River Monsters (2009) s01e03 Episode Script

In the Deep South, a monster is accused of a series of violent attacks.
A creature as deadly as a shark and as big as a gator is blamed.
Wherever we have alligator gar there are myths of monsters.
The state authorities said it should be electrocuted.
Now, I'm on a mission to get face-to-face with this river monster Whoo! You'd better be strapped in.
to find out if this animal really is guilty of the crimes it's blamed for.
I'm Jeremy Wade, a fisherman and a biologist with a passion for freshwater giants.
I've travelled the globe, putting my life on the line to find truly monster-sized fish.
It's become something of an obsession for me to get into remote parts of the world and to find the animals that nobody else can.
But the creatures I hunt and find are not just monsters in size, but in attitude too.
And now I'm on the trail of one that has a reputation for attacking humans.
I've heard alarming stories of this creature over many years, but I've never seen one in the flesh.
It's the alligator gar, a truly prehistoric monster.
There are five species of gar that inhabit the United States.
All gar are ancient fish.
They've existed on earth for over 100 million years.
Their survival is, in part, because of their unique defence system, scales made from a super-hard enamel called ganoin.
This armour-plating has seen them survive predatory dinosaurs.
The alligator gar, however, is in a class apart.
Named for the profile of its snout, it's the largest of all gar, reaching some ten feet in length and weighing over 365 pounds.
It has a further defining characteristic: A double row of dagger-pointed teeth along the length of the upper jaw.
But these attributes have not been enough to defend it against a more modern threat: Man.
Before 1930, their range extended beyond American borders.
But the impact of people means that now they're not found above the boot heel of Missouri and Tennessee.
Alligator gar stand accused of savage attacks on humans.
I've trawled the archives and all the attacks I've come across are concentrated in the Deep South.
They certainly have the teeth for it, but I've been unable to find any hard evidence that these fish are the culprits.
If I'm going to find an alligator gar guilty of these crimes, I'm definitely looking for a very big fish.
The experts I've spoken to suggest Texas is the place where the bigger specimens are still to be found.
I'm heading directly to the Trinity River, a 710-mile-long waterway.
Here, people have caught gator gar longer than I am tall.
It's bigger when you get close, isn't it? To help me, I'm recruiting Bubba Bedre.
He's a specialist in finding alligator gar that weigh over 100 pounds, sometimes for food, but normally for bow fishermen after trophies.
But I'm not planning to catch a fish for a trophy.
I want to find out if this creature has committed the crimes it's accused of.
Bubba is taking me straight to a section of the Trinity that he believes holds the best hope of finding large gar.
What we're doing now is we're just drifting with the current and we've just come to a bend in the river that doubles round.
And Bubba's just said this is the hole.
This is a known haunt.
I can imagine the current has actually dug out a bit of a hole in the bottom here.
And apparently they are very aware, more aware than a lot of fish of sort of knocking and noises in the boats, so we're just literally just drifting with the current.
And just looking to see if we can see them come up and breach.
Gar have a swim bladder that works like a lung, an adaptation that helps them survive in oxygen-poor backwaters and creeks.
However, this brings them up to the surface to breathe.
It's a chink in their armour, giving away their presence.
Ooh, yes.
So they're just coming up and gulping air and going down? - Yeah.
That fish there is mad.
- I was gonna say - He knows we're here.
- Yeah, exactly.
When he splashes hard like that I guess it's to spook us off.
Yeah, I've come across the same thing in the Amazon.
There's a fish that comes up and gulps air.
If they do it gently, they don't know you're there.
If they're like that, you think, "That's a good fish", but it's getting up and going down as quickly as it can.
So it's the same behaviour.
The rivers here have murky water.
With visibility limited, gar use a band of sensitive vibration receptors along their body called the lateral line.
This enables them to locate prey and predators.
To avoid detection, we decide to abandon the boat and fish from the shore.
I'm still experimenting with baits.
And I'm going to start off using a treble hook, standard issue for big predatory fish.
Although the water's muddy, I've seen several come and break the surface.
So I know they're here.
I know there are fish of 100 pounds-plus, you know, within a 25-yard radius of my bait.
That's quite a feeling.
It's one of those moments in fishing where things can go from being very quiet, like they are at the moment, to er suddenly you can have an animal over 100 pounds on the end of your line, trying to pull you in the water, But if there is a monster gator gar in these Texan waters, it's not giving itself up easily.
If I'm to find one that fits the crimes it's accused of, it has to be at least as big as me.
A real river monster.
At Lake Livingston on the Trinity River in Texas, I seek out legendary fisherman, Bobby Fly, for some clues on how to find a giant specimen.
He caught one seven feet long that put him in the Hall of Fame.
And he believes there are still big gar around on the Trinity.
You ain't gotta move your boat 100 yards one way or the other to catch good garfish.
Now, I have seen one 14 foot long down there.
- Garfish.
- Oh, really? And I was tied up on top of a willow tree with a 14-foot flat bottom.
And this bad boy came right up beside me and just surfaced right there.
And I saw in front of my boat and the back of my boat, and I saw fish all the way.
So I immediately pulled up to slacken my rope and went on to the house.
I didn't hang around.
But this sighting was in 1987.
And his record catch was landed in 1991.
Other anglers have pulled out large specimens, but no fish over eight and a half feet in length has been caught in the last decade.
The big question is: Are there still any gar left large enough to commit the attacks they're accused of? And if so, how will I catch one? That's interesting Bobby Fly caught his giant using a bait of a carp-like fish called a buffalo.
And how did you prepare the buffalo to OK, you take the buffalo, and you want a nice one about five, ten pounds.
Mm-hmm.
And then you take a mallet and beat him up.
- What, like a hammer? - A mallet.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Well, a little baseball bat's what we use.
- Yeah.
- And you just whoop on him real good.
Yeah.
And then you take your claws, your fingernails, and you just get its tail and you just strip the fins off.
Yeah.
And then you cut him up in little squares, like quarter-inch squares.
OK.
And the blood, the reason why you beat on the fish with a mallet is to get that blood all into the meat.
Mm-hm.
Because that's what they're smelling out there.
You want that blood.
You just put it on that hook and throw it out there.
That's very interesting.
All I got to do now is go out and try and get something similar size.
Something close to that will make me happy, I think I'll be You will, you will.
There's some big ones out there.
You go down there where I told you to go and you'll be all right.
Bobby Fly's optimism about the size of these fish is ringing in my ears.
But I'm still unsure whether this fish is as aggressive as its reputation suggests.
I've heard many stories of these fish attacking humans, but one particular incident sticks in my mind.
A really gruesome report from the neighbouring state, Louisiana.
Try and catch me! On a warm, humid spring day, a nine-year-old schoolgirl, Elizabeth Grainger and her 13-year-old brother, George, are playing on the shoreline of the lake.
Come on.
Race ya! It's not fair.
You always win.
Elizabeth, only a few feet away from her brother, dangles her feet in the water.
You always win, you always do.
Suddenly, something grabs hold of her leg.
Dr Robert B Paine has worked as a physician for almost 40 years.
But he has never seen wounds like this.
What have we here? My goodness.
The press report George's claim that what attacked his sister was seven feet long.
And that he believed it to be a garfish.
In his medical report, Dr Paine describes the wounds as being like coarse needles inserted in a board.
A wave of paranoia soon follows, and the alligator gar is held accountable for many similar attacks.
Although this was a well-documented event, the identity of the attacker rested entirely on the testimony of a 13-year-old boy.
But was an alligator gar really the culprit? Or with its threatening prehistoric appearance was it just an obvious scapegoat? I turn to Mark Spitzer, an expert on the gar.
You've got an inch-thick Is that the official gar history as far as you've Well, this is my gar history.
I've been intensely researching gar for the last few years.
You know, all over the country, wherever we have alligator gar, there are myths of monsters.
These fish were the fishes of nightmares.
One rumour that was created was that these fish eat twice their weight in a day and stuff like that, you know.
And that they attack human beings.
So, were there lots of stories of that kind of nature? There was an article that appeared in the New Orleans newspaper called Alligator Gar More Dangerous Than So-Called Man-Eater Shark.
And this is a copy of the article.
It was written by an anonymous journalist who basically said, "If you should emerge from swimming or taking a bath and you find out that you have a limb missing, do not blame the shark.
It is probably the alligator gar that did it.
" Where does the fact end and the imagination and sort of fantasy start? The gar can certainly grow to a large size.
And it has a ferocious armoury of teeth.
But does this prove an inclination to attack humans? Is it a natural-born killer? I need to find hard evidence.
Using the advice of fishing legend Bobby Fly, I'm going for a bait of buffalo fish.
This, I hope, will let me get my hands on the alleged culprit.
But I'm learning on the job.
My best hope is to try and get into the mind of the gar.
I've only been here a very short time and because so few people fish for these fish, you know, it's a big, ugly, stupid-looking fish, so let's use fairly basic tackle and, you know, normally it's a thick bit of wire, some heavy line, and a big treble hook.
I think they're actually quite sensitive.
You can be sensitive even if you've got a bony mouth.
I think, thick wire, they actually could feel that when they're chomping on it, and a treble hook as well.
There's a nice soft, succulent bit of fish and there's something else in there.
What's that? And I think they could spit it out, so I'm using a single hook.
It can just fold down nicely.
It's not sticking out like three points on it.
Both Mark and I cast lines into the river, but it's the bait on the single hook that gets picked up.
Something's got it.
It's moving, it's moving.
It's moving right to left.
- Is it? - Yeah, it is.
I need to let the line run very freely to avoid the fish realising the bait's attached to anything.
It's a bit of a battle of nerves, this.
Something's taken off.
It's on the end.
It's stopped.
He's off again.
He's off again.
- Really? - Yeah, really.
That's good.
Good sign.
Right, it's going to be very soon.
You Oh, I think it's off.
- Oh, no.
No, no.
- It's coming toward us.
- That's a small it's a turtle or it's a small fish.
- It's a little gar.
Is it a needle nose? Look at that - greedy thing.
What a greedy thing.
This gator gar has eyes bigger than its stomach.
But at three feet long, it's a chance for me to test whether they have an aggressive character.
Right.
They grow 18 inches their first year, so it's probably, you know, between a year and two.
- That tongue's interesting, isn't it? - Yeah.
There's those two rows of teeth on the top.
These teeth are three-eighths of an inch long, a quarter of the length of those of a fully grown gator gar.
Argh! - Oh, my God.
You got bit, huh? - I was just in there trying to get the hook out.
- Score one for the fish.
- It's a young alligator gar with a big appetite.
I'm just going to lob him back in the Whoops! back in the water.
My idea that the gar is just a misunderstood, big, ugly, stupid fish has caught me out.
Maybe it does deserve its reputation after all.
This fish has actually still got a lot of energy left.
I brought it in on very heavy gear, so it's got a lot of energy left.
Normally they'd be tired out.
I'm going to slide him over the side, well ahead of our next fishing spot.
So here we go.
Back you go.
Even a fish this small has managed to draw blood.
- Good battle scars.
- It is, isn't it? You can see the cut.
This is a setback to my theory that the gator gar may have been unfairly blamed for these violent attacks.
The consequences, if this fish was scaled up to a monstrous eight to ten feet, are beginning to hit home.
When you think about a gar that size with teeth to match and a body like a torpedo, it really is a terrifying prospect.
You've just got a living weapon of destruction.
I'm on a mission to find out the truth behind this ugly reputation.
Argh! I know from first-hand experience just how sharp those teeth are.
Oh, my God.
You got bit, huh? That was just a gentle brush with its teeth.
It wasn't deep, but they certainly drew blood.
Whoops! Back in the water.
Yet this alligator gar is only three feet long.
George Grainger reported that what bit his sister was seven feet long.
And other reports state that these fish can reach double that length.
Now I have seen one 14 feet long down there.
Its reputation for vicious attacks on humans is beginning to appear justified.
It's no wonder people took fright when you consider a beast of those dimensions with a couple of hundred razor-sharp teeth.
But I still don't have hard proof.
I believe the jury is still out.
In past times, for many of those living in the Deep South, this was a fish guilty as charged.
One that should be eradicated from all rivers and lakes.
So they took it really seriously, then? The business of, "Let's clear these things out of the water.
They're an abomination.
They're not fit to share the planet with us.
" They look guilty, therefore they must be responsible for these occasional incidents where someone gets their leg bitten or whatever.
But where's the evidence? Basically, they look scary, and so that added to people just wanting to run them out of town, and so they were run out of town.
- I mean, I heard of just heaps of them - Oh, yeah.
Bulldozered piles.
Lots of people shooting them.
Just a very despised, hated fish.
In 1933, the Texas Game Fish Commission began a campaign of extermination.
They built an electric gar destroyer rigged with a 200-volt electric net to kill the fish.
Over the next three decades, millions of gar were destroyed in an effort to be rid of them forever.
Perhaps the prejudice that the alligator gar has always suffered, explains the extreme fishing methods used to catch them today.
Unless they get the protection they need to reach full size, giant alligator gar may well be wiped out.
Now, in Texas for the first time, the parks and wildlife authorities are trying to work out what the cost has been to the gar population.
On the lower Trinity we're en route to set what are called juglines - baited hooks attached to floats.
Our plan is to catch as many gator gar as possible and then monitor them with electronic tags.
I'll hand you the float.
Doctor Dave Buckmeier leads this project.
What's the state of knowledge on the gar? Alligator gar along with other gars and buffalo and things have always been considered kind of rough fish, which no-one really cared much about.
- Is that the same as trash fish? - Trash fish would be another name for it.
And so there were efforts to try and eradicate alligator gar and other gars from populations, because they were believed to have eaten desirable fish, if you will, bass, and things that we have, catfish.
They have recently been listed as vulnerable by the American Fisheries Society.
That's because in most states they're definitely on the decline.
We have some real concerns about the species.
- Shall I chuck this out? - Yeah, go ahead.
Throw that one out.
- And it unwinds itself, does it? - Yeah.
As the bait sinks, it will unwind.
- And then that lies on the bottom.
- Right.
It lies on the bottom.
And when the gar come up to feed, they'll comb the bottom and pick up the bait.
And usually run with it for 15, 20 minutes.
And after we're confident they've swallowed it, we'll go pick up the bait.
Yeah, spinning nicely there.
Not much research has yet been done, but it's thought few gator gar reach their maximum life span of 60 years.
As we move on to set more lines, there's a call from the opposite bank of the river.
We've actually just put out some juglines and nets, but some local guys here they've got a trotline - a line going across the river with hooks at intervals.
And they've just pulled a small gar out on that.
So the first fish now is going to be tagged and all the measurements taken.
930.
And 78 is the tag number.
The tag will provide the biologists with data about which areas of the Trinity River the gar are using, so they can formulate a plan to protect the species.
Sounds like a visit to the dentist, but appropriate, because the scales of these things are made out of something called ganoin, which is similar to tooth enamel.
Hence the need for a drill to penetrate that body armour.
Engineered like medieval chain mail, the gar's suit of armour is built from thick diamond-shaped scales, providing a formidable defence against attack.
They're so hard that Native Americans use them for arrowheads.
And the fish - I can't even feel it tensing.
It's just lying here very calmly.
Wet towel over it.
Over the eyes as well.
Quite important.
It's just come out of a muddy river where it can't see much, into the bright light.
Unlike my last experience, this young gar displays no aggressive behaviour.
- If you'll read that number, the top number.
- OK.
This is 444-33.
- We're just gonna let that one go.
- OK.
The gar is released unharmed.
- Ooh! - I guess he wanted to go.
The electronic tag will send a signal to a series of receivers to monitor the fish's movements.
We begin the process of bringing in the baited juglines.
This has actually moved quite a bit from where we put it in.
But there's nothing on the end there.
There's something on the end there, but it's not a live fish on the end.
Still got the bait on.
Something obviously has been at that, but that's not a gar.
This river's full of turtles and that looks like it's been munched by turtles.
The Trinity River is home to over 14 species of freshwater turtle.
One of the other complications in gar fishing.
The odds are against you in all sorts of ways.
I might as well give the rest of it to them.
Quite a frustrating method of fishing even with multiple hooks.
After several hours, the scientists' own search is finally successful.
Nothing on the juglines, but one caught in a net - a two-foot gar.
There are no signs of any monster-sized fish.
It looks like the population of these fish is in a worse state than I thought.
Maybe in the old days when these fish were everywhere, crude techniques would work, but now I think I'm going to have to develop an approach that is more precise and targeted.
I'm determined to get face to face with a giant gar, and find out the truth behind its monstrous reputation.
But I'm finding the task far harder than I expected.
There we go.
So little is known about this fish.
It's been accused of all kinds of crimes.
But the research into what it actually does, where it does it and how it does it, is virtually nonexistent.
I'm heading for the aquarium in Athens, Texas, where curator Wayne Heaton keeps some gator gar.
I need to know more about the business end of these fish - just what exactly their teeth are capable of.
I think as far as a lot of people are concerned, this is close to a shark and it's in freshwater.
- It's in a river near you.
- Right.
You know, so don't go in the water.
Unfortunately with us, especially if it's something we don't know much about, we always assume the worst.
And so you see a big six-, seven-, eight-foot gar hit the surface with these monstrous teeth, the first thing that comes to your mind is, "Well, I'm not getting in the water.
" Well, you know, these teeth, they're not like our teeth.
They're not kind of blunt.
We have a few sharp ones for tearing.
These things are made so whenever they grab something, it's theirs.
And so these teeth are very, very sharp.
It is a long, streamlined fish, but that girth is like a barrel.
- All that or most of that is just muscle.
- Solid muscle.
Although they live most of the time very quiet and nothing bothers them, if they want to use that muscle, and they've got that big paddle at the end of the body, there's going to be a lot of propulsive force there, I guess.
There is a lot of power behind that fish.
It's one of the largest fish that we have in the United States.
They can get well over nine feet long, 300 pounds.
But, you know, you'll find out that gar are very timid creatures.
They're very shy.
Unfortunately, since these guys are called alligator gar, and that first word strikes fear into everybody.
And so when they hear alligator gar, they key in on that word alligator and think danger.
And the reason the alligator gar has its name, is not because it has the attitude of the alligator, but has a head very similar to an alligator.
But that's basically where it stops.
You've got a nine-foot, 200-pound scaredy cat.
Until he gets hooked.
Yeah.
I wonder if they're a bit simple-minded and they're programmed, even if it's dead, they're still programmed to keep it clamped for a little while before properly swallowing it.
When they grab it, they want to make sure it's something they'll be able to swallow, so you might see them hold it for a minute to make sure that's what they want.
Once they decide to eat it, you'll start to see them moving it in their mouth and then to the point where they'll actually swallow it.
But then once it's there, even though it's a big mouth that process seems to be quite a slow process.
Right.
They will do it at their leisure.
They're in no hurry, because once they have that in their mouth they know it's not going nowhere.
If it's something that's got quite a bit of fight, they'll keep that mouth closed until it wears itself out, to where they can swallow it.
You're not gonna have something in the water to try to find the gar.
You're gonna let that gar come to you.
And he's gonna grab it.
And when he grabs it, you might not wanna try and set the hook right when he grabs it, because he might be still deciding whether he wants it or not.
But once he gets to where he wants to swallow it and then you set the hook, you'd better be strapped in.
With the knowledge that I need a cautious, patient approach, I hire another fishing guide, Mark Malfa, to take me to a fresh section of the Trinity River.
To hold off setting the hook until I'm sure the gator gar has properly taken the bait.
- That was definitely a fish moving off.
- For sure.
Not a damn thing.
I've just had something playing with the bait on the end of this rod for about half an hour.
Took a few feet.
Stopped.
The line twitching.
Did that a couple of times.
No real long run, but decided to tighten down and set the hook.
I was just winding down to feel the fish, prior to setting the hook, and didn't even feel the fish, just the bait coming in.
- Yeah.
- Getting on for half an hour.
The local technique of shooting gar with bow and arrow can be quicker and easier.
But this is not my style.
I'm determined not to harm any fish I catch.
But it can be a frustrating experience.
What do you think? Is this going to put it off? It might do, mightn't it? Yeah.
I think it's actually going faster than the - How far is that? Probably 55 yards? - I'd say a bit more than that.
I think it's stopped and it's moving off again.
What do you reckon? Patience or - I would get down to that tree.
- Yeah.
Might be wise just to do it, yeah.
Something has made the gar open its mouth and drop the bait.
No.
- But the bait's still there.
- Leave it there.
- It's in a good spot.
- Yeah.
- Bom-bom, bom-bom - Gets your heart going.
You just don't know, do you? You can imagine what's happening down there.
That's interesting.
They've been playing with that bait for about ten minutes or more.
Ten minutes or more.
Probably more like 15.
It actually swam upriver.
They've got a big mouth.
They're just very delicate feeders on bait.
In theory, they could swallow it in one go.
I mean, you can understand if that bait is alive and wriggling around, you don't want to let go.
But if they can tell that it's dead, why do they Maybe they're a bit stupid and it's just ingrained behaviour.
- You just hang on to it for a long time until - It would make sense.
- See the float there? - Oh, yeah.
There we go.
Look at that.
See that? - Now it's acting like I would expect.
- Now it's acting like a gar.
So that's coming upstream.
Once again, the gar has dropped my bait.
There's the bait.
How about that? - It took a lot of line.
- Wow.
And er It wasn't properly in its mouth - took it down.
Might just have a look and see if it's mashed up at all.
This is actually very, very frustrating fishing.
Something had that in its mouth because it moved it several yards, but when I tightened down there's nothing there.
And just talking to people who fish here, there's not much that anybody's told me that's any use.
Very few people fish for these.
Bobby Fly caught his by accident.
And the fishing that is done on rod and line, it's pretty basic.
It does work.
It's a fairly low percentage success rate.
You chuck out a lump of dead fish like this and you wait and you let it take it for a long time.
And most times you tighten down there's nothing on the end, but sometimes there is.
And it hasn't really got any more sophisticated than that.
But that was another half hour with nothing to show at the end of it.
Very slow-moving day today.
I haven't seen anything rise for quite a long time.
All I'm gonna do I'm expecting that whatever it was has gone away.
But there's an outside chance there could be something sat on the bottom with it in its mouth.
I'm going to tighten each one and if I feel resistance, I'm going to yank on the line.
There's an outside chance there could be a fish on the end, but I'm not expecting it.
Good to go through the motions just in case.
Sit tight.
There you go.
Set it, set it, set it.
Yes, yes! I think there could be a fish there.
It's hard to say at the moment.
Yes.
Fish.
- You got a lot of line out there, boss.
- It feels quite strange, though, whatever it is.
- A turtle.
- It's a turtle.
Damn.
Nice, big, soft-shell turtle.
Spiny soft-shell turtles like this will often eat frogs and snails.
But they're just as happy with a bit of dead fish.
It did feel strange on the way in.
It was taking the bait all over the river - a chunk of fish about half the size of this turtle.
It made off with it.
I can hear it hissing there.
It's a bit annoyed with us.
But I'm a bit annoyed with him, actually.
- You and me both.
- Leave the bait alone.
Yeah.
Anyway.
It's action, but not quite the action we wanted.
Whoops.
That was a lot of work getting that in and not what we wanted.
But we've still got time for some fish action, possibly.
But focused on my target, I fish on towards dusk.
What do you reckon? Tighten down? Right.
Normally, gar are caught before the water begins to cool down - well before the sun sets.
That's gone up.
It's gone up again.
Most guides give up fishing by mid-afternoon.
Set it, set it, set it, set it, set it There we go.
That's it.
Please be on it.
You feel something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a fish.
Ain't no turtle.
Hell, yes! Yes! It's gone under the boat, under the boat, under the boat.
Keep the tip away.
That soaked me.
I'm here, four feet above the water and I got a splashing.
Yes! Finally, it seems I am going to get face to face with my river monster.
Whoo! After fishing for 12 hours straight, just as dusk turns to night, I set my eyes on the giant fish.
- It's pulling down, pulling down.
- Look at that rod tip.
Let's get him up.
Let's get him up.
Do you want me to The most dangerous part of gar fishing is bringing the fish aboard the boat.
Coming over.
- Oh, there we go! - That's what we wanted.
- Exactly what we wanted.
- That is exactly what we wanted.
That's a proper-sized fish.
As the gar comes aboard, it thrashes its snout from side to side like a scythe.
I haven't forgotten that three-footer that got me.
This fish is almost seven feet long.
- Single hook.
- Single hook.
Single hook, single hook.
- Ha-ha-ha-ha! Yeah! - We've done it, we've done it.
Fantastic, Mark.
That was really Whoo! - OK.
Have we got the gaff handle? - Yes.
All right, so this will go in here.
OK.
The teeth of this gar are another half-inch longer than those that scarred me earlier.
I think it's 123.
123 pounds.
- Good, good.
Good, good.
- Yes.
Finally getting my hands on the fish and seeing it face to face, I can begin to weigh up the evidence.
I'm actually laying hands on this prehistoric beast.
This is fantastic.
This is the creature that I came here to see.
And then you hear people say, like Mark, that these things they won't just devour a bait, they're so fiddly, they will just sit and chew it and maybe spit it out.
You know, I've had fish take 100 yards of line, even.
15, 20 minutes, you tighten down and there's nothing on the end.
Gar don't bite pieces off their prey.
They only eat what they can swallow whole.
This puts humans off the menu.
For all this fierce reputation, you know, they certainly look the part, but I'm not sure that they actually act up to the part.
Ooh, what a thing.
What an animal.
This gator gar seems too gentle-natured to cause deliberate harm.
Interesting that here's the bait.
It hasn't taken it down.
The bait is There we go, there we go, there we go.
Yeah.
Don't worry, he'll go back in the water in a moment.
Maybe we'll throw that afterwards as a consolation.
When it just did that, the whole upper jaw sort of expanded.
When it came up You can see the gaps where there's flesh in-between and the head can expand.
See the little veins right through here.
And then through here.
See that separation from the jaw? That actually gives.
There's flesh in-between these areas.
See that? This is solid, solid.
Right here's flesh that attaches the joints, so it allows the head to flex and move.
The skin that joins these armoured plates allows the gar's jaw to expand.
But not so much that it could consume a person or even a human limb.
It's very tempting just to keep it out and admire it.
But what is important, although this animal is an air breather, I think it is very much time to get it back in.
So I think one last look and back in the water.
Up! - You got it? - OK.
It's very hard to hold.
- And you got the heavier end.
- I've got the heavy end, the bony end.
This female gator gar measures six feet eight inches.
She's longer than I am tall.
Then, once again, the gar draws blood.
She has a 14-inch-long mouth full of some 500 teeth.
That's not actually the teeth of the animal.
That is the back of a scale or some scales.
Slicing across you.
With the weight of the fish on my forearm, the fish just slid back.
Sliding that way is fine.
Sliding this way, the points of these triangular scales stuck in.
The Native Americans used them as arrowheads and I can sort of see why now.
I've got a big old scrape down my arm there from the scales.
Anyway, shall we get I believe I've seen enough to clear the gar's name.
You've got that, yeah? It's time to return the specimen to the wild and reflect on other possible suspects.
- OK.
- A little higher.
- Lift it up.
- OK.
- Bye-bye, baby.
- There it goes.
- There it goes.
- Excellent.
Wow.
Has the clue been there all along, in the very name the alligator gar shares with another predator? If you put legs on it, it would just be like an alligator.
It would get up and walk.
Is the real culprit the animal it could so easily be mistaken for the American alligator? After years of one-sided testimony, it's time for the jury to review the verdict on the guilt of the gator gar.
There must be a more logical culprit for the many incidents that were blamed on the gar.
In the same rivers and lakes that they inhabit, there are also many American alligators.
Not only do they share the same habitats, they have similar teeth.
Their size and the profile of their snouts could easily be confused one for the other.
I've come to this alligator park in southern Texas to get a look at some of the other characters that share the water with the alligator gar.
Cos I've got a sneaking feeling the alligator gar has taken the rap for somebody else.
And it could be these characters here.
What I want to do is get a fairly close look at the equipment of the alligator.
What would be really good is to see them in action as well.
But I think that part of it is probably best left to Gary.
Gary Saurage is a key witness for the gar's defence.
Absolutely.
These gars He understands the crucial difference between the behaviour of a fish and an alligator.
Come on.
An animal like this would have no problem taking a full-grown man.
They're sneaky.
They're tremendously patient.
These animals here, there's no telling how many deaths they're responsible for each year.
This is the apex hunter in the United States of America, right here.
Let's say it's a hot summer day.
You decide to dip your feet in the water.
You dangle them down, and wow, they're coming up.
When the alligator's hunting its prey it will shoot up out of the water and grab whatever it can get.
And on the way down it will do a death roll.
If you were to resist that, whatever limb it gets, whether it be hand, finger or toes, it's coming off.
The alligator gar doesn't have near the pressure.
The American alligator can bite down with 3,000 pounds per square inch, and I'm sure many, many times folks may think that it's an alligator gar on a bad bite, but you can rest assured it's not.
It's normally the American alligator.
Gar have neither the power nor the attitude for premeditated violent attacks on humans.
Alligator gar don't chew, they only eat stuff big enough that they can swallow whole.
Depending on the size of the gar, depends on what size food item they'll eat.
But a good six-to eight-foot gar could very easily take out a 12-to 14-inch fish.
I'm left in little doubt that many of the attacks attributed to gator gar are far more likely to be the work of the American alligator.
I've heard all these myths about the alligator gar, you know, ripping people's legs off, chopping alligators in half, generally terrorising the neighbourhood.
But what's interesting is, since having come here and spoken to people who actually know about this fish, and having spent some time myself on the river, I've got this idea that it's actually just got a bad PR agent.
I think it's a bit of a pussycat.
It just so happens that here is a tank with some very big alligator gar in and this is actually my chance to test my theory for myself.
I've been at the sharp end of a three-foot gator gar's teeth.
Whoops! Back in the water.
I've felt the muscle power held in the serpentine body of a six-foot-eight-inch-monster.
I think it's 123.
123 pounds.
But now I've got to walk the talk.
I've got to venture into the gar's own underwater world.
None of the gar show any intent to harm me.
In my view, it's the alligator gar itself that has been the victim.
It's amazing to get this close.
This fish really is a miracle of evolution, a true survivor.
But if anyone is going to see the real giants, this fish needs to be allowed to grow without persecution.
Maybe then we'll get to see those 14-footers again.
Whoa! That was That was, that was an experience.
Oh, I have to say, the size and the aspect of those fish, though, when I first saw them was really quite intimidating.
But I think this is a very, very misunderstood animal and I think it really is time that we just try to understand this fish a little bit better.