- 5 months ago
Documentary, River Monsters S02E04 Congo Killer
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:01Animal Planet. Surprisingly human.
00:13There are so many rivers around the world, so many far-flung locations,
00:17that I rarely return to the same place twice.
00:20That is, unless I've been defeated the first time.
00:25But there's one place where I've longed to return, a land that beat me before,
00:29a region of unparalleled brutality where, for over a hundred years,
00:33violence and bloodletting have been a way of life.
00:38I travelled here 25 years ago, but had to pick my time carefully.
00:44Since then, continuing violence and unrest have prevented me from going back.
00:50This is the Congo, a region lost in the dark heart of Africa,
00:54a land of fables, legends and spirits.
00:57And there is one spirit in particular, called Mami Wata,
01:00who is said to lure fishermen to the bottom of the river,
01:03where they are imprisoned for eternity.
01:06Far-fetched? Maybe not.
01:10Recently, news stories have reached me of fishermen dragged overboard to their deaths.
01:15So I'm heading back out there, to discover if these tales are just fables and legends,
01:19or if something really is lurking in the depths.
01:22My name is Jeremy Wade. What keeps me alive is catching fish.
01:29But some of the moments when I felt most alive have been those when I was closest to death.
01:36Only by really testing myself do I feel I have achieved anything.
01:40And to do this, I travel far and wide, putting my own safety at risk
01:43to uncover the truth about what lurks in the world's rivers.
01:45I'm heading to the Congo.
01:46One of the few places on Earth that will still really test a fisherman.
01:47The Congo is situated in the massacre of the river,
01:50and it's true in the other coast of Asia.
01:51I'm having to be a question that you are standing up to and where are you actually
01:54bit of a fishing fish.
01:56But some of the moments when I felt most alive have been those
01:57when I was closest to death.
01:59Only by really testing myself do I feel I have achieved anything.
02:02And to do this, I travel far and wide, putting my own safety at risk
02:04to uncover the truth about what lurks in the world's rivers.
02:06I'm heading to the Congo.
02:09One of the few places on Earth that will still really test a fisherman.
02:13The Congo is situated in the tropical heart of Africa.
02:18It is regarded as one of the most violent places on Earth.
02:22My plan is to travel up the Congo River into the interior of this vast continent
02:27and catch myself a monster.
02:34This region has enormous mineral wealth,
02:37but centuries of colonial exploitation and ethnic conflict
02:41have been its ruination.
02:43It now ranks among the poorest and most dangerous places on the planet.
02:48I first came here to the Congo River with my fishing rods 25 years ago.
02:52I was travelling through a country known then as Zaire,
02:55and this was a country the size of Western Europe
02:58but with almost no infrastructure, a really difficult place to travel.
03:02On top of that, the country was under a dictatorship
03:05and there was a real climate of fear at the time,
03:07and it was not really a place that outsiders ever came to.
03:10Certainly nobody travelling on their own as I was.
03:13And I was here for two and a half months,
03:16and I didn't catch a single fish
03:18because the country being so vast and the travelling so difficult,
03:21it just took me all my time to get to the river and then get out again.
03:28But I did talk to people, I spoke to fishermen,
03:30and I heard some stories, stories of fish so huge
03:33that they are said sometimes to drag the fishermen out of their dugout canoes,
03:37drowning them in the water.
03:44And then I was on my way out, I was travelling on a big river boat,
03:47maybe 2,000 other passengers on that boat,
03:49and I actually glimpsed one of these monsters,
03:51somebody dragged it on board, and I took a photograph.
03:54And the memory of that fish has just stayed with me ever since.
03:58But recently, fresh stories have reached my ears of this place,
04:02and they have rekindled the memories of that fish that I saw on the boat,
04:06and they've reminded me that me and this river have got some unfinished business.
04:11The people of the Congo are very superstitious.
04:15They believe that this great river is inhabited by the spirit Mamiwata.
04:19But could this water spirit actually be a rare and massive fish,
04:23like the one I glimpsed all those years ago?
04:25I have to find out.
04:30I get my first real sight of the harshness of life in this place
04:33when we stop in a village to refuel.
04:36Life here is cruel and unforgiving.
04:38Just to survive takes incredible strength, spirit and resilience.
04:47What's slightly disturbing about this fish is that it's still alive.
04:50Catfish tend to stay alive for a long time out of water.
04:54And if you let yourself be ruled by sentiment,
04:56you'd say, really, you should bash this fish on the head,
04:59put it out of its misery.
05:00But if you do that, it's going to go bad very quickly,
05:03and the meat's going to go rotten and people aren't going to eat it.
05:05So basically, if you live somewhere like this,
05:07sentiment goes out the window,
05:09and, you know, you want to keep this thing alive for as long as possible
05:12so that it tastes good when you eat it.
05:14Simple as that.
05:16With their scaleless bodies and whisker-like tentacles,
05:19catfish are incredibly diverse.
05:21There are an estimated 3,000 different species
05:24inhabiting every continent except Antarctica.
05:27I have caught them in the New World and the Old.
05:31But here, the Congo is home to over 200 different types.
05:35That's nearly three times as many as in all the rivers in North America.
05:39This is an electric catfish.
05:41Ah, but here...
05:43OK, OK.
05:45It's got very sharp spines here.
05:47I'm here to catch a catfish that's rumoured to reach eight feet in length
05:54and weigh over 300 pounds,
05:56a leviathan among the world's river monsters.
05:59The local name for the Congo River is Nzadi.
06:04It means the river that swallows all rivers.
06:08Together with its countless tributaries,
06:10it is the second largest river system in the world.
06:13From the Atlantic coast, it coils its way nearly 3,000 miles into Africa's interior,
06:18draining a basin second only in area to the Amazon.
06:22My plan is to travel 500 miles upriver to the village of Bonga.
06:27This part of the Congo was isolated from the outside world
06:30until the arrival of colonisers in the latter part of the 19th century.
06:34Then, everything changed,
06:36under the voracious rule of King Leopold of Belgium.
06:39A reign of terror turned the Congo region into a prison state.
06:44Men were enslaved to gather wild rubber,
06:47and their women and children routinely had their hands chopped off
06:50if the men failed to work hard enough.
06:53Ten million Congolese were brutally killed.
07:02To this day, much of this region remains undiscovered.
07:06This dark heart of Africa is still as unknown to outsiders as it ever was.
07:12I know little of what lies ahead as I venture into one of the darkest places on Earth.
07:19The Congo River is the lifeblood of this region.
07:32Villages cling to its banks.
07:34It provides a vital transport link and is an essential source of food.
07:53As I venture further north, I notice that little has changed over the last 25 years.
07:59I'm using up valuable time, and I still have 200 miles ahead of me
08:05before I reach the place where I saw that giant fish.
08:11As yet another day draws to a close,
08:13I'm getting desperate to see what fish are in the river.
08:16But I have no bait.
08:17That is until the boatmen suggest a local favourite.
08:20Soap.
08:22Any old soap will do.
08:24It's, you know, not just your traditional sort of animal fat-based soap,
08:30but any antiseptic soap, you name it, the fish will go for it.
08:34And one good thing about it is it will really give off a good scent trail down the river.
08:39The catfish here are said to be among the biggest anywhere in the world.
08:45I've set myself up in a quiet slack on the edge of the current.
08:53The river's a bit like a conveyor belt.
08:56If you position yourself in the right place, it will bring food,
08:59and this is just the kind of place where everything settles out
09:02and where the fish congregate.
09:04But as the hours pass, the only thing that's biting are the mosquitoes.
09:34I'm pretty sure that was just the current,
09:45and every now and again you get a real surge.
09:48But things are very quiet, and that's...
09:53I don't know.
09:54It's quite a surprise.
10:01Fish on!
10:04That's a fish.
10:14I'm in the Congo, deep in the dark heart of Africa,
10:18searching for a monster catfish.
10:21Lay this down.
10:23I recognise this as one of the giant catfish species,
10:26but this is just a baby.
10:28Even so, he gave me quite an impressive run-around,
10:31which is a bit scary, because it's said they can grow
10:34to over 100 times this size and drag fishermen from their boats.
10:46I know of catfish in the Amazon big enough to swallow people whole,
10:50so there's no reason why this river couldn't be home to fish of a similar size.
10:55Crucially for me, there is virtually no commercial fishing here,
11:00unlike, say, the Amazon, where you've got a huge commercial fishing fleet
11:03that extracts literally tonnes of fish every day.
11:05So if that's one river in the world where you might hope to find a real monster lurking undisturbed in the depths,
11:13this is it.
11:19This is the end of the line for this boat,
11:21and as we pull into a remote fishing village,
11:24I get my first sight of a Congo River monster.
11:30They call them eels.
11:31I'm used to eels that are about that round,
11:33and maybe 18 inches, two foot long.
11:35These things, you know, they're the thickness of your leg,
11:37and maybe four getting on for five foot.
11:40I'll see if we can maybe get one out and have a proper look at one.
11:44They're just such weird-looking creatures.
11:52Right.
11:53I'm not going to put the hands in the mouth there.
11:54There are some pretty nasty-looking fangs in there.
11:57They look sharp, they also look quite dirty and unhygienic.
12:03I think I've got an ID on these. I think these are lungfish.
12:06Oui.
12:07That is because this fish actually has an air bladder which is used as a lung,
12:11so it can actually breathe out of water.
12:13And this is a fish that can bury itself underground and survive droughts.
12:20It sort of, I think, belched out a little bit of air,
12:22and then there was a...
12:23took some air in and then belched out of the gills.
12:28Small eyes generally on a fish means that, you know,
12:30they don't use them much for feeding.
12:32They're probably using vibration or scent in the water more than vision
12:37to find their food.
12:38This was caught on a palm nut,
12:40so it suggests, you know, an omnivorous feeder.
12:43I mean, that mouth, to me, looks like it's going to take fish.
12:46I'd guess, like a lot of fish around here, you know, it's sort of opportunistic.
12:49It'll actually chomp anything that comes its way.
12:52But anyway, they call this an eel.
12:55And, you know, I have to say, it's the most impressive eel that I've ever seen.
12:59Lungfish are ancient creatures, predating all animals that walk on land.
13:04When I look at a beast like this, Mamiwata no longer seems such a stretch of the imagination.
13:10I find myself a large motorized dugout to take me the remaining stretch of my journey to the village of Bongo.
13:19This village is ideally situated being at the confluence of two rivers, the Congo and the Sangha.
13:27From past experience, I know that this is just the kind of place where big fish gather to feed on small fish.
13:33After a journey of nearly 300 miles, I'm back in the region where I saw that massive catfish all those years ago.
13:43It was also near here that I caught malaria, the insect-borne disease that kills millions of Africans every year.
13:51The memories of that time come flooding back.
13:54As the malarial parasites swarmed through my blood, it felt as if a war was raging inside my body.
14:09I went through two weeks of hell, sweating, hallucinations and fever.
14:17The slightest sound had my head pounding.
14:20I thought I was going to die.
14:24Now I'll have to relive that nightmare as I sit out fishing, night after night, on the same stretch of river.
14:33As I arrive at the village of Bongo, the air is warm, thick, heavy, sluggish.
14:39This is to be my home for the next few weeks, and it's where my journey really begins.
14:43I'm met by the chief, Nguema.
14:47Luckily for me, he speaks fluent French, the language left behind by the European colonisers.
14:54He explains that he has been chosen from a population of several hundred to lead this community, which survives entirely from fishing these waters.
15:03Nguema brings out a covered basin with something moving around in the bottom.
15:10On closer inspection, I glimpse snake-like markings.
15:14I wonder if he is testing me.
15:16Out here, first impressions matter.
15:19I cannot be seen to lose face.
15:21Which fish has given me the most painful injury?
15:34Is it A, an alligator gar, B, a piranha, or C, a catfish?
15:39I asked, which fish has given me the most painful injury?
15:49The answer is C, a catfish.
15:52An eight-inch catfish in the Congo stuck its barbed pectoral spine down the end of my finger.
15:58There was no hospital anywhere near, so I had to ask my boatman to rip it out.
16:02The pain was excruciating.
16:10I'm in the village of Bonga, 500 miles up the Congo River.
16:14The village chief, Nguema, brings out a covered basin.
16:18In the bottom is a creature with markings like those of a snake.
16:22I'm not sure what to do, and take this as a kind of test.
16:25That's a fish and a half, that is.
16:39That's a mongoose.
16:41And that looks just like a snake head.
16:43But it's in Africa.
16:45But it's so similar, so similar.
16:48That bony head and a very muscular body.
16:50And the other thing is they're capable of living in, you know, lots of them all in a very small amount of water.
16:55So they're very well adapted to sort of low oxygen conditions.
16:59I better put it back, I think.
17:01Don't worry about too long.
17:05There's just so many variations on the fish theme here, and just a brilliant example of what they call convergent evolution.
17:10You get, you know, fish in a completely different part of the world, which have the same strategy for survival and actually look very similar.
17:20This does sound like the place for big catfish.
17:31The biggest he's seen was about nine foot in length, but that was a while ago.
17:35Nowadays, maybe five or six foot. I mean, that's still a very big fish.
17:40Nguema has said he will help me in any way he can, starting tomorrow with a trip to meet other fishermen, so I can get the lye of the river.
17:54The chief has let me set up camp in an old deserted logging depot.
17:58The previous inhabitants vanished during the last civil war.
18:01During the past hundred years or so, while much of the world was marching forward, the Congo has been retreating, back into the darkness of a bygone era.
18:16After such a brutal history, it is to be expected that violence breeds violence.
18:21And I can't help but feel that the people here must harbour feelings of antipathy towards outsiders.
18:26My sudden appearance last night has surprised many of the villagers.
18:32But their main concern this morning is the chief's brother, who failed to return from a fishing trip last night.
18:39There are two main methods of fishing here, drift nets and longlines equipped with multiple hooks.
18:46Both techniques are fraught with danger, and the chief takes me to meet fishermen to find out more.
18:56In my experience, this is not only the best way to learn about the fish, but you also get to hear stories that normally never make it to the outside world.
19:04At the first fishing settlement we stop at, I meet Ngomba, who tells me about his friend who was dragged from his boat to his death.
19:15The details of the story appear to be that a fisherman, fairly local to here, went out one morning as usual to check his lines and he didn't come back.
19:26What happened was that two days later, somebody found his body and he had one of his hooks through his shirt and actually into the flesh of his arm.
19:41From the situation of the man's body and the line, they were just able to deduce that he must have been pulling in the line and then just somehow got the hook caught in him.
19:53Caught in him.
20:14And he was pulled over the side.
20:23On the same line, on another hook, was a large catfish.
20:34The size of the catfish, well, you know, he indicated that.
20:39Now, around here, that isn't the length of the fish, that is actually the width of the head, so we're talking a fish well over a hundred pounds.
20:45I wonder what the chief thinks about my mission to catch a monster catfish, especially in the light of this incident and the disappearance of his brother.
20:57We head back to the village and join the rest of the fishermen who are heading out to set their hooks for the night ahead.
21:11And Gwema takes me along. Over the coming weeks, his help could make the difference between success and failure.
21:21I've got close to a hundred hooks there, all baited with, well, some with soap, some with bits of snail.
21:26And this is very precarious. I'm fairly heavy compared to the people here, but we've got quite a wobbly boat.
21:36And the idea of pulling in a big fish from a boat like this is a bit interesting, to say the least.
21:49The first weight has gone in. It's about six feet deep, something like that, it looked like.
21:54And what we're going to do now is put the line out towards the middle of the river with the hooks at intervals,
21:59and then there's a final weight just to hold everything in place.
22:07You get tension building up in the line.
22:13You get these hooks just whipping past you as you're paddling out into the middle.
22:21Actually trying this fishing for myself, it really brings home the reality of that story of the fisherman
22:26who had the hook stuck in his leg when he was pulling in some fish.
22:30The canoe is very unstable. Your feet are very close to coils of line.
22:33You've got dozens of hooks in the boat and, you know, all it needs is just a slight slip,
22:39a slight lapse of concentration, and you're over the side that the consequences can be fatal just like that.
22:45The chief is anxious to head back to the village to see if there is any news about his brother.
23:05And I make my way to an area of the river that, according to the locals,
23:08hold some of the biggest catfish in this region.
23:22What I'll do, I'll have the boat here, and then I'll put two, maybe three rods across.
23:27So I should have quite a good setup there for intercepting anything that might be on the prowl.
23:34The catfish I'm after is most active at night, when it comes into the shallows,
23:38using its whiskers to detect prey.
23:40It is one of the Congo's top predators.
23:59I'm in position, nicely before dark, which is good.
24:02And unlike the local fishermen who go back home, go to sleep, come out in the morning to check their lines,
24:08I'm going to sit here on the rods.
24:11The mosquitoes will be in soon, so I should be buttoning up my shirt, putting on some repellent.
24:17But once I've done that, it's just sit and wait.
24:21And wait.
24:39Eventually, having sat through wave after wave of mosquitoes,
24:43I'm forced to quit and head back to camp.
24:51The chief's actually just come round asking if he can borrow some fuel.
24:58His brother still isn't back from fishing.
25:01He's now well overdue, so what's going to happen?
25:03Some people are going to go out and have a look, try and find him.
25:07If that wasn't actually worrying enough, I've just heard from the house next door
25:10that the way things work here is that there's no such thing as an accident.
25:14Everything has a cause.
25:15And because this disappearance comes at the same time as my being here,
25:20you know, there are people starting to say that I am responsible for this.
25:25The atmosphere here has changed.
25:27Many of the villagers seem stony-faced.
25:30I don't know what's going on, which worries me.
25:33Superstition is incredibly powerful here,
25:35and I have no idea what might happen to me if any harm comes to the chief's brother.
25:50500 miles up the river Congo, and the fragile peace in the village where I'm staying has been shattered
25:58by the disappearance of the chief's brother.
26:01And I've heard that some of the villagers suspect my being here is the cause for his disappearance.
26:06As I lie waiting to hear news, I feel isolated, anxious and vulnerable.
26:15I knew I was heading into the unknown when I set out on this trip.
26:18But I didn't foresee anything like this happening.
26:34I've just actually heard commotion down by the side of the water,
26:37and, you know, even without hearing the words, I think it's good news.
26:41I think they found him, which is just an almighty relief.
26:46One thing, it just shows how this kind of thing happening is, you know,
26:51it's not that uncommon, but thank goodness this time, you know, it's had a happy ending.
26:56The following morning, it is only when I talk to one of the fishermen
27:10that I become aware of the extent of the danger I was in last night.
27:15If the chief's brother had not come back,
27:17some of the villagers were going to stone me to death.
27:20The rules out here are very different.
27:25And as we head out to check the lines,
27:27I try to put the events of last night behind me.
27:34It is now apparent how fundamental the chief is to my success here,
27:37not just in helping with the fishing,
27:39but maybe more importantly, in ensuring my safety.
27:46If anything were to happen to him while he's out with me,
27:49I dare not consider the consequences.
27:53And it's then we catch a snag.
27:58It's a fish, a fish which pulled the line.
28:08Without a second thought, Nguema disappears into the murky water.
28:12And I understand now how different our attitudes to fishing are.
28:16This is real about feeding his family.
28:20I've gone into some of the scariest waters in the world,
28:22but in this situation,
28:23I'd be very afraid to leave the safety of this wobbly canoe.
28:27It's very snag down there, very snag.
28:28I tried to act normal and remain calm,
28:29but this is exactly the scenario I was dreading.
28:30I actually got caught on one of the other hooks.
28:31It's very snagged down there, very snagged.
28:49I try to act normal and remain calm, but this is exactly the scenario I was dreading.
28:55I actually got caught on one of the other hooks.
28:57Now, you know, it doesn't bear thinking about if that hook had gone in fully past the barb,
29:03you know, you're just not going to come up.
29:12It's becoming clear to me that the real danger might not be the monster fish,
29:17but the process of trying to catch them
29:18and the desperation of the fishermen to feed their families.
29:22And Mami Wata may not be a supernatural being.
29:25Perhaps she's just a cultural invention
29:27to soften the reality of a premature, watery grave.
29:32Carefully, we release the tangled line in case there's a fish still attached.
29:36It's a slow process to get all the hooks in.
29:39Four hooks up, no fish so far.
29:41Five hooks, no fish, all the bait's gone.
29:44Six, seven, another one, no fish.
29:47Eight, you can see the bits of snail coming up.
29:50Still no fish.
29:52Nine, empty hook.
29:53Ten.
29:54Ten.
29:56Ten hooks on that line, no fish.
29:59We continue on the opposite side of the river, retrieving the other lines,
30:03but the end result is the same every time.
30:05Nothing to take home after all that work.
30:0866, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76.
30:1676 hooks.
30:16There might be one or two in the boat as well,
30:18but 76 hooks have been out there for,
30:23I don't know, 15 hours, something like that, overnight,
30:28and not a single fish.
30:29And I'm starting to think now, I'm starting to do the maths
30:32and think, here I am, I'm going to fish with one hook.
30:34This is equivalent to me, sitting by the river for 75 nights,
30:40that's two and a half months and catching nothing.
30:44It's quite a surprise.
30:46I've seen fish in the markets and you sort of think,
30:48oh, there's loads of fish around.
30:49But of course those markets, you know,
30:51they are very much collection points for fishermen operating in a wide area.
30:55And who knows how long ago they were caught,
30:58catfish can be tethered and kept alive after capture for several weeks.
31:01It's looking like a much, much tougher challenge than I thought,
31:04just catching anything here.
31:18I recruit other fishermen to help and put out more lines in the water.
31:21So we've got baits out in different types of places.
31:27Nothing so far.
31:29I haven't caught my trophy fish yet,
31:32but then many of the villagers haven't caught anything at all.
31:35As well as the big ones, you know, they need to catch the small ones.
31:37And, you know, too many days not catching anything,
31:41that's seriously bad news, much worse news than it is for me.
31:44As one day merges into another,
31:47I spend the days setting long lines and the nights fishing alone
31:50in areas where local methods are not suited.
31:56But day after day, the results are the same.
31:59And that presents me with a dilemma.
32:01Because if I were to catch a giant catfish,
32:04I would normally want to return it unharmed.
32:06But that would horrify the people who have helped me,
32:09who scratch a meagre existence from this river.
32:11After recent events, I'm beginning to understand
32:18how intricately intertwined superstition is here with everyday life.
32:25This has gone from being a quest to catch a killer catfish
32:28to a matter of survival.
32:30Not just for the villagers, but for me too,
32:32thanks to the power of superstition.
32:41It's been 25 years now.
32:44Such a long journey to get back here,
32:47but so far for nothing.
32:50And I'm almost starting to wonder
32:52if the last quarter century
32:54has maybe even seen an end
32:57of the giant catfish of the Congo.
33:00And now the weather seems to be closing in.
33:06If the rainy season comes early,
33:08the river could become lethal to fish
33:09and the malarial mosquitoes unbearable to be out in.
33:15Unlike the local fishermen, I'm taking anti-malarials,
33:18but actually that didn't make any difference last time I was here.
33:20I was just bitten so much
33:23that, you know, the parasites just overwhelmed my defences.
33:26And I'm thinking now that possibly
33:28just going out every night
33:30is actually possibly a little bit reckless.
33:36But it's said here
33:37that the arrival of the rains brings with it the catfish.
33:41This could be the turning point I'm desperate for.
33:50I've come back to the Congo
33:57to catch myself a monster catfish
33:59and to discover if the river spirit Mamiwata
34:02is dragging fishermen to their depths.
34:05But it's beginning to dawn on me
34:07that the origin of Mamiwata
34:08might not be a spirit or even a fish,
34:11but the hazardous fishing methods used here.
34:15And now the weather seems to be closing in,
34:17but it is said that the arrival of the rains
34:19brings big catfish.
34:21This could be the turning point I'm desperate for.
34:26I feel the line,
34:28waiting to detect the slightest sign of interest from a fish.
34:31The mosquitoes begin their nightly assault,
34:34and the river is throwing everything at me.
34:36I don't know what I'm going to catch first,
34:38a fish or malaria.
34:41But my setup is perfect, and I'm not moving.
34:44This trip is beginning to feel like
34:50the most difficult challenge I've ever faced.
34:52This is another reason for doing things the local way.
35:02The weather is just so unpredictable,
35:04this storm just came from nowhere.
35:07And, you know, sitting here like this,
35:09it does make you appreciate the sense there is
35:11in the way everybody else does their fishing here.
35:14You know, you stay out on the lines like this,
35:16and either you get soaked to the skin
35:17or you just get destroyed by the mosquitoes.
35:28As the hours pass,
35:30I have little to do
35:31but bail out the boat.
35:37And eventually,
35:38it's me that has to bail out.
35:39It really does rather seem
35:48that everything is just conspiring against me.
35:51I had such a good setup there.
35:52I had a couple of good baits out.
35:54The boat was positioned nicely.
35:56And if anything had been in the mood to feed,
35:58you know, I had the perfect ambush set.
36:01And nicely before dark as well.
36:03You know, the sun went down,
36:05the darkness closed in,
36:06and then a few spots of rain,
36:08and then, you know, this hit.
36:23The morning is cloaked in blackness,
36:25an overcast sky from the heart of an immense darkness.
36:28It's not wise to head out alone in these conditions.
36:34So with no sign of the storm abating,
36:36the chief comes to get me
36:37to help him gather the lines.
36:40As we head out,
36:42I think about the fisherman
36:43who was dragged to his death
36:44by a monster catfish on his line.
36:47Weather like this
36:48makes everything more hazardous.
36:50The rough river releases rafts of debris.
36:53Soap and heavy rain
36:54make the boat incredibly slippery,
36:56washing the hooks and lines around my feet.
36:58This will put to the test
37:02everything I have learned
37:03in my short time here.
37:07Again, I wonder if the chief is testing me,
37:10and again, I cannot afford to lose face.
37:22The line that's through is tight.
37:24It's really hard to untow the knot here,
37:27which can mean it's a fish.
37:33So it's me to make sure
37:34that once I've untied it,
37:35I've got a good grip on it.
37:38Okay.
37:41I'm rambering over the hooks here.
37:44Hands on the hooks,
37:45don't like that.
37:46Well, okay.
37:47I'm getting absolutely soaked,
37:51but I don't mind that if that's fish.
37:58Then the break I've been waiting for.
38:02It's the fish, it's the fish, it's the fish.
38:12It's the fish, it's the fish, it's the fish.
38:13The chief and I have come out in a raging storm
38:17to check the lines,
38:18but it's worth it because we have the fish.
38:21But I've got to be especially careful in this weather.
38:27The stories I've heard are racing through my head,
38:30and I'm thankful to have the chief controlling the boat.
38:32Most fishermen here normally go out alone.
38:53I thought I felt something else possibly.
38:57Something moving, something moving down there.
38:59Two fish can mean double the power.
39:01Hey, that's kicking, that's kicking.
39:04I've got to be careful it doesn't pull this line out
39:08and some of those other hooks flying.
39:13But fortunately, it looks like they've already lost
39:16a lot of their power, struggling to get off the lines.
39:19I mean, luckily, these fish have probably been on the line
39:22for a little while.
39:24Let's get all this line well clear from me.
39:26And I can feel something else pulling.
39:30I think there's something pulling on the end of this one.
39:33There is, there's a kick definitely.
39:35I'll just get this hook sorted.
39:35There we go.
39:57Wow.
40:03How about this?
40:04How about this?
40:18Nothing, nothing, nothing.
40:19Nothing nothing nothing, and I think it could have been the rain that well. It's quite possible. It was the rain that got them going
40:26Three nice size sunny there very very nice. The weather's kicking off though. I mean it's coming. It's getting worse
40:32There's lightning. I want to have a look at these fish. I think you know priority should be get back to the village. Have a good look at them there
40:39My priorities I realize have changed
40:4325 years ago. I left the Congo feeling cheated for not having caught the big fish
40:49I returned determined to settle the score, but I'm leaving feeling humbled by this great river and the people who eke out a meagre existence in this crucible of violence
41:00Again, I didn't catch the big one. Maybe they're no longer here
41:04But I did discover that the three I caught could be more than capable of pulling a fisherman overboard if you're using the hazardous local methods
41:12Instead of just being abstract jottings in my notebook
41:16You know I came to really understand how
41:19Those accidents could have happened. You're in a narrow wobbly canoe. Maybe there's waves and wind complicating the situation
41:26There's a fish on the end. It's pulling
41:29And you just lose your concentration for a moment or happen to slip at the moment when that fish makes a lunge
41:34You've got a loose hook flies through the air very easily. It's in your hand. It's in your leg
41:39You're over the side and actually in that situation even a fish this size, you know
41:44You're not going to have a chance against it. This is going to pull you under you cannot pull against a fish even this size
41:50The story of mommy water luring fishermen to their deaths is a fantastical one
41:55But one that in the end I could not debunk because the truth is every bit as frightening as the myth
42:00For me mommy water does exist not as a spirit
42:05But as an entity created by the realities of life here the need to win food day after day from this hostile and mysterious river
42:19Want to know how to catch a river monster of your own I'll show you how at animalplanet.com forward slash river monsters
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