jimbo,
you know, I want to go fishing.
Forget all this dumb shit.
Shannon was like one of my sons.
When his dad passed away.
It was every week Shannon.
I'd go to the beach, pick him up, let's go.
And he was like a brother to my kids.
I have three boys, and Shannon became the fourth one.
That's all.
One of the first times he took me fishing,
he had a brand new West Palm Beach rod.
Beautiful.
And he's like, "Shannon, come on, come with me partner.
"I'll get you a cuda. I promise. Come on."
And just holding on, scraping this man's rod up
and he didn't even flinch.
Just like, let me scrape up his rod.
Gaffed my cuda, brought it up
and he's like, "You did it," you know.
And I remember just instantly,
instantly knowing this guy's different
than, than other teachers.
This guy's different than my own dad.
This was a lot of fun.
That type of influence,
letting a kid be free and at all costs,
even the cost of your own rod.
Was really special to me.
I wish I could be a lot more like him sometimes.
Everybody knows this guy owned life
Does he have materialistics to show for?
No, he doesn't have that.
But did you see as many sunsets as he saw?
See the stars, see the galaxy? Shooting stars.
Were you out on the fresh breeze as many nights
as this guy was just free?
What were you doing when he was enjoying all of this?
Catching fish, eating his own catch every day of his life,
hooking monster sharks,
seeing everything you can imagine out on the water.
I know in my heart, when his time comes,
it's like, I don't think there's going to be a lot of crying.
I admire him, he's a role model to me.
Some of the kids I'm very proud of,
that they become excellent, shark fishermen.
I'm not going to say that I taught them
because there's something in here.
They are better than the teachers
and it's all because what's in here,
it has nothing to do with what I taught them.
I think any kid that's exposed to the water
carries that in his blood for life.
It's something that sticks with you, it doesn't leave you.
It's part of who we become
when you're exposed to that young.
Yeah, I'm so thankful that I moved towards the ocean.
It's the best thing I think anyone can do for kids.
We felt we were all very privileged to be near the ocean.
I mean, you can grow up in a city
and you can grow up in an environment
which is not very conducive to behavior,
you know, which is not conducive
to good character building, good personality building.
But when you're in, near the ocean,
it's a very safe environment.
The ocean was a magnet that drew many people
to South Beach.
My son, he dies to go fishing with me.
He loves tagging along with me, like taking out baits
the whole nine yards.
The times are changing,
a lot of us have followed suit with conservation.
Every shark I catch,
I try my best to get the hooks out fast and release it now.
It means so much that I really want him
to be able to shark fish.
I want my son and be able to kayak out shark baits.
And there be some sharks where I caught sharks, on Miami Beach.
When you ask me about fishing and the love of it,
fishing is just not about killing fish.
You have a passion about it that you want to share with others.
In the beginning,
perhaps somebody might point a finger
and say, "Well you guys were killing a bunch of sharks,
"and that shouldn't have been done."
Perhaps we were not as knowledgeable in the beginning
as we all were towards the end.
We've changed completely.
We turned around 100%.
Every one of my sharks now are cut loose.
I was probably one of the first guys years ago, '91, '92,
and we would cut them off and let them go.
People change, man.
You mature, you-- you research, you learn.
And you could be different than you were five years ago.
Ten years ago.
If I don't keep it alive, how special it was to me and--
how beautiful it was the thing that we had that I was taught
from by Rene, Hammer, and all these guys,
then it's going to die out. I'll never let it die.
My son will pass it on to his kids and to me,
it's very dear in my heart. The circle of friends we had,
I'll always keep those memories alive
through photo and through stories.
And my kid will pass it on too.
Look at this.
That's really--
more beautiful than I thought when I was like,
"Oh, you guys are going to see the sunset."
I was telling them, it had to be here.
Like if they were going to end it off,
if that was the end of the film, it would be right here.
Definitely. Look how beautiful.
I mean, what else could you ask for?
Remember the, um, the-- the hammer
that you hooked that stripped you out?
And then came back and stripped you in and ran.
Ran inside? Inside of the bridge.
How do you know, you were here?
Yeah, I was here, but we were down from you.
Oh, you guys were catching lemons right?
You were all defeated. You were like, "Oh, I had him."
Can't catch them all partner.
You can't catch them all. All we can do is try.
But look at that.
Oh, my Lord.
That is beautiful.