River Monsters (2009) s03e07 Episode Script

My name is Jeremy Wade.
And I hunt monsters.
River monsters.
I'm always on the alert for new information, new leads and new investigations.
I've received a tantalising report.
It's a story about a fish apparently attacking a diver.
But there are frustratingly few details.
And that's no wonder because this story comes from a remote country in South America.
A country called Suriname.
But from what I've heard, this is not the work of South America's most notorious river monster - the piranha.
So what is it? Can there really be a fish that, pound for pound, can challenge the piranha Here we go.
(Cries out) for the title of the most ferocious river monster of South America? There's only one way to find out.
In pursuit of river monsters, I've travelled to the four corners of the globe.
Suriname is one place I've never had cause to visit until now.
I've come to investigate the possibility that although everyone knows the notorious piranha there may be a fish out here that has an even more fearsome reputation.
Suriname is South America's best kept secret.
It is the smallest country on the continent with a population of only half a million people.
But it can boast the largest continuous area of unspoiled rainforest in the world.
Once a Dutch colony, it is a true melting pot of nationalities and cultures.
The majority of the sparse population live along the coast.
So the deeper into the country you go, the further you are from the civilised world.
I have been to remote places before, but this is of a new order.
If things go wrong out here there is little hope of being rescued.
I never need an excuse to fish.
But, actually, this is a good way to check my gear.
I'm always relieved that it has survived the journey.
Fishing is a good way to absorb the atmosphere of a new country.
Suriname is only four degrees above the equator.
In November, the temperature is constantly high and it can reach 90% humidity.
After a few hours in the sun all I have to show for my exertions is sweat.
But at least I'm getting acclimatised.
As I feared, the adventure that lies ahead is not going to be easy.
But first, I have to meet the victim in the story, the man who was attacked by this mystery fish.
I've arranged to meet him where the attack happened - at the dam two hours out of the capital Paramaribo.
The dam was built on the Suriname River and completed in 1964 creating one of the largest man-made lakes in the world, called Brokopondo.
On the banks of which, I meet Maurice Gans, a local man of Dutch descent.
What was your job on the dam, at the time? This was definitely not a piranha attack.
They rush in, snatching quick, savage bites.
They don't cling on to their victims like a dog with a bone.
Maurice's mutilated hand needed over 100 stitches.
And even though it was 20 years ago, he still very much bears the scars.
Is this the scar? It's hard to believe there's a freshwater fish that would launch a solo attack on a diver.
Did you know what fish it was? Anjumara, also known as the wolf fish, so called for its wolf-like teeth.
These fish can grow to nearly four-and-a-half feet and weigh 80 pounds.
They are serious predators.
But I had, until now, never heard of one ever attacking a person.
I wonder if Maurice ever had any other kind of close encounter while he was diving.
Did that make you slightly nervous? - They never came and took a nip out of any - No, no, no, no.
No.
So Maurice often saw piranhas, but they never ever came close.
Unlike this lone wolf.
This fish attacked.
And if Maurice hadn't had his knife, who knows what could've happened.
Could it be that the wolf fish is more dangerous than the more notorious South American horror - the piranha.
To find out, I need to confront one myself.
I wonder if Maurice's monster still haunts this river.
From experience many river monsters have little regard for our modern world.
I've caught them near dams and in cities.
Will this monster be any different? The attack on Maurice was 20 years ago, and as far as I'm aware, nothing like that's happened in this place since.
Also, this place seems to be comparatively developed.
So I'm not really sure if this is where I should be looking.
I persevere through the night, but with no luck.
In the morning, I head into town to Paramaribo, Suriname's capital city.
I need to find out where wolf fish can be found.
I head downtown to the fish market to try my luck.
This looks like a small Anjumara.
A small wolf fish.
- That's a kind of Anjumara.
- Oh Yeah, I understand.
I understand.
This one isn't actually the Anjumara, it's a small relative - the Pataka.
I've caught something very similar to this, maybe the same as this, in Brazil.
Those teeth are probably almost as vicious as a piranha's.
They're very slippery.
Like a bar of soap with teeth.
It's the big one - a scaled-up version of this - which is what I'm looking for.
The wolf fish I'm hunting are ten times larger than these.
This one.
Anjumara? This is quite a surprise.
I wasn't expecting to see this here.
This this is actually the fish I'm looking for.
Wolf fish, it seems, are good eating.
I ask where this fish came from, and the man tells me it was far away.
But I don't leave the market empty-handed.
I have procured the damaged head of a wolf fish to examine later.
I have also got the address of an old Anjumara fisherman who lives in town.
- All right.
- Thank you.
Maybe he can tell me where to go to catch a wolf fish.
His name is Fritz van de Bosch.
He shows me his old wolf fish gear.
So this is very strong line.
It may be out-dated, but it's an impressive rig.
As we settle down to chat, he tells me of his own strange experience of being attacked by a wolf fish.
So your leg was out of the water? This story really puts the wolf fish into a different league.
I have never heard of a fish trying to attack someone on land before.
And there's another more chilling story.
Reptilian monsters, like anacondas and gators, are known to snatch dogs from the water's edge.
But a fish? Now I'm even more determined to find a wolf fish.
Well, it sounds like what you need to do now is go a long way away.
So you now can't just do a short fishing trip, you have to make an expedition.
- Sure.
- OK.
(Ticking) It seems that people have driven out this aquatic wolf.
It now exists only beyond civilisation.
To take it on, I'm now preparing to travel deep into Suriname's wild interior.
Maybe there I'll find other stories of wolf fish attacks that have just never made it out of the jungle alive.
To find a monster more terrible than even the dreaded piranha.
But to catch one I must travel deep into the unknown.
To a place where few people have ever been.
Usually, there are signs of human habitation dotted around, but out here, there is nothing.
I once survived a plane crash in Brazil and was lucky enough to walk to a nearby town.
But out here, I wouldn't stand a chance.
The landing strip is the only cleared patch of forest I have seen for nearly two hours.
I wonder just what I've got myself into.
Pieter Sonneveld has a European name but is 100% Surinamese.
He will help me talk with the local people, so I can collate any wolf fish stories from this area.
On the ground, the rainforest is as impressive as it is from the air, but our isolation is even more apparent.
Not only are the heat and humidity oppressive, but our little group are possibly the only human beings in thousands of acres of tangled rainforest.
At night, this place takes on an even more sinister character.
It looks like we're just about here, but I'm not sure where here is.
But it does sound like there's some serious water over here somewhere.
But I'm gonna have to wait until the morning to see exactly what I'm up against.
In all my years of fishing, this could be the most unspoiled and remote river that I've ever fished.
The mighty Corentyne River is 450 miles long and Suriname's largest.
For most of its length, it is completely uninhabited and rarely explored.
The river is punctuated by frequent crushing rapids and deep turbulent pools.
There are vast granite boulders everywhere, some just under the water, others creating waterfalls.
There are so many different fishing holes that I take every opportunity to get a bait or lure in the river, to cover as much water as I can.
Different types of fish prefer different parts of the river.
Having never hunted for wolf fish here, I need to explore every likely fishing spot to see if I can discover the monster's lair.
I'm using my short bait caster rod for accuracy, to get my eye in.
Although it looks lightweight, this beauty, with its strong braided line, is capable of landing fish over 100lb.
But there are more than just wolf fish here.
The Corentyne is also home to the red-eyed piranha, one of the largest of its kind.
This river really is the best place to compare these two toothy South American monsters.
That's a fish on, fish on.
Hey! Fish off.
Agh! Suddenly, I'm getting action every cast.
(Cries out) When you get these things in, they are so well hooked and, yet sometimes you hook one and somehow it just manages to get rid of the hooks.
That was quite dramatic, though.
Short, but very, very dramatic.
That's one on.
That's one on.
See if I can keep this one on.
But is this a wolf fish? I haven't seen the fish yet.
That is a piranha in the back.
Foul-hooked always feels bigger.
Monster piranha.
That is black in colour.
Just by looking at one, you can understand the piranha's reputation.
But I've done experiments, using myself as a guinea pig, and I've concluded they're only dangerous to people in extreme circumstances.
For piranhas, the mob rules.
It's death by a thousand cuts.
And for that, they have no equal.
But I'm comparing wolf fish with piranhas, one against one, and having now seen the piranhas they have to compete with, I'm even more wary about meeting a wolf fish.
Although I know there are piranhas around, I need to cover as much water as possible.
Even if it means wading.
As a rule, I want to get a fish in as quickly as possible.
Yeah.
Good size fish.
This insures that when I release it, it still has plenty of energy, so it can recover more quickly.
But this is not a wolf fish.
It's called a peacock bass.
Lovely fish, that.
And the reason it's called a peacock bass, in English anyway, is that eye spot on the tail.
And if they're lying in the water with their heads down, like that, that really does look like an eye, and any predatory bird could mistake that for an eye.
It really is very effective when this in the water.
The big mouth, a predatory cichlid, but a lovely fish.
I don't want to have it out too long.
I'll just admire it for a minute or two.
I wonder if, like wolves, the fish I'm after are nocturnal hunters.
So I continue fishing into the night, but it's too risky to move around.
There are too many hazards and dangers that could send me into the dark water.
So I change tactics and stick to the shore.
I'm fishing with a big bait cast into the stream.
Fish on.
But it's just another monster piranha.
They're supposed to be asleep now but there's always one.
Always one, yeah.
It's November and the rainy season is fast approaching.
Carbon fibre rods make excellent lightning conductors.
I don't know how long I can stay out here.
Luckily, something picks up the bait.
It feels big, much bigger than anything I've hooked so far.
The question is - do I have one on the end of my line? OK.
Right, that's a new species for here, that's a red-tailed catfish.
The local name for these fish is the "motro tejali", which translates as motor car, on account of all the noises they make when out of the water.
- Oops! Red-tailed catfish.
It's another species that's active at night.
Not what I was after, but it's quite interesting to see a bit of variety here.
It's a familiar species to me but in a different part of South America.
Bit of excitement but the wrong kind of excitement.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
Although I've not caught the wolf fish I'm hunting, I have caught almost every other predatory fish that prowls these waterways.
From monster red-eyed piranha to red-tailed catfish.
Is there a trick that I'm missing in order to catch one of these elusive fish? But this time has also allowed me to prepare the wolf fish skull that I got from the fish market in town.
First thing that's apparent is that, unlike a human skull, this, here, is a real three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.
It's gonna take me quite a bit of fiddling around for me to reassemble this.
To find out exactly what it is I'm up against.
The size of the skull, as it starts to come together, is surprising.
Considering it's from a fish no bigger than ten pounds, imagine the jaws of a giant.
Well, there it is.
It might not be a museum-quality reconstruction, but it does give a very good idea of the animal I'm gonna be up against.
Very, very hard bony skull, fearsome fangs and very big eye sockets.
So it's very clearly a sight predator.
It really does look like some kind of dinosaur, but, actually this thing was alive not very long ago and there's more of them out there.
I have now seen for myself that the wolf fish is clearly well armed.
But does it live up to its fearsome reputation? Over the next few days, I travel further and further, fishing as much as I can, to see if I can catch a live one to put this to the test.
Oh.
Oh, there's something at it.
Something's at it.
Yeah.
Felt like piranha and, judging by the empty hook, that's what I'm thinking it was.
Pieter and I discuss tactics and locations.
But I still have no wolf fish for all the effort I'm putting in.
I can't help but feel there is a piece to this puzzle I'm missing.
After several more days of trying with no success, my guide Pieter suggests we visit the only village in the area and talk with the locals, to see if they can give us the information that we need.
The Trio Tribes village at Amatopo has no more than 20 huts.
It is their only settlement on the Corentyne River.
They live with the wolf fish, so they know it better than anyone.
I'm hoping they will share some of its secrets with me.
How dangerous exactly is the Anjumara? (Translates in local language) (Replies in local language) Artiny was hunting and he came to a creek near here called Mosquito Creek.
And there was a troop of monkeys crossing the creek.
(Speaks local language) They were going to the furthest branch on one side, jumping across onto the furthest branch the other side and the whole group of monkeys had jumped, apart from the last one.
(Artiny speaks local language) One missed the branch, landed in the water.
As soon as it hit the water, it was attacked by a wolf fish.
And killed.
Suddenly, the stories come thick and fast.
(Speaks local language) So somebody was actually bitten on the arm.
That speaks of a real sort of aggression.
Artiny's uncle was hunting one day with his dog.
Hunting dogs, when they're hunting, they're barking, barking.
Artiny's uncle found his dog dead in the creek with its stomach ripped open.
There's now another incident of somebody getting bitten.
In this case, on the thumb.
So that's another two animals to add to the list.
Snakes swimming on the surface and just being taken from below.
There's a type of bird called an tinamou.
This is a bird that comes to the water to drink and, likewise, that's just grabbed by one of these fish, just lurking there, in ambush.
Is Artiny sort of, you know, wary about getting in the water sometimes? (Translates in local language) (Replies in local language) People outside South America, they know all about piranhas.
Locally, a wolf fish is a fish with a very big reputation.
It's known to be very aggressive and there are certain circumstances where they will literally rip anything apart that goes near them.
Reptiles, birds, primates.
Even people.
(Men converse in local language) After listening to the Trio Tribe, it's clear that having the weaponry is one thing, having the attitude is quite another.
The wolf fish is well-equipped with both.
But one thing still alludes me - where do you find them? Salomone agrees to take me fishing.
But it's like no fishing I've done before.
Straight away, we do something I wasn't expecting.
Salomone leads me to a narrow creek.
One that no-one has been through for some time.
We then take to the land and creep through the jungle.
Looks like we're following the course of a dried up sub-creek.
So the chances are there's gonna be a junction here, and that looks like the kind of place where you might find fish.
He fishes with a bow and arrow, the way his ancestors have for centuries.
He's stringing the bow.
Just getting the tension of the bow.
(Salomone whistles) He's mimicking the sound of a water bird, so there's a little bit of disturbance on the surface.
A little bit of whistling.
The idea is this calls the wolf fish in.
I don't know if it's coincidence or what, but we've just seen movement on the surface, which looked very much like a wolf fish.
Oh, yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
Ooh.
Is it on? He missed it.
But it has given me the last piece of this puzzle.
One thing, very, very striking, that fish when it came in, that was in very shallow water.
Not just that, very tangly water.
So this isn't the monster of the deep, this a monster, sometimes, of the shallows.
The fishing with a line is going to be very close quarters.
Also, these snags will present a real problem, not just in terms of getting a bait to a place where the fish can take it, but, also, if I get a heavy fish on, extracting it from all this stuff will be very challenging.
And who knows, that might even be at night, so this is gonna be quite some fishing.
I decide to have a go myself using the gear I'm accustomed to.
I'm now using my larger fixed spool reel and a big chunk of bait, with a wire trace to stop any sharp teeth from biting through.
I'm also trying to make some disturbance on the surface, like Salomone did, to see if it will attract any hungry wolf fish.
No takes on the bait, no reaction to the popper.
Looks a good spot, but doesn't seem to be anything at home.
We've reached the end of the navigable stretch of this creek now.
It's just this impenetrable tangle of branches now, so if we hacked our way through that, we'd disturb everything.
You could hardly get a bait into the water.
Anyway, very, very interesting fishing.
On our way back to the village on the main river, conditions are changing.
It may be nothing to worry about, this black cloud here, because the weather in the tropics it can be very localised.
You can see a storm over in one direction.
Maybe it comes your way, you get wet, maybe it goes somewhere else.
But it seems to have passed us by, or so I think.
With nothing for the pot, Salomone takes me on a detour to catch some fish for dinner.
Think this could be our spot, here.
So off the rocks, there's gonna be a nice slack with eddies happening on the other side.
But out on this exposed island in the middle of the river, we are about to discover just how changeable and dangerous conditions are in the rainforest.
This is a classic example of pure fishing, in a way.
It's starting with absolutely nothing, just coming down with a couple of rods, no bait, and just poking around in these cracks to find crabs.
And then a crab is pulled to pieces and that's where we start from.
- Hopefully we turn that - (Crash of lightning) - (Bleep) me! Should I take this off? JEREMY: I would.
I would - Yeah? - That lightning strike was right on top of us.
Salomone was standing in the water and felt a shock through the water.
Abandoning We're getting in the boat and we're going.
We're going.
I thought we'd all escaped that lightning strike.
The soundman on my crew didn't.
Our sound recordist has been hit, was struck on the head by that bolt of lightning.
Chris, are you OK? Are you responding? Good, good.
Right, we might need some first aid here.
- Let's go.
- Quick, quick, quick.
How are you feeling? Right.
We're moving away from the storm now, so that's good.
What, your rubber soles, rubber soles? Good.
I've got a bit of a headache.
James, who's behind the camera, has got a headache.
I think it might have hit all three of us.
Chris definitely got the brunt of it.
I mean, very, very lucky for him, he was actually wearing thick rubber-soled boots, so he's conscious, which is a huge relief.
We're arriving back at the camp.
I suspect that the lightning bolt actually struck very close to where we were all standing.
We all felt the effects of the strike, but Chris was obviously the closest.
The remoteness of our location is now even more apparent.
But, thankfully, Chris's condition continues to improve.
And within 12 hours, he is back on his feet and eager to get me fishing again.
So if you just tell me again how far from here we're going.
That night, Pieter lays out his plans for us to head even deeper into the jungle.
To try and reach some creeks that he believes will be the best places for us to catch a wolf fish.
But it will mean camping and being self-sufficient for several days in a place even more remote.
With all that has happened, it is a brave plan, and we decide to sleep on it.
But I discuss it with the crew, and there's really only one decision.
I'm actually going even more remote, if such a thing is possible.
I figure that if I'm going to find a big wolf fish, I'm going to need to go somewhere where even the Trio don't normally go.
The sheer size of the Corentyne River is humbling.
In places, it is over two miles wide: A confusion of tangled islands, channels, rocky outcrops and narrow rapids.
We are using a local boatman called Bona, who knows the river well.
Without him, I would quickly become lost in this watery maze.
(Animal calls and cries) The jungle echoes with eerie calls and cries, but it is too impenetrable to reveal the creatures making the noise.
Three hours later, and with nothing but endless rainforest on either bank, we arrive at our new base camp.
It's a collection of small tents on a sand bar on an island in the middle of nowhere.
From here, I will carry out my campaign to catch a wolf fish.
I waste no time getting ready.
And before the sun sets, we head out to the nearest creek to get our bearings.
Wolf fish, it seems, head up creeks during the wet season, dispersing into the flooded forest.
But as the water recedes, they are forced back down towards the main river.
It is then that they are at their easiest to find.
I'm here in what should be the lowest water levels of the year.
But, straightaway, it is apparent the conditions are not ideal.
Very much mixed feelings on arriving at the camp.
The thing that struck me immediately was that the water level is about two foot up on what we'd hoped for, and what we'd expected.
And what is ideal for catching a wolf fish.
Basically, that means the creeks are gonna be that much fuller, so the fish aren't gonna be concentrated, they're gonna be spread up the creek.
They won't be as hungry or as aggressive.
So catching them is likely to be harder than I expected.
But, of course, I push on.
Oh, look at this.
The water's fizzing.
That is fish.
The thing is, it's almost impossible to cast into the middle of that.
Oh.
One turn from it.
Agh! Is it there? No, it's Yeah.
It's off.
Damn! I saw the fish, though.
That was a peacock bass.
And I discover I'm not the only fisherman out here.
Just spotted a caiman, just here amongst these branches.
Looking at me directly with its big eye.
I'm just about to go up the creek.
I'm just trying to get my eye in for spotting things in the water, so I'm quite pleased that I spotted that.
I think the wolf fish are gonna be quite similar.
It's gonna be a case of looking for something just not quite right amongst lots and lots of tangled branches and weeds, that kind of thing.
I have now heard incredible stories of how fearless wolf fish are.
I have caught the huge piranha that they compete with in these rivers.
I have travelled so far and risked so much, that to fall at the last hurdle would be a disaster.
This creek is a really eerie place, a pool enclosed by rainforest in the heart of nowhere.
I have never felt so tiny and remote.
The fragility of my safety has never been so clear.
And to make matters worse, I'm not alone.
A caiman, South America's alligator.
Large ones have been known to attack people.
Although normally quite wary, this one is completely unafraid of me.
Testament to how far from people I've travelled.
I don't want him to come too close, but it's no wonder he's made this creek his home.
That's piranha, that's off.
Ah! It's alive with piranhas.
It's very frustrating.
Every bait I throw out is getting attacked, but, unfortunately, it's by piranhas.
Ah, piranha again.
I'm hoping that as the light fades, they will become less active, but at the moment, I've got a dwindling supply of bait because the piranhas are just attacking it every time.
My best chance is to wait until night.
Salomone told me that once the sun sets, the piranhas run and hide, because that's when the wolf fish come out to hunt.
It seems the piranhas know who the real river monster is.
Fish on! Oh, yeah.
I've finally got a wolf fish on my line, but I'm not the only one with an eye on my catch.
There's a caiman right in front of me.
I do the only thing I can think of.
I'm gonna try and pull this up onto the side.
With the worst possible result.
(Bleeping) I was trying to pull the fish up on the side because the caiman was after it.
And I've lost it, I've lost it.
Damn! Should've had that fish.
If that caiman hadn't been there I'd have probably had that fish.
What I was trying to do was just slide it up on the side.
Hook came out.
Damn! I can't risk going back, even though I know wolf fish are there.
Caiman are territorial and it was certainly not afraid of me.
It will be there again tomorrow without doubt, and next time it might not just go for the fish.
A seven foot caiman could easily attack and a severe injury out here would have serious ramifications.
But morning gives us another problem.
Rain.
The storm makes me, and the whole crew, nervous.
We are nearing the end of the dry season.
When the rainy season starts, two things will happen.
First, the creeks will flood and the fish, already hard to find, will disappear into flooded forest, making them impossible to catch.
Second, and possibly more important, we could become stranded.
The airstrip is upstream and it's our only way home.
If the water gets too high and fast, we will not be able to get out.
It's a sobering thought and it makes me look as much to the sky as I do to the water.
And I certainly don't want to test the theory that lightning never strikes the same place twice.
The new creek that I'm targeting is much narrower and even more surrounded with snags and tangles than the previous one.
Oh, it's off! (Frustrated grunt) Nothing seems to be going my way.
All my previous luck seems to have run out.
Just putting a bit of bait on here.
No response to artificial, so I'm putting a lump of piranha on.
There's been fish moving in here.
One right underneath this tangle of branches, so it's fishing right in the middle of snags.
In a place like this, if it gets even a few feet, it's wrapped itself round a branch, so I give it just enough line to take the bait properly and then it's just trying to haul it to the boat.
Nothing's been moving here for quite a while, so I think I'll go further up the creek and drop in here later.
Nothing doing here at the moment.
I use the large float that I've used before, but out in these creeks, it's hard to know what is a fish and what is a snag.
But these snags are more than just potential fishing hazards.
With half-hidden roots and fallen trees, navigating this waterway at night is a disaster waiting to happen.
And it seems every creek has its caiman.
To make matters worse, I hear a rumble of thunder.
(Rumbling) My window of opportunity is about to slam shut.
This could be my last chance to catch a wolf fish.
Oh, wait, wait, wait Oh off, off, off.
No, I think that could have been a piranha that took it into a snag.
I think it could be time to call it a night.
These things are very active at the moment.
With the storm edging ever closer and hungry piranhas seemingly beating any wolf fish to my bait, I'm considering calling it a night.
But then I make a discovery.
Oh, wait a minute, I've got a scale here.
I've got a scale.
That looks like a small wolf fish.
The storm is closing in, but so are the wolf fish.
I decide to fish on.
Oh, no.
Here we go, here we go.
Finally, a strong take.
It's a wolf fish.
The monster I've spent the past three weeks trying to catch.
Here we go.
And it's a big one.
Over she comes.
(Grunts) But, fantastic, here we go - that's a result, that's lovely.
So here we are, this is the wolf fish.
The stories I've heard about these, absolutely fearless, anything comes near them - dogs, people - they will go for it.
So it looks quite gap-toothed but, actually, pull those lips back and you see they're very spiky fangs underneath there.
The other thing about it is the fishing is unlike anything I've done before.
It's real guerrilla, close quarters, hand-to-hand combat, almost.
My quest for the wolf fish has pushed me to my limits.
Damn! It seems appropriate that I've had to push deeper and deeper into the greatest rainforest in the world to find the most savage and untamed river monster to date.
The piranha gets all the press.
But this guy delivers the goods.
It's well armed, with a fearsome set of teeth, but it's also fiery and fearless, attacking animals and people even out of the water.
And I'm convinced this is the fish that, pound for pound, is the toughest, most monstrous fish of South America.
There it is, the wolf fish.