Here is the mudshark legend told by Led Zeppelin biographer and eye-witness of fishex, so to say
A very similar account (consistent with Zappa's) was in a book about Led Zeppelin called "Hammer of the Gods." I believe the author was Richard Cole, who work with Zeppelin for a close to a decade.
Stephen Davis: Hammer Of The Gods - Led Zeppelin Unauthorized Pan Books (UK) ISBN 0-330-34287-8
pp. 78-80
"Two days later Led Zeppelin's sojourn in Seattle proved to be the end of their reputation as normal humans. Seattle was where The Shark Episode took place.
...
Back at the hotel the band started drinking. Richard Cole says that what happened later was his fault. "The sharks thing happened at the Edgewater Inn in Seattle. How it came about is that in 1968 I was with Terry Reid, supporting the Moody Blues in Seattle, and their road manager told me the band should stay at the Edgewater Inn, because there's a tackle shop in the lobby and you can fish right out the window of the hotel. I said, 'Go on, fuck off, ya cunt.' He said, 'Come on, Richard, I'm not kidding, it's true.' So the next time I was in Seattle was with Led Zeppelin and Vanilla Fudge, and we started to catch sharks out the window. By this time the tours were more and more risque, and you could do what you liked with the girls who showed up at the hotel. For me, that second fucking Led Zeppelin tour was the fucking best time of my life. That was the one. We were hot and on our way up, but no one was watching too closely. So you could fucking play. And these birds were coming up to my suite wanting to fuck, and me and Bonzo were quite serious about catching these fish." What happened next isn't really clear. One girl, a pretty young groupie with red hair, was disrobed and tied to the bed. According to the legend of the Shark Episode, Led Zeppelin then proceded to stuff pieces of shark into her vagina and rectum.
Richard Cole says it didn't happen that way. "It wasn't Bonzo, it was me. Robert and Bonzo didn't know anything, they were kids. It wasn't shark parts anyway: It was the nose that got put in. Yeah, the shark was alive! It wasn't dead! We caught a big lot of sharks, at least two dozen, stuck coat hangers through the gills and left 'em in the closet... But the true shark story was that it wasn't even a shark. It was a red snapper and the chick happened to be a fucking redheaded broad with a ginger pussy. And that is the truth. Bonzo was in the room, but I did it. Mark Stein [of Vanilla Fudge] filmed the whole thing. And she loved it. It was like, 'You'd like a bit of fucking, eh? Let's see how your red snapper likes this red snapper!' That was it. It was the nose of the fish, and that girl must have come 20 times. I'm not saying the chick wasn't drunk, I'm not saying that any of us weren't drunk. But it was nothing malicious or harmful, no way! No one was ever hurt. She might have been hit by a shark a few times for disobeying orders, but she didn't get hurt."
and on pages 337-338:
In 1989,
"...
When the microphones were on, Robert [Plant] claimed to have forgotten Zeppelin's raucous younger days. When the taperecorders were put away, he regaled the press with lurid, funny stories of hotel-room rapine. He also revealed that some of the band's wives, including his own, were present during the fabled Shark Episode back in the misty days of 1969."
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