Mark Quartiano, known to the fishing world as Mark the Shark, is one of the most recognizable and controversial big-game fishermen to ever run charters out of Miami. On this episode of the Tom Rowland Podcast, he tells me how he built one of the most notorious names in sport fishing, what decades of chasing giant sharks taught him about the ocean, and how the sport and the public conversation around it have changed. It is a raw look at a career spent at the extreme edge of saltwater fishing.
Listen now: Megaphone · press play in the player above to watch.
Mark the Shark is the nickname of Mark Quartiano, a Miami-based big-game charter captain who became one of the most famous and most debated shark fishermen in the sport. He built a public profile over decades of targeting large sharks and other big-game species off South Florida.
Quartiano describes building his name through years of high-profile charters, media attention, and a willingness to chase the biggest fish in the ocean. The Mark the Shark brand grew alongside the spectacle of landing enormous sharks out of Miami.
Shark fishing sits at the center of a long debate about conservation, and Quartiano has been a lightning rod in that conversation. On the show he addresses the criticism his career has drawn and how attitudes toward shark fishing have shifted over the years.
His reputation is built on giant sharks, but Quartiano has spent a lifetime as a big-game charter captain pursuing the largest and most powerful fish that swim off South Florida. He talks through the gear, the conditions, and the chaos of fighting that caliber of fish.
Quartiano made his name running charters out of Miami, fishing the waters off South Florida where big sharks and other large pelagic species can be found close to one of the busiest coastlines in the country.
Quartiano reflects on how the sport, the regulations, and public sentiment around shark fishing have evolved across his career, and what that has meant for someone whose whole identity is tied to it.
I have known about Mark the Shark for years. If you fish in South Florida or follow shark fishing at all, you know the name. He has lived at the most extreme end of big-game fishing for decades, and he has taken plenty of heat for it. I wanted to hear his story in his own words, the building of the name, the reality of the work, and how he sees the sport now.
A nickname like his does not happen by accident. Quartiano walks me through the years of charters, attention, and outsized catches that turned a Miami captain into a brand people recognize on sight. Listen to how the legend actually got built.
There is a world of difference between hooking a fish and landing one that can outweigh the people on the boat. Quartiano describes the physical reality of chasing that caliber of animal, the gear it takes, and the moments that have stayed with him. Hear him take you inside the fight in the episode.
Few topics in fishing are as charged as shark fishing, and Quartiano has been at the center of that storm for years. He does not dodge it on the show. Press play to hear how he answers his critics.
Listen to the full conversation: Megaphone · or watch in the YouTube player at the top of this page.
The rules, the technology, and the public mood around big-game and shark fishing all look different than they did when Quartiano started. Listen to his read on where the sport is headed.
The day after this conversation, what stayed with me was how singular a path Quartiano has carved. Whatever you think about shark fishing, the man has lived his whole life pointed at one thing.
Press play in the player above, or grab Episode 885 on Megaphone.
Mark Quartiano (Mark the Shark) · Miami, Florida · South Florida · Tom Rowland (host)
Mark Quartiano, known as Mark the Shark, is a Miami-based big-game charter captain who became one of the most recognizable and controversial figures in sport fishing. Over decades running charters off South Florida, he built a brand around targeting giant sharks and other large big-game species, drawing both fame and sharp criticism as conservation attitudes toward shark fishing evolved.
Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 885: Mark the Shark (Mark Quartiano)
In this episode: 450 charter trips a year out of Miami, the shark-dragging video that went worldwide, why he calls tournaments “the most evilest things,” a fighting chair inspired by a Hemingway movie, and whole turtles found in the stomachs of tiger sharks — in the exact words spoken.
Mark Quartiano: If you
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Mark Quartiano: I'm Mark the Shark, and this is the Tom Rowland broadcast oh, sorry. Podcast. Right? I gotta fuck up a lot.
Tom Rowland: Alright. We're live. Man, I am sitting in a downstairs office on Miami Beach surrounded by shark jaws. Killer. Killer of sharks. Killer sharks. So Mark the shark. Thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate it.
Mark Quartiano: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. So you have a a big reputation. You really do. You're you're out there a lot. How did this all get started for you?
Mark Quartiano: Oh, god. It's been a long time. Matter of fact, I just, posted an old photograph on Instagram at Mark the Shark, yesterday, on a throwback picture. And, it was, one of my old trucks parked next to the boat, and I didn't even remember how long ago it was. It was, like, in the eighties. So it's been before that. I started shark fishing probably, early seventies, maybe even late sixties when I got here.
Tom Rowland: Really?
Mark Quartiano: And, you know, the name Mark and Shark, it rhymes, so I figured jump on that before somebody else did.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Mark Quartiano: So here I am, you know, fifty years later. Pre Jaws. Right? Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Then when Jaws came out, our our our shit exploded. And, you know, we just, we just took off with the Sharks.
Tom Rowland: How old are you?
Mark Quartiano: You're breaking up. How old are you?
Tom Rowland: I know you are. But but, I mean, you're in remarkably good shape if you've been doing this for fifty years. I've been
Mark Quartiano: doing it for longer. Fifty fifty yeah. I've been doing it for a while. It's just, it seems like just yesterday, but, I feel good. I mean, I still work every day, seven days a week. I don't know anybody who works as hard and and many hours as I do in the industry. I mean, you can ask anybody Right. Out every day. So, that keeps me going.
Tom Rowland: You you get do you think you get over 300 days a year?
Mark Quartiano: Oh, yeah. I do, on myself, four fifty trips. 450 trips.
Tom Rowland: A year. Uh-huh. Mhmm. So pretty much every single day you're running, a lot of days you're running double days.
Mark Quartiano: Doubles and sometimes triples. Wow. Sometimes it's, single, a half day, then a full day after that, and then maybe a night trip too. So it's it's a long day. I really don't have a life. I mean, you ask my wife. I have no life. All I do is fish. I don't watch TV. I haven't watched TV since MASH. Really, I mean, I don't know what's going on in the world. I have no idea. I just do my own thing, and that's it.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. So but you are, interested in social media. Well, you'd have to, you
Mark Quartiano: know, you've got a role with the the times, and a lot of my competition haven't done that, fortunately, for me.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Mark Quartiano: But, I mean, social media is a way to get your your name out and your brand out. And and, I think we do a a pretty good job at it. My crew helps me with the photographs and the videos, and it takes a lot of time, actually. It's just, not waiting, you know, by the phone and waiting for a a customer to call you. You gotta go out there and grab them or get their attention. Right. And we we do that.
Tom Rowland: So early on, the monster fishing, the shark fishing was the was the hook for you. Like,
Mark Quartiano: Mark Yeah. Everybody wanted to catch, you know, a sport fish back in the day. They wanna catch a sailfish. They're they're glamorous fish, you know, the pretty fish, if you will. But, we wanted to catch the fish that were eating the, the the pretty fish, like the sailfish. And now that was a shark, so that took off pretty good.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And then the movie.
Mark Quartiano: And then the movie, yeah, just exploded after the jaws came out. You know? It's just, there's always a mystic about the sharks too now. You know? It's just everybody wants to either protect them or kill them, one of the two. So, we're we're right in the middle, I think, kinda.
Tom Rowland: Well, yeah, that's one of the reasons I wanted to come and talk to you because I it seems like there's more to your story. You on your right on your website says politically incorrect. We don't hang release flags. We hang fish upside down on the gallows. Is that still there on the website?
Mark Quartiano: I haven't touched that in twenty years.
Tom Rowland: It's right there. Your well, I mean, your website looks like it looks like it could use a little work.
Mark Quartiano: But Yeah. Yeah. It's old.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. But it's interesting because then when I dig in a little bit more and I follow you on social media, and and so I see all the videos. And then when I dig in a little bit more, you have a lot of contrary kind of messages that are out there. Like, you're killing the sharks, but then you're tagging more sharks than, would you say, anyone?
Mark Quartiano: Anyone. Any sport fishing guy anyway.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. So, like, how do how do you how does that balance work?
Mark Quartiano: Well, you know, I like to work with, a lot of the researchers and the scientists, you know, and I help them out a lot. If they, they need a special kind of shark for any kind of, research, I try to catch it for them. And I try to to make everybody happy except for, you know, the, the PETA people. But, I mean, we catch a shark and it looks like it's gonna survive, which is kinda rare, then we'll tag it. If it's a protected shark, of course, we're gonna tag it, let it go, measure it, and, and, hopefully, get, recapture, you know, later on. I just got one the other day, matter of fact. Really? A sandbar almost two years ago. So what have you
Tom Rowland: learned from some of the recaptures that you that you've seen?
Mark Quartiano: I mean, I haven't learned a lot myself personally because I don't follow all that stuff. That's what I leave that to the researchers and the scientists. But, most of our sharks that we catch, like, the sandbars that we tag, are all going north. We always catch them, I mean, here, then we'll they'll they'll go up north somewhere, North Carolina. The one we just had recaptured the other day was in, North Florida couple years later. So, you know, they all go in north. They don't hang out here. There's not a lot of food here in Miami. Mhmm. There's probably better places up in the coast that has more of, attraction to the sharks, that holds maybe kingfish or bonitas. Miami, the last couple years, has, has been depleted, if you will, on a lot of the, the, the shark food. Not like up north before, though. There's plenty of sharks. There's plenty of food.
Tom Rowland: Like, when you say depleted of the shark food, like, species in particular?
Mark Quartiano: Like the kingfish, we used to catch kingfish all the time over here. We don't catch them hardly at all anymore. Bonitas, very rare now to catch a bonita. I mean, we used to fill our box up with bonitas.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. What do you think happened? Because there's still plenty in the keys.
Mark Quartiano: You know, the the different different opinions. I think, personally, ever since they they dredged the cut, they made it deeper for the, big ships to come in. It's been two years now almost. They they really damaged the reef by dumping all that dredging material only about 400 feet of water. And all that silt moved down on the reef, and they killed everything. You can see some of my videos that I do. There's there's hardly any life on the reef anymore. There's no small fish here. There's no there's nothing to attract the kingfish. There's nothing to hold the fish here. It's bad. So was
Tom Rowland: there, did anyone make a big deal about that dredging and dumping and
Mark Quartiano: They are in the process. There's some studies going on now. There is some surveyors out there. I see them a lot. And, I think it's gonna come down to, like, a class action suit, I think, basically, because it's what they did out there is just is unforgivable. I mean, what they did just to make the cut 10 feet deeper, they destroyed all the bait patches that were there. We can't catch any more bait anymore. I mean, it's just it's a trickle down effect. Everything gets affected by that.
Tom Rowland: Right. But and so when when you're seeing that, it seems like the sharks would be where the food is. Exactly. So has that affected your shark fishing?
Mark Quartiano: Well, you know, we we catch them, but, we have to wait longer and fish harder, more baits. It's not like it used to be where, you know, we get a bite every twenty, thirty minutes. Sometimes we have to wait all day for one single fish. And so It's never like that.
Tom Rowland: What do you think about the overall shark population in this area right now?
Mark Quartiano: I think the shark population is pretty healthy. You know? Not too many people even fish for them like we do. The commercial fishing has, you know, almost been gone now. So, I think the the sharks are fine. And, you know, no one just came out with their recent study. The sharks are are fine. Mhmm. I mean, they're overfished at some parts of the world. Yes. But they're fine here.
Tom Rowland: What was that study? I don't know about that study.
Mark Quartiano: It was they were saying how the sharks are sustainable now. I mean, since we've cut down on the commercial fishing and we've, we've we've done a lot to protect them, they've they've come back. Mhmm.
Tom Rowland: They're fine. So that's a I mean, like, there's an interesting balance, like, to to you and what you do. You're you're tagging so many. You're killing a lot.
Mark Quartiano: Killing a lot compared to Compared to other sport fishing guys or just
Tom Rowland: commercial guys? Well, other sport fishing guys, certainly. Yeah. But not not commercial to a commercial guy.
Mark Quartiano: I'm in the middle.
Tom Rowland: Right. Right. And would you say that you lean more towards the conservation side, like you're killing them for conservation or you're killing them for more trips?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. I'm right in the middle. Of course, I'm in into us to make money. Yeah. But if I thought for a second that the sharks were gonna be, extinct because of what I'm doing, I would stop. That's not the case, of course. Yeah. Our our fishery here is fine. What we do is, like, a tip of the iceberg compared to the commercial guys, and we're they're killing metric tons sometimes. You know?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. So let's talk about, like, what what the commercial boat goes for because, you know, a lot of people that listen to this are sport fishing kinda guys or or they've never seen an operation like that. Like, what does that look like? Commercial guys?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. You know, again, I don't do that part, but, I know a lot of lot of friends of mine that do when you know, they're making a living doing it, and they they've got permits. They have a right to make a living too. But, you know, they're killing a lot a lot of animals, and, we're killing, like, one or two. Right. So you really can't compare it's apples and oranges. You can't compare what we do to what they do.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. No way. So when people look at your social media or whatever and there's a there's a big shark hanging, there's another you know there's this shark death on your on your Instagram.
Mark Quartiano: Sharks die. Yeah. Fish die.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Oh, I know.
Mark Quartiano: And you know the sharks that we catch, half of them wouldn't even survive even if I did decide or the customer decided to let them go. Right. I mean, they just come to the boat and they're just totally exhausted. They're sometimes they're tail wrapped. They're drowned. There's all kind of different scenarios that the sharks aren't gonna live after that you catch them.
Tom Rowland: Understood. And so I think that some people may have, in the past, get kind of a a misunderstanding of your message. Like, you hate sharks. I don't hate sharks.
Mark Quartiano: I mean, I, you know, I enjoy seeing a shark some way, actually. But, if I get a big tiger shark, like, that I know a big bull shark, which are dangerous, I'm gonna kill that shark, you know, because eventually, that shark might eat my kids swimming at the beach. You know, that's how I'm thinking. Mhmm. You know, sandbar shark, my you know, you might get a thresher shark that doesn't have any, threat to any humans because they're deep water. Well, tag them. Let them go. But, you know, bull shark, tiger shark, big hammerhead, we're most likely gonna kill those.
Tom Rowland: Okay. And so then a few years ago, I guess, somebody sends you this video of them killing a shark, but in this different way.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. That was just torture. That was that was just totally disrespect. And, you know, when I when I saw that, when they sent me that video, I was, like, totally shocked. I was actually fishing that day, and I showed the customers because the the the kids showed me they sent it to me. So I showed the customers. They go, hey. Look at this, man. And they all go, oh, wow. Yeah. And that's So
Tom Rowland: the video that we're talking about where these jokers dragging a shark behind the boat like a water skier almost by the tail. Like, it's
Mark Quartiano: just shark.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. A live shark, and it's skipping, and it ends up tearing apart, I guess. And,
Mark Quartiano: I've got that picture too after.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. It was a horrible. It was a horrible video. And and so they like, what I'm saying is, like, there's there's a misinterpretation of your message because those guys are like, you know who would like this video? Mark the Shark. I'm sending it to him, man. He's gonna love this. Check out what we're doing. And then there was a an obvious different reaction from you. Like, that's disrespect. They, they just crossed
Mark Quartiano: the line with that. I mean, you don't torture any living creature. We never torture an animal. Never. If we're gonna kill a shark, we're gonna kill them, you know, humanely and quickly. That's it. Done. Not torture him or laughing and dragging him behind a boat 50 miles an hour. That was just like I've never seen anything like that in my life. I mean, that's that got me going. So and I'd that's when I posted it on. That's when it went viral.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. It goes viral. And then FWC or They
Mark Quartiano: got in trouble. Right. Right. Yeah. It just, and, you know, it's on call for. And, you know, from what I heard from those kids, they were doing other stuff to other animals as well. So it wasn't just a one incident. So Right. I think FWC took that in effect when they came down here. I I did a couple interviews with them after the fact too. So
Tom Rowland: Yeah. So do you think that there's any reason to alter your message at all to so that people aren't misinterpreting it? Who's, misinterpreting it?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. Like those kids?
Tom Rowland: Like the no. Not I mean No. Don't don't misunderstand. I am no no No. I I still Yeah. Yeah. But, I just I just kinda wonder, like, those guys obviously misinterpreted the message.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. They just thought I was gonna get a kick out of it and Right. Give him a thumbs up and then, laugh it off like they did. But, you know, disrespectful, torturing, that kind of stuff, you you, you just cross the line then Right. In my book.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so they obviously get get what they deserve because that was that was really bad.
Mark Quartiano: I mean Yeah. That was I mean, that that thing got worldwide attention, like, within hours. It's like, you just don't do that.
Tom Rowland: Right. To anything.
Mark Quartiano: Right. To any animal. Any living creature. Any god's creature.
Tom Rowland: And so, you know, that's that's where it's interesting. That's why, you know, kinda when I'm following you and kind of watching what you're doing, and I'm a charter boat captain myself or was for a long time. You know, it's like, I don't think this guy there's more to this guy. Right? And then there's then there's this,
Mark Quartiano: I have a soft side. I mean, believe it or not, you're gonna ask somebody that's really close to me that would tell you that, but probably 99.9% of people, well, they don't deserve to know that.
Tom Rowland: You keep your soft side to the to your closest. Yeah.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. It's behind the vault.
Tom Rowland: Right. And you've got and you're raising kids. How many kids do you have?
Mark Quartiano: I have, three at home, and they're all love to fish, and they know the value of, you know, life and not to torture anything. And and if we're gonna kill it, then we're gonna put it to good use, like, eat it. Mhmm. Or give it to somebody else, donate it. But it's never going to waste.
Tom Rowland: Right. Never. So that was the other thing I saw is that you're donating a lot of your fish to the homeless shelters. And what's what's your connection to the homeless shelters?
Mark Quartiano: We just started doing this last year, and, I I kind of figured that, if we're gonna kill the sharks or if a shark is dead or if any other, fish for that matter, sailfish too. If we're going to, make sure it's it's it's dead, we're gonna donate it and help somebody that's, you know, starving to death, like, the, Camilla's House in Miami. I've been dealing with them for for a while now, and they really appreciate everything that we do for them because they've got hundreds and hundreds of people just sitting out there every morning looking for some kind of food. And, you know, our the the sharks are fine as long as they're kept good, iced down, and, I take good care of my gut and run away. And and, they're they're they're eating they're eating sharks all over the planet. Yeah. You know? So, I mean, there there there's nothing wrong with a shark. Do you eat them? You know, I just had a, a fellow the other day. I I gave him a shark, and he made some empanadas, local guy. And actually, it was very good. I've I've eaten some small sharks. I haven't I haven't touched the big ones because I used usually just give them to the the home shelter. But the little sharks are fine, man. I mean, if they know how to prepare them and and they're fresh, there's nothing wrong with them.
Tom Rowland: How do you how do you prepare them? Do you know what
Mark Quartiano: to do? Well, you know, I'm not a chef. So, I mean but the, they tell me that as long as it's fresh and and and and iced down properly right away, it tastes like any other fish. Not a fishy taste, though. Yeah. But it's it's very, very tender. And, like, this empanada guy the other day, it was it was awesome, man. I was just biting into it, and it was tastes like beef almost. Yeah. Yeah. It was really good.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's cool.
Mark Quartiano: That's cool. With them.
Tom Rowland: And so the, the homeless, were you were you drawn to to that for any particular reason? Or I just kinda sitting out there thinking that fish is dead, and we're just gonna let it sink to the bottom?
Mark Quartiano: No. I've never done that. Never, never done that. And, in Miami now, I see the homeless all over the place where I go when I travel, and I just put two and two together. And I called a couple of, you know, organizations, and I said, hey. Would you like me to come by, the kitchen and bring you some fish once in a while? And they said, absolutely. You know? So, I go in the, I go in the kitchen. Like, I own the place now. I go there in the mornings before I go to work, and I drop off my fish, and everybody's happy. It's great. It's a win win situation. Did you
Tom Rowland: get your kids involved in in that? Well, they're still kinda young
Mark Quartiano: and you know? But, all my stuff that I donate to was usually in Miami, and they're up in, you know, Pompano. So, but, you know, they know what I do. You know? They they're aware of, what's going on. So I'm kinda getting there ready for the future. Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: You think they might step in?
Mark Quartiano: Well, I mean, you can't force them to kids nowadays. You know how they are. But, I know Crockett. Crockett just adores fishing. He's How
Tom Rowland: old Crockett?
Mark Quartiano: He's just three. Okay. No. He's he's great. But Marivic's been fishing all his life. He matter of fact, he got maybe a little bit too much of it, so I gained the last year off. And he doesn't have to fish with me anymore. He doesn't have to go on his boat. Is he? He's 12. Okay.
Tom Rowland: And was he working on the boat? Yeah. Yeah. Summertime or whatever? All the time. All the time. Yeah. I mean, the
Mark Quartiano: well, no. No. He when he's not going to school Right. Like, the weekends and all summer long for less, like, four or five years. That's his, one of his bibs right there. So
Tom Rowland: have a pocket full of cash.
Mark Quartiano: Well, you know, it just it's it's a lot of work for him. You know, he's not out there fishing. Like, people think we we're out there fishing. We're not fishing. We're, like, making sure your customers catch fish. He's not actually having the fun of actually fishing himself. So it's he doesn't you know, they don't grasp that right away. It's He's No. He's It's work right now. It's He's
Tom Rowland: certainly learning the
Mark Quartiano: what a what
Tom Rowland: a hard day's work is.
Mark Quartiano: Oh, yeah. Yeah. He knows. And, you know, I kinda burned him out a little bit, and I was afraid of that. So I gave him the, you know, last year off, and, hopefully, he'll like it again. And,
Tom Rowland: we'll see. Started playing sports or something in the year off.
Mark Quartiano: He's a he's a book guy, man.
Tom Rowland: He Really?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. I mean, he's like, I don't know where he got that from. I hated books when I was growing up. But, he's just he's so smart. He does all the stuff in school. He goes to school early and does all the, the PA systems. He goes into the office. So he's like he's probably too smart to be a fisherman. I mean, nothing no no offense about that because I'm a fisherman too, but he might be too smart.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah. Well, does he show interest in, like, in the PA system and stuff like that? Does he help you with your videos or or do any kind of editing or Nobody helps
Mark Quartiano: you with anything in my business. I'm a one man operation, and I wish somebody did, but I like to do it the way I wanna do it. And it's just certain way that I know, just a little niche that I have, and nobody can do that. I mean, when I'm gone from this business, it'll be over.
Tom Rowland: Have you ever tried to bring somebody in and try to help you? Just Yeah.
Mark Quartiano: But that's more aggravating than it's not than it's worth. It's well, actually, with the millennials, there's not happening, man. No way.
Tom Rowland: What kind of aggravation do you experience when you try to bring somebody in?
Mark Quartiano: Well, first of all, you know, when somebody calls me, if I have somebody, like, answer my phone or something, they wanna talk to Mark the Shark. They don't wanna talk to some guy, then some go some girl. And it just doesn't work out. It's just not the same, you know. And then the videos, the people don't really know what video I wanna I wanna post or how I wanna post it. It's a whole different world. You know? It's you've gotta be involved and you gotta be right in the middle of it. You gotta be like a conductor. You gotta be like the three ring circus with a hat, like, you know, Barnum and Bailey. You gotta know exactly what what everybody's doing and how it's going on. So, like, again, I'm a one man show.
Tom Rowland: How does it work with your mates? Do do you have mate long long standing mates?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my mate my one mate, Ryan, has been with me for twenty two years, and I don't think anybody has a long, longer, like, teamwork in in the in industry than us together. You know? It's it's it's it's hard for him too because he he's married with kids and but, he's devoted. He comes out here every day. He's working with me. 90% of his trips are with me. I have another guy too who's been with me, like, five years. But, most of the guys, man, they're and I couldn't do without him. You know? I mean, those guys are great. I mean, they help me with the videos. They do all the stuff, and it takes a team. It's not just, you know, Mark the Shark. No way. Wouldn't be anything without those guys.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. What about your, do you do international trips? Like, people from other countries?
Mark Quartiano: We'll see that picture behind you with the 49 sailfish. That's in Africa. They got a lot of heat too. They killed 49 sales in one day. Where is it? It's right in between the all those shark jaws up there. It's hard to, it's hard to see through here because it's See them
Tom Rowland: all hanging up? Literally littered with shark jaws in here. Well, yeah.
Mark Quartiano: I do a lot of international stuff. I got hired a few times, the last couple years from people overseas and not just go there and
Tom Rowland: Oh, you go over there. I was thinking they were coming here.
Mark Quartiano: Oh, I do that too. But, yeah, most of, my overseas people are are, big time, big money guys. And I'll come over and they'll say, well, you wanna come over to my resort and teach my guys how to do this and how to do that? And I said, yeah. Sure. No problem.
Tom Rowland: So what do they wanna learn? Like, do they wanna learn the charter business or do they wanna learn how to fish?
Mark Quartiano: Mostly how to fish.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. You
Mark Quartiano: know, most of them really don't care about the charter business. So they wanna know how to fish. They wanna learn a different tricks that we, you know, learned over the years and stuff like that. And, most of the guys are pretty cool. Mhmm. But international guys come here all the time. I have a lot of international clients that fish on me all year long, all over the world.
Tom Rowland: Because on your on your 20 old year old website, it says, we speak your language. And I just wondered if you spoke any of
Mark Quartiano: the languages. But, I can have somebody here right away.
Tom Rowland: That's yeah. So you you'll just bring a translator.
Mark Quartiano: Right. Exactly.
Tom Rowland: And then we're I would imagine that, like, maybe not well, I don't know. International people probably responded to Jaws a little bit, but maybe later. Like, maybe you get, like, a second wave when Jaws kinda makes its way around the world, and now all of a sudden you're getting, you know, Chinese, Japanese.
Mark Quartiano: Oh, yeah. You know, the the, the sharks have made a second coming, I think, you know, with all this, conservation stuff going on now, you know, and made people aware of, you you know, with the shark finning and all the same old footage you see all the time with them throwing the sharks back in the ocean, taking the fence. People are, open their eyes a little bit to sharks. And either my customers wanna wanna catch one and kill one, or they wanna let go. It's just they're right in the middle too. So, I get both sides.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm. So the tagging studies that you've done, is there a particular organization that you work with? NOAA.
Mark Quartiano: NOAA. National Marine Fisheries Service.
Tom Rowland: And you'll do, like, what type of tags? Do they give you, like, the satellite tags for some sharks? Or No satellite tags. Oh, they're expensive.
Mark Quartiano: That's only MTV stuff. Right. We do all the manual tags, the little capsule that you unscrew and you take out the information, and then you'll they they give you reward. They give you a hat or something like that when you when you get and I
Tom Rowland: keep I got a box of hats.
Mark Quartiano: Hats. But, Jesus. These pictures. But a lot of people like, like to, get involved in the shark tagging stuff. You know? When they see a tag, they go, wow. This is pretty cool. So most people will report it. Yeah. You know? So And
Tom Rowland: then it works out good
Mark Quartiano: for us because then then we know where they're going. You know?
Tom Rowland: How many do you estimate that you've tagged in your career?
Mark Quartiano: Oh, man. I couldn't even begin. Tens of thousands?
Tom Rowland: Tens of thousands.
Mark Quartiano: Oh, yeah.
Tom Rowland: So that's I mean, you break that down to a year. 300 you're doing 450 trips in a year. If you tag two sharks a day, that's 900 sharks.
Mark Quartiano: A year. Right. And when sometimes we catch, half a dozen sharks sometimes. Oh, yeah. And we tag them. Yeah. But, you know, tagging and killing. What are we gonna do? It's all up to the client. You know? So if the client wants to let it go, we'll let it go.
Tom Rowland: Interesting. Even if it's one of those big tigers Well,
Mark Quartiano: if it's a big tiger, I know. The big tiger's dying. He's dying.
Tom Rowland: Is there a time of the year that you're seeing more of the big tigers than than others?
Mark Quartiano: We're seeing more tigers now than I ever have seen in my career. Yeah. Used to be off Miami. It's 90% hammer hits and all scalloped. Now it's all big graders.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Why and he We just got one to
Mark Quartiano: 900 the other day. A 900?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. How long is that fish? That was, like, 13.
Mark Quartiano: 13 and a half, I think it was.
Tom Rowland: Because I caught one at Long Key Bridge. We were doing a show. I caught one down there. And I've never lifted one out of the water to know what the weight is.
Mark Quartiano: And so I
Tom Rowland: have this picture of this fish. Everybody's like, wow. How big is that? In the water, it's And I have no idea because but it was 13 and a half feet long.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. That's at least probably seven, eight hundred. Yeah. And a female, they get really fat. So Mhmm. Depends. This thing was Yeah.
Tom Rowland: As big around as the boat, it
Mark Quartiano: seemed like. That was
Tom Rowland: a grader. Yeah. Grader. One of those tarpon eaters,
Mark Quartiano: you know, that that They love tarpon. Yeah. And stingrays. Yeah. I see them coming to Cuddier all the time chasing stingrays around. Really? The big graders. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: The like a a just a southern stingray or like a No.
Mark Quartiano: Just like a just a mudray or sometimes an eagle ray. Right. They'll be chasing him out of the water, stingray jumping out of the water. I know you the the hamraads are fast, man. Yeah. People don't realize how fast a hamraad
Tom Rowland: is. Well, they have to be super fast. I mean, if tarpon are their piece of their number one thing that they like to eat Right. I mean, that's like it's like a, you know, a a tarpon eats mullet. Right. So a tarpon has to be fast. Exactly. Fast. And, you know, that that's, it's an interesting fish, the the hammerhead. But why do you think that the scallop hammerheads are not around as much as they or you're saying that they're almost all scallop now?
Mark Quartiano: No. They're almost all
Tom Rowland: graters. Okay.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. The scallops, we used to catch almost 90% of the time. We never used to get a grater. Now it's all graters, and it's all tigers.
Tom Rowland: There's more tigers in The Keys too now, for sure.
Mark Quartiano: Okay. I I I'd probably go with that. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of food down here too. Mhmm. You know, the reef fish, they're eating a lot of snappers and the groupers. And a lot of these, these guys that come out here and, fish their wrecks, they can't get a a grouper off the wreck without getting eaten by a big by a big tiger.
Tom Rowland: Right. Tiger. Catch them,
Mark Quartiano: the guys are going, thanks a lot. I get die I got guys the divers that come out here and dive. Free divers. Really good free divers. So they'll and they'll see one of my posts, and they'll say, thanks for killing that bull shark. That thing was harassing me on a reef for the year last year or something. And, you know, these these guys make a living spearfishing.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Mark Quartiano: So they like what we do. I mean, they know that you know, they'll even call me and they'll say, hey, Mark. There's a couple of bull sharks on this wreck. Can you come over here and get one get one or two? You know? And we do. Mhmm. We help them out.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, the bull shark is arguably the the the worst for for being in the water with them. I mean, I would say. I don't That's gonna die. Certainly don't like to swim with them.
Mark Quartiano: Right. Right.
Tom Rowland: That's interesting. So as far as fishing for the hammerheads, is there a difference in the way that you fish for a scalloped or a greater hammerhead? No.
Mark Quartiano: No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Tom Rowland: No. No. No. It's all
Mark Quartiano: the same. I mean, this the, scallop hammerheads are a little deeper water normally Mhmm. Off the reef, like, 200 feet. The graders come in shallow. I mean, you'll see them on the beach even. When I started fishing, I used to catch big graders on the beach. Never caught a scallop on the beach. But the big graders come in and look for the stingray. They look for all the, you know, little fish and stuff.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. The grader seem to get I mean, we see them, like, on the tarpon flats in there. Oh, yeah. Yep. They got not just their fin out of the water, but their backs out.
Mark Quartiano: Exactly. They can barely swim in there. Right.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah. That's a they're a different fish. You know? I mean, but that's that's a it's an incredible it's an incredible predator, the way that they can catch a tarpon.
Mark Quartiano: It's amazing. I mean, when you see him how fast I saw one the other day trying to catch a turtle. But I never seen a turtle swim that fast. Wow. The turtle was flying, and the the hammer was right behind him, man. Normally, I the the tiger's reading the turtles. Right. And, I'd never seen a a hammerhead chasing a turtle before, but he got away.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah. What about great whites? Are you I mean, more and more people are seeing the great whites in the Keys. I'm sure In
Mark Quartiano: The Keys.
Tom Rowland: You know, they're they have the o search people tagging, and you can follow the tracks. They're coming through here. And with all the shark fishing that you're doing, it would seem like you would be seeing some No. Not seeing them.
Mark Quartiano: That one. Believe me. If I did, I'd probably be in trouble. Yeah. Well, I catch them, but, you know, again, I can't.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. You that's a protected species, so you have to release that for sure. Tag it. Right. But it's interesting that maybe they're just smarter. They're like, not that.
Mark Quartiano: Oh, people say that. They go to striker one over there. It is just, you know, trying to avoid that. But, no, we never came across one ever ever, and I'm out there so much too. Really? Even in
Tom Rowland: the early days, you were not coming across one? Never. Never. Never seen one.
Mark Quartiano: Yep. Never.
Tom Rowland: They are they are I mean, like, in in The Keys? Yeah. They're they're they're they're on the humps. With the jacks, the tunas. And and just in yellowtail spots and other places, I mean, people are having them come up and eat their chum bag, throwing lures at them, and they're they're chasing the lures. And and, I mean, there's all kinds of crazy videos. But, and I always just kinda wondered if they were if they were just always there. And now that there's some proof and justification that they've they've been tagged and they're following this path, and they came right through it.
Mark Quartiano: Looking like crazy for it.
Tom Rowland: People are
Mark Quartiano: like Yeah.
Tom Rowland: I saw a big shark. And now it's like, that's let's get closer to that thing. Let's see what it is. Let's see what it is, and then it's actually a great white. And you get a confirmation, you know, like like somebody like, if you get the boat over there I mean, the videos that I've seen, the thing's coming right to us. There's no mistaking it. It's a 100% Yeah. You know, a great white.
Mark Quartiano: You could tell. It's not a bull shark. It's not gonna be a tiger shark. It's yeah.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I've never seen one.
Mark Quartiano: We've never seen one of Miami. You know, we don't have those good spots like The Keys has, you know, as far as the the hump areas. You know, we're well, I used to fish the Keys years ago. We used to catch big Makos on the hump all the time, but we don't have those humps here. I mean, if we had them here, it would be great for shark fishing.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm. Do you see Makos up here?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. We catch them. Yep. In deeper water, we catch them with the, the Bigeye Threshers. Mhmm. But they put the threshers on a on a list too now, and I don't know why because there's nobody's catching them. Nobody was nobody was catching but us. You know, I would catch one a day.
Tom Rowland: I hear about, sword fishermen, you know, deep dropping and catching them occasionally now. What so when you're going out, and I'm sure it's it's different with with whatever clients, but let's just say you're going out to catch the biggest shark you can you can catch. What's your what does your day look like?
Mark Quartiano: Well, I mean, most of our customers, they'll wanna mix it up. They'll they're not going just for shark. Right. So we kinda mix it up. We'll go for the sailfish, and, you know, I catch as many sailfish as anybody. And, we'll we'll mix it up, and then we'll, if we catch a a shark, then we'll go into a little shallower and try to catch something else. They'll say, let's go catch something like a sailfish. Let's go catch some kingfish. Let's go catch some bottom fish. We try to mix it up
Tom Rowland: for the customers. And so if you had somebody that that just wanted sharks or when it gets when it comes time to the shark fishing, are you drifting? Are you anchored? Are you what do
Mark Quartiano: you mean? We're power drifting the current. Okay? So let's say the current's going north, which it supposed to go north all the time, but it hasn't been lately. That's the current's going north. So I'm into the current. Okay? And all the baits, I'm walking six baits around. It's hard. It's you're not just drifting. I'm in one area. Say I'm on on 300 feet of water. Mhmm. I'm putting that bait down in 300 feet of water. We're actually, like, two ninety five. You want the bait in the bottom because you get hung up sometimes. So I got the bait five feet off the bottom. Okay? And I'm walking the other baits around the surface. So it's not just sitting there and drifting like these guys in the tuna shows. Mhmm. They're just sitting there drinking beer. They're not I'm I'm not I'm operating their crane almost. I'm in and out of gear every five seconds trying to keep that bait where it's supposed to be. People don't know. The guys that I work with, my crew, knows how hard it is to stay in that one area. When just when there's a lot of current, it's it's super hard.
Tom Rowland: Right. You can't leave the
Mark Quartiano: wheel for one minute.
Tom Rowland: You get everything all tangled up. So, basically, you're you're saying you're going into the current. So it's kind of like you're anchored, but you're under under power, and you're keeping this bait. The the
Mark Quartiano: the baits say that the current's going north. The boat is facing south. Yeah. Okay? Right. So I'm, like, into the wind oh, not into the wind, but the current, and everything is behind the boat Mhmm. Swimming naturally. Right. Okay. Now, if I take it out of gear for one second, then all those baits are gonna come back to the boat. Right. So I gotta I have to have a happy medium. I have to bump it in and out of gear and walk everything around and keep that bait on the bottom on the bottom. It's gotta be straight up and down. Like, we're if we're fishing for threshers, threshers are only one spot usually. 90% of them are, like, a 100 feet off the bottom. They're not on the bottom. They're about a 100 feet off the bottom. You gotta keep that bait right there. You can't pull the bait. If you pull any baits, bait's gonna come up. It's out of that it's out of that derma client area. You're not gonna get a bite. Wow. And sometimes we even balance the bait on the bottom. Sometimes. We'll balance it because it sends a signal out. Right. We got a big lead. Yeah. Everything hits the bottom. Boom. Boom.
Tom Rowland: Is that gonna be a breakaway lead?
Mark Quartiano: Or No. No. It's on on the mainland. Yeah. You know, and we do we'll we'll when we get the fish up to the boat, then we'll just unclip it. But that noise, I find over the years, attracts them too. Mhmm.
Tom Rowland: Boom. Boom. Boom. Yeah. So the idea in that setup is that you're you're you're fishing straight up and down. You're maintaining the boat in a situation so that the bait is despite turning out in the wind or whatever. You're operating the boat so that you're staying in one particular spot.
Mark Quartiano: Well, one depth. Right.
Tom Rowland: One depth.
Mark Quartiano: We're actually moving with the current. Right. Okay. Where with the whole the whole operation is moving.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Mark Quartiano: But we're keeping everything in line. Yeah. We're walking like six dogs
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Mark Quartiano: And keeping this and the the the primary bait is on the bottom. So that's the most important bait. If we're shark fishing, that's the most important bait. Everything is worked around that one bait. Mhmm.
Tom Rowland: And so that technique and that strategy is gonna work for all the different types of of sharks. Yeah. Yeah. So the idea with with some on the surface and and one down below is that you're working the the water column or it is almost acting as if, almost like a chum too? Like, the scent's going back there from
Mark Quartiano: these bays. If you're fishing, say, a big tuna fish, you want all your scent coming from one one area.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Mark Quartiano: And, you know, if you got the current going north, it's all going in a straight line. Right. If you're zigzagging back and forth twenty, thirty, forty, fifty feet, that shark's never gonna find that bait. Right. He's gonna get a whiff of it, and
Tom Rowland: then it's gonna be gone. Yeah.
Mark Quartiano: He can't find it.
Tom Rowland: Right. Exactly.
Mark Quartiano: So if he's most of the sharks are coming from the north, and they're just coming down, moving south. So he gets a whiff of the bait. He's a most of the sharks are staying the same depth. They're not gonna be wandering around. And they just come up the line, up the line, and there's your bait. You know, on my cameras that we use now, you can see the sharks 100 feet away just swimming, and then they'll see the bait. These are
Tom Rowland: cameras on the line?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. We have a camera on the actual bait. Okay.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And and is does that break away from
Mark Quartiano: the No. The camera stays with us. Camera stays with you? All the way to the boat.
Tom Rowland: Okay. It's
Mark Quartiano: a hook eye hook eye lens. Yeah. It's really nice. It's cool. We just started doing this this year.
Tom Rowland: And you can see that for a 100 feet away.
Mark Quartiano: Well, if it's clear. Yeah. If the visibility is good, yeah. But the visibility has been crap lately too.
Tom Rowland: So on a good visibility day, are you being surprised at all with what you're seeing on that camera? Like, how how the shark is is finding that bait and attacking it? Or is
Mark Quartiano: it Yeah. That's what I've learned. I've learned a lot over the last year just looking at, like, the hammerheads. I've had one the other day that just it was circling around the bait, circling, just bumping it with his head, bumping it, bumping it, bumping it. And I can see on my, on the bridge that we're getting a bite. The rod's going like this. Yeah. But nothing's happening. It's just boom boom boom boom boom. And I look at the camera, and I go, he's just playing with the bait. He's just toying with it. Okay? And after a while, if I if I take it away from him a little bit, if I go ahead with the engines a little bit and take it away, kinda piss him off, then he'll just get mad, and then he'll eat it. Mhmm. It's weird. Yeah. I learned a lot.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's it's funny, like, when you when you see something with your own eyes. Whether you're whether you're down diving or whatever, and you're like like, sometimes on our TV show, we'll we'll have a diver down, and the same kind of things going on. He comes up, and he's like, dude, the thing was trying to bite it, and you took it away from him. Right.
Mark Quartiano: Right. And it's
Tom Rowland: like, well, how would you know on the surface? And so you have all of these things going on in your mind, like, well, maybe it wasn't a shark. Could've bumped into something.
Mark Quartiano: Right. I don't know.
Tom Rowland: It could've been something. But now when you see it, that changes the way that you fish for it. Sure. For because after you see a couple of bumps, and let's just say the camera, you didn't have a camera on that line or whatever. Now it's like, well, bump forward a little bit.
Mark Quartiano: Right. It might be a hammerhead because that's their that's their method. They they'll bump it, and you'll see it go boom boom, like a thresher shark. I know for a fact that thresher sharks whack it with their tail. So you'll see on the rod, you go boom like that, And then nothing will happen. He whacked it with his tail. He's coming around again, then he'll eat it. First, they whack it and they kill the bait. And then they'll whack. So the different sharks have different characteristics. Like a tiger shark might play with it. Just take a little couple of little bites. I was I just looked at a video this morning from a tiger shark we caught the other day. And he was just taking little bites. And you go, why are you taking little bites of a big fish? It's got a gigantic mouth. You could just engulf it. Right? But they just like to play with it, I think. They just like to toy with it. And then, you know, and then eventually, they'll eat it. Yeah. But you could see it. They're riding going bum bum bum bum bum bum. That's probably a tiger shark. And, you know, when you see it on the camera, it's so cool. Right. Because you you you're always guessing. Right. When you see with the camera, then you put two and two together, and you go, wow. This is pretty cool.
Tom Rowland: Has that really helped, your your hookup percentage, or or has it changed anything in the way that you're fishing?
Mark Quartiano: Sometimes I'll I'll drop back. If I think it's, you know, something, then I'll just drop back to them a little bit Mhmm.
Tom Rowland: And let him eat it. And you're obviously showing your mates and everything. Oh, yeah. They see it. Yeah. They're as excited about it as well.
Mark Quartiano: Cool. I mean, you know, it's a lot of work with the video because we've lost a lot of cameras over the year. And, thankfully, that hook guy will they give us cameras all the time. But we're gonna get some great footage. Right. Nobody's putting the camera down 400 feet. So we'll we'll sometimes, we get a shark eating the camera. The other day, I had a tiger shark trying to eat it. Yeah. Thank god he didn't eat it, but he was just pecking at it pecking at it. And finally, he went for debate. But, yeah, it's it's it's a cool it's a cool area that we haven't explored yet, which is neat. You know?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. The deeper and now what about going deeper? Like, is there Well, do you see any reason? I mean, not well, may maybe without the camera. Do you see any reason, like, when you're seeing, you know, sword fishing has exploded, more people are sword fishing. They're catching lots of sword fish.
Mark Quartiano: They should stop that. Really? Oh, yeah.
Tom Rowland: And what what's your opinion of that?
Mark Quartiano: That's commercial fishing. Pressing a button? I'm way against that. There's no skill on that. You're dropping a bait, 1,500. You're waiting for the rod tip to go in the water or the boom, whatever they're using now, and you're pressing a button. Mhmm. That's not sport fishing. Not in my book.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. No. Well, they are I mean, a lot of those guys are turning that into, well, Swordfish. I've got a permit. Swordfish is, is a fish that, you know, I can sell.
Mark Quartiano: I agree, but it's commercial fishing. Do it rod and reel. I mean, don't be pounding your chest and tell me you how you you brought a swordfish up and you had to change your finger twice. It's not you're not impressing me.
Tom Rowland: See, this is these contrary messages that I mean, I know. Just find you very interesting in
Mark Quartiano: this way.
Tom Rowland: And and, I mean, I don't disagree. No. I I mean, I wouldn't say that you're wrong. I would say that I would say that people have varying opinions. I would thank you.
Mark Quartiano: No opinion. I mean, it's commercial fishing. You're pressing a button. It is. I mean, there's no skill.
Tom Rowland: Right. Well, the skill the skill, I guess, could be argued to find them
Mark Quartiano: Okay.
Tom Rowland: And to and to create the rig that's not gonna get tangled and to
Mark Quartiano: That's easy. Oh, dropping that that's bleep. Been doing that for years, dropping the bait down. That's easy. But just waiting for the bite and pressing the button. Oh, wow. He better change fingers now. This is a tough one. It's like, dude, raw and real. Okay?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I mean, I guess that I guess that the argument against that could be, listen. You're gonna drop 1,800 feet and reel that up. You're gonna have time for two drops a day. Right? Whereas if you have a if you have a Oh, really? Maybe maybe if you have an electric reel, you could do four drops a day or six drops a day or eight drops a day. And you would have a as you're learning this and learn trying to figure this out, the more drops you can do and the more bites you get and the more you can start to put all this together, the more you could maybe have confidence in dropping and reeling it yourself. Right? Because you're gonna go out someplace and it's gonna be you know, if you don't have all day, you might have one one or two drops. Oh,
Mark Quartiano: that's too bad. But these are the these are the same sport fishing guys, quote, unquote, that point the finger at me for killing a sailfish. Okay? Yeah. These are the same guys that go out there and deep drop and press a button. Same guys. So don't be preaching to me about killing a sailfish when the last time I checked, there's probably a lot more sailfish in the world than swordfish. Yes? Mhmm. Yes. And don't forget, I'm not fishing. My customers are fishing. Some of these guys came and hold a rod. Okay. I'm not sitting there pressing a button. It's no skill. There's no challenge. Just finding where the fish is. Eventually, you're gonna catch them. Just keep dropping. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's commercial fishing. Nothing against commercial fishing. But I'm just saying, don't be pounding your chest and flying a flag you caught a soda fish. I mean, to me, it's, I don't know. That's just mammals.
Tom Rowland: This is well, no. This is exactly why I was interested in talking to you because I knew you would have different opinions on a lot of different things. And and I feel like, I don't like in fighting between groups. Like, fishermen, when people when we end fight, like, sport fishing against somebody that kills something, you know, commercial fishing against recreational fishing, the other bigger, larger groups win. Divide I agree. And conquer. Right. So I believe that if you see somebody that's doing something that is different than you do and you should have a conversation, should talk to them, should understand where they're coming from. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to come and talk to you because I wanna, like and then I start digging into your story, and I'm like, there's more to this guy than I mean, he's he he's tagging more sharks. Maybe he's killing more sharks. I knew you were gonna have different opinions on on different things. I didn't I didn't really expect the swordfish thing, but now that I think about it, it's certainly not out of character or or or inconsistent with with your other,
Mark Quartiano: I'm a sport fishing guy. Totally. And I have nothing against commercial fishing, but don't call that sport fishing.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Mark Quartiano: Call it what it is. It's commercial fishing.
Tom Rowland: Gotcha.
Mark Quartiano: You might as well use a fucking net. Same thing. What about tournaments? Oh, don't get me started on tournaments. They are the most evilest things in the planet. They're the reason why we have no bait left too. These guys come down here and they fish our bait spots. They go back up north and they sell all the bait. To who? Tournaments. To catch and release tournaments. Right?
Tom Rowland: Mhmm. Usually.
Mark Quartiano: The catch and release selfish, how may die? I don't know. Percentage wise. Nobody knows. But I could tell you, I've been doing this for fifty years. Half of them are gonna die. You catch them with live bait, they're gonna die. Okay? They're gut hooked. I don't care what you say. They're exhausted. There's a number of things that can happen to a sailfish after you catch them with live bait. Those guys are targeting one specific fish, sailfish. K? In the process, they're killing every bait around. Okay? They're taking our herring. We can't even catch herring anymore out here. They're catching our herring. They're selling for $10 a piece up north in the tournament. $10 a piece probably means that there's no herring up there either. Oh, they they wiped it by years ago. That's why they come down here. And they're targeting you get, you know, maybe 100 boats in a tournament, maybe sometimes more targeting one kind of fish. You don't think that hurts a population? Think about it. If you really care about the sailfish like these guys say they do, guess what? You don't fish for them. Why do you put them in harm's way? They're not gonna tell you that half of them die. No one's gonna tell you that, but I could tell you. Light bait and light tackle? Yeah. They're gonna die.
Tom Rowland: What about sharks?
Mark Quartiano: We can't catch sailfish here anymore.
Tom Rowland: I always have
Mark Quartiano: to catch five sailfish a day. And down to what? Down to one. Maybe. Maybe. I've never seen sailfishian this bad ever ever.
Tom Rowland: And that has a lot to do with a lot of the different factors that we talked about, the dredging, the bait.
Mark Quartiano: The dredging is the bait. Mhmm. Right. But the tournaments are killing
Tom Rowland: all our selfish. 100%. And today, the tournaments are popular, so there's more.
Mark Quartiano: There's more money in it.
Tom Rowland: I get it. It's obviously a a moneymaker for someone. Otherwise, they wouldn't be having another tournament and another tournament. So somebody's making some money off of it. So when somebody makes some money off of something, typically, they try to replicate that in either another area or another time of the year or whatever. So that's that's interesting.
Mark Quartiano: You you got so many boats in a small area targeting one kind of fish. You're gonna hurt that population. It's just common sense. It's not rocket science. And it shows right now because we can't catch any more sailfish. It's it's it's proven. I mean, I I know. I'm not a I'm not some angel. I've killed 10,000 sailfish in my life, but I'm not raising a flag upside down and pounding my chest when I come back, and that's the average sitting in the fucking bottom or getting eaten by a shark. No. I'm killing them. Okay? But don't say you released it because that's bullshit. Who who believes that shit? Not me. Not my crew.
Tom Rowland: Do you think circle hooks have made it any better?
Mark Quartiano: Not really. No. Not really. How many how many sailfish these guys catch are gut hook sailfish? Live bait.
Tom Rowland: I don't know.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. A lot. Yeah. You know? You take them out of the water. You're bringing them to the boat. Those fish are, like, in shock when they get to the boat. What happens to them? Sharks might eat them. Let me know. That's just on a good good scenario.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Mark Quartiano: Light bait. If you wanna fish for a sailfish, do it the old fashioned way then. If you wanna pound your chest at the dock, go trolling for them. Let's see how good you are. Let's see how good you are. Let's catch them trolling. Make it yeah. Make the sailfish tournaments all trolling. And then maybe we'd have the live bait come back. Give it a little rest. Give it a rest for a couple years. There's no more bait left anymore. There's nothing. Why? Tournaments. Every live boat tournament has got a thousand baits in their well. They come over here. They got big pens. Everyone's filled. When they leave the tournament, after three days, the bait's all dead. That's it. It's gone. It's indiscriminate killing of everything, tournaments. So
Tom Rowland: Disguised, in your opinion, disguised Conservation. Conservation.
Mark Quartiano: It's anything but conservation. Anything but across the board, killing everything.
Tom Rowland: So that obviously really gets under your skin. Yeah. It does. Because those same people in a lot of not all of those people, obviously, but some of those people are Pointing the finger at you. And pointing the finger and saying you're the worst enemy.
Mark Quartiano: One selfish. Yeah. But killing one selfish. Yeah. Biggest hypocrites in the planet.
Tom Rowland: Do you think that I mean, why do you think that is that is that ignorance? Is that lack of experience? Is that just a super opinionated deal? Or what why do you think that is?
Mark Quartiano: All of the above. And, you know, maybe if they had
Tom Rowland: been doing it as long as you had, they would see some of the things that you are so obvious
Mark Quartiano: to you. I mean, I would go out there, you know, 450 times a year. I see a lot. A lot of these normal guys are out here to fishing two or three tournaments a year. That's that's their whole thing. But it it's it's not it's just not right what they've done with the tournaments. They've made it into, like, a big hero thing. You know? And it just it's killed everything around here.
Tom Rowland: So how do you, interact with these people? Because, obviously, you have to. I mean, they're You're at home. You're you don't.
Mark Quartiano: I only have to interact with, like, three people, and they're at home. It's not how I that's not how I made my reputation or my business. But, you know, most of the people, they'll agree with me. It's just, the heroes out there that that, you know, I'm a big target, so it makes it easy. I'm a Darth Vader out there, so it makes it easy to point a finger at me. Do you like being the Darth Vader? Yeah. Someone's gotta do it.
Tom Rowland: When did you embrace that that you're gonna be the Darth Vader?
Mark Quartiano: Oh, man. Long time ago when, we started killing the sharks, and it wasn't popular back then either. But,
Tom Rowland: you know, it wasn't like, how long ago was it not popular? Because that's kinda what Jaws was all about, and that that
Mark Quartiano: Well, you're talking way back. Yeah. But I'm talking about the last fifteen years. Okay. It's it's, become unpopular. But now it's coming back where it's becoming popular again. So it's it's doing a cycle, you know? But, with all the shark TV show is out there, the Shark Week stuff, which is all bullshit anyway. It just made the people that catch sharks made them the villains. You know? But sad because it's the sharks are plentiful. And raw and real, they'll never hurt the population with raw and real. That's all we do. Longliners, This is out of the world.
Tom Rowland: Right. I mean, many people would argue that there are more sharks right now in certain areas than ever. Oh,
Mark Quartiano: yes. I agree.
Tom Rowland: Like, like, your spearfishing guys that you that you said, the the sportfishing guys on the on the wrecks, lots of places in the Keys. I mean, you go down there and you start catching a fish, and you might get one or two. Right. And then it's kinda like now we're feeding the sharks.
Mark Quartiano: It's out of control at some point.
Tom Rowland: Need to move Yep. Because we're doing nothing but feeding the sharks.
Mark Quartiano: Like Right.
Tom Rowland: It's a great spot. There's obviously tons of yellowtail here, but we can't catch a single one. Exactly. Yeah. And so that's another, like, ethical moral decision of what are we doing here?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Like, we're trying to catch yellowtail, but we are feeding sharks. So do you yet? Do you stay? Do you leave? Do you what? Whatever. Because once you leave, you've established that chum line. You've put Right. 20 pounds of chum in the water. We're gonna pick this up and go do this somewhere else and probably feed the sharks.
Mark Quartiano: They're all waiting. Then you ring the dinner bell there, and they're just sitting around waiting all day. You don't have a chance sometimes, and that's what pisses these guys off. They're making a living trying to catch these fish. Mhmm. And the sharks are sitting there. And, you know, it's that's why you get caught all the time. Come on over to this wreck. Come on over here. Catch these fish.
Tom Rowland: I would imagine that one of the biggest, things that you have to deal with on a daily basis is getting your bait for the next day.
Mark Quartiano: Yes.
Tom Rowland: Now and when I say bait, it's gonna be Jax or bonito or whatever you use. I don't know. What's your preferred bait? We used, well, we used to use bonitas when
Mark Quartiano: they were here. It's just so hard to catch now. Kingfish, bonitas, whatever we can catch, Jax.
Tom Rowland: So are you basically catching all your bait, or are you getting help from other people?
Mark Quartiano: Or Oh, no. No. I mean, I've got some friends in our business that if I see them out there, they'll drop a bait off or something. They'll just hand me a bait. But we normally spend half hour or an hour or so trying to catch what most charter boats just fish for all day. Right.
Tom Rowland: Like, the meat is
Mark Quartiano: or Exactly. Kingfish where we can get trolling, you know, with the planers and stuff like that. Maybe little tunas. Barracudas. Barracudas are okay. But even the barracudas are almost wiped out. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. It's gotten way way harder.
Mark Quartiano: The barracudas are almost gone, man. We used that was a guaranteed fish for us for years. Guaranteed. Not anymore. There's no more guaranteed fish. Not here.
Tom Rowland: What's your opinion of, like, what I've discussed before about the infighting between between recreational fishermen, maybe even sport fishing guides and tournament people and people like yourself. And and do you see that divide and conquer is exactly what somebody like PETA would hope for?
Mark Quartiano: Oh, I'm sure PETA likes the in house fighting stuff. You know? But, it's all really friendly fighting. It's nothing like we're gonna kill somebody. Yeah. It just it's all a lot of it's professional jealousy, whatever. They need somebody to target, but, I don't take it really personal. But, when I can't catch a bait from my customers, then I take it personal. And that's why I'm not a big tournament fan.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, I can see I mean, I I listen. I understand. When you explain your point the way that you did, I completely understand.
Mark Quartiano: You can't argue with that.
Tom Rowland: You can't? No. I mean
Mark Quartiano: It's a fact.
Tom Rowland: It it really bothers you that that you know what's going on, and those same people are pointing the finger at you.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. It's like, is there a double standard here? Is, am I am I missing something? I mean, you guys are killing, you know each boat's killing 10 sailfish a day on a tournament.
Tom Rowland: I'm killing one. Do you think maybe that part of that is that they don't believe that they are? Probably in their heart,
Mark Quartiano: they probably think they're doing, you know, the sailfish good by releasing them. But if you talk to any really good fisherman that knows what happens to a live bait caught sailfish, they'll tell you probably not gonna survive.
Tom Rowland: But what if it's a live bait caught sailfish where the circle hooks right in the corner? Trolling. Just like per just like perfect. Trolling. Well, I mean, you I mean, you catch plenty of sailfish on pilchards, and the Yeah. The you watch the fish eat it, and you set the hook, and it's right there. And and that fish is
Mark Quartiano: That's a real in the real world, best case scenario, yeah, there's some fish that survive. Absolutely. I'm talking about most of them. The majority. Live bait, got hooked. Not gonna survive. I don't get what you say. Something's gonna eat them, or they're gonna sink to the bottom. That's a fact. It's that's that's how it is. That's the real world. Tell me about that's what about the live bait? Doesn't count?
Tom Rowland: Doesn't count as far as what you're killing?
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. Nobody nobody cares about a goggle eye because isn't that pretty? Doesn't that goggle eye have as much right to live as a sailfish? I don't know. Maybe it's me. It's a life. You're killing one thing to kill another. Just like a hunter. I don't see any hunters going out there using a live animal to catch something else, but we do it in the fishing world. It's just it's hypocritical. It just, like, drives me crazy.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I see that. K. And and and can understand where you're coming from. I really can.
Mark Quartiano: You're killing a live fish in the process. I don't get it.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, that's that's kind of you you you'll see the same thing happen on in freshwater fishing, like, the the fly fishing guys for trout absolutely would never kill a fish
Mark Quartiano: ever. Not a day.
Tom Rowland: Not one fish ever is going to die, but they would be horrified if they saw somebody walk out there, make five casts, catch one fish, and take it home for dinner. Yeah. But they're fishing all week, catching hundreds of fish and Releasing them. And releasing them.
Mark Quartiano: But, you know, you that's different world too.
Tom Rowland: Some are gonna die, though. Yes. But they don't they'd and they I've been one of these people. It's like to watch someone kill something, but he was only on the river for ten minutes.
Mark Quartiano: Right.
Tom Rowland: He caught one fish. He's taking it home, and he's gonna eat every part of that fish.
Mark Quartiano: Exactly.
Tom Rowland: Like, is there really something wrong with that? No. And and that's a that's a that's a battle.
Mark Quartiano: That's a yeah. You're not gonna win that battle.
Tom Rowland: Like, you're saying these people are staying completely within the the law. It's a 100% legal what they're doing, and and it can be entirely really controversial because the fly guys don't like that. And I see that what you're what where you're coming from, it's a very similar argument in a different environment with different fish.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. I mean, just don't preach catch and release when you know that half of those fish are gonna die. Don't preach that. Just say, hey. We we hope the best for the selfish. We hope for the best. Don't say, oh, we released it. Okay? Because in a real world, it's not gonna happen.
Tom Rowland: Tell me about your chair on your boat.
Mark Quartiano: I got a new one coming. I got a brand new one coming, actually, by Lee's. Yeah. It's hanging over the side. It's people love it. They love to get in there and and, you're right on top of the action. You know? You're not in the back in the cockpit somewhere. You can't see what's going on. You're right on top of a big fish.
Tom Rowland: It's really cool. How did you come up with that design?
Mark Quartiano: Back in the old days, I watched this movie, a Hemingway movie with, with,
Tom Rowland: what was his name? Bogart? Oh, yeah. Humphrey Bogart.
Mark Quartiano: Exactly. And, he was our captain down in The Keys, and he had an old wooden boat, and he had a chair that was pretty far back. It was up on top of the motor mount back in the day. And it was pretty close to the transom. I go, wow. That's not a good idea. You know, the customer's out of the way, and you can walk around. And so I just took it to the next level and just put it over the side of the boat where it worked out really good because people love that chair. And, you know, you you feel every tug of the fish. If you got a big shark on, you can feel everything. You're right on top. You feel every crack of the head. And then when a shark comes up, you know, you can almost, like, touch them. You're right on top of everything. And it's it's a different sensation. It's really what fishing is all about. When you're fishing a normal conventional charter boat, you're in the back of the cockpit. You can't see what's going on. You don't even you can't even see over the cabin boards. You just you're just sitting there winding. You're are part of the action now. You are in the ship on that chair. It's awesome. And people, like, fight to get in there. Mhmm.
Tom Rowland: It's pretty cool. It would seem like it would be even more efficient, you know, as you get a big shark coming
Mark Quartiano: Or anything.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Inexperienced people. I mean, I don't care how experienced you are. You're you're locked into this chair and this rod, and the fish goes under the you know?
Mark Quartiano: Right. Right.
Tom Rowland: That what do you do? The mate has to help. You know?
Mark Quartiano: Well, now all we do is to turn the chair, the mate reaches up, and it grabs a leader. It's so easy. It's a no brainer. And the other way, you gotta work around the guy. You gotta work around the rod. It's it's a total nightmare. It's it's not cool.
Tom Rowland: Have you seen anybody make another chair like that and put it on their boat?
Mark Quartiano: Not that I'm aware of. No. It's not for everybody because it can be little dangerous if you don't, you know Getting
Tom Rowland: in it or getting out of it?
Mark Quartiano: Just the whole thing. The whole operation there. I mean, it's not for everybody. You know, again, I've had that chair forty years, so I know how to operate the boat with the chair. But, I wouldn't recommend it for anybody. It's that's my trademark anyway. I don't even think about it.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome, man. Well, just as I thought, it'd be a very interesting conversation. I really appreciate you sitting down and, you know, just sharing your side of of of your story. That's what what you do, man.
Mark Quartiano: Come out with us one time and
Tom Rowland: I'd love to.
Mark Quartiano: My pleasure talking to you is it was great.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, tell people how they can find you and go monster fishing.
Mark Quartiano: Instagram at mark the shark. Marktheshark.com website, which I haven't touched in years. You probably know that already. But the Instagram is where we post daily stuff on it at mark the shark. Yeah. Or 305759 That's my phone number.
Tom Rowland: And 759 is Right. Like
Mark Quartiano: They got some Jaws.
Tom Rowland: There are so many. So you can just, what are the what is
Mark Quartiano: this one? That's a tiger. You see the teeth, how they're how they're shaped? Yeah. They're they're they're actually made to cut through shells of what? Turtles. Yeah. Of course. That's why I love turtles, by the way. My son's got a couple turtles in his room. Yeah. So when I see a tiger shark and I I cut them open, there's always usually some tiger fragments in there. I've even caught whole turtles. I've I've I've caught them out of, the stomachs.
Tom Rowland: How do you think the tiger catches I mean, tiger's not a
Mark Quartiano: I know. Shark. It's unbelievable. He must sneak
Tom Rowland: up on him on something. They sneak up on him when the you know, you see this you see this turtle often just kinda resting on the bottom, laying there, almost sleeping. Right. And I could see a tiger come up and take a flip flipper off. You know?
Mark Quartiano: Yep.
Tom Rowland: And then maybe chase the thing down Then he can't swim over. Five miles and then take another flipper off. And then, I mean, that's kind of how I always thought that
Mark Quartiano: they would think. I've I've got whole turtles, not even a scratch on them
Tom Rowland: Really?
Mark Quartiano: In the stomach of tigers. Not even a scratch. It's, how did that happen? You know, it's weird. But, they must have some technique.
Tom Rowland: Right. Because those little turtles, man, they can fly.
Mark Quartiano: Yeah. They
Tom Rowland: are very, very fast.
Mark Quartiano: It's amazing. I mean, maybe the tigers are faster than we think.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. You know? They have it in them. Yeah. But they just don't
Mark Quartiano: show
Tom Rowland: it often. Right. Yeah.
Mark Quartiano: They're they're cool. I like I like tigers. They're one of my favorite sharks.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. What would you say is your favorite shark?
Mark Quartiano: The tiger, probably. Yeah. Yeah. They're they're just so cool with their stripes. They're just a beautiful animal. I love to kill them.
Tom Rowland: How could we find a better way to stop than that?
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