Large Crowds Gather for Monster Catch, Children in Tow

Marcus Benker, 11, of Holyoke, had never seen a live shark prior to the Boston Big Game Fishing Club's Monster Shark Tournament in Oak Bluffs this weekend.

So when he first glimpsed a 321-pound blue shark on Saturday strapped to the back of the Melissa Kate, a fishing boat out of Scituate, he studied its lifeless eye, its rows of razor sharp teeth and its streamlined body and wondered aloud if he was looking at the real thing.

Controversy Plagues Oak Bluffs Contest; Scientists, Fishermen on One Side, Humane Society on the Other

Several years ago the Boston Big Game Fishing Club Monster Shark Tournament was widely viewed as a simple affair, an event that attracted top fishermen from up and down the East Coast and generated a moderate boost in business for local shops and restaurants.

Using charts, graphs and an encyclopedic knowledge of sharks, a leading state marine biologist told the Oak Bluffs selectmen this week that the emb

The simmering heat of a July weekend served as the backdrop on a cold December night this week when the Oak Bluffs selectmen debated the future of the Monster Shark tournament, one of the town's biggest events of the summer.

Even on an Island that knows a little something about shark hysteria, the upcoming Boston Big Game Fishing Club Monster Shark tournament is a frenzied event.

As the sport-fishing boat Cookie Too backed into the slip in Oak Bluffs harbor on Saturday evening, nervous chatter rippled through the onlookers who had congregated around the dock.