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River.Monsters.S02E03.Congo.Killer

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Animals
Transcript
00:01Animal Planet. Surprisingly human.
00:12There 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.
00:24But there's one place where I've longed to return,
00:27a land that beat me before, a region of unparalleled brutality,
00:31where 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.
00:49This 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 Mamiwata,
01:00who is sent to lure fishermen to the bottom of the river,
01:03where they are imprisoned for eternity.
01:05Far-fetched? Maybe not.
01:10Recently, news stories have reached me of fishermen dragged overboard to their deaths.
01:14So 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.
01:44What keeps me alive is catching fish.
01:47But some of the moments when I felt most alive have been those when I was closest to death.
01:52Only by really testing myself do I feel I have achieved anything.
01:56And to do this, I travel far and wide, putting my own safety at risk
02:00to uncover the truth about what lurks in the world's rivers.
02:05I'm heading to the Congo, one of the few places on earth that will still really test a fisherman.
02:11The Congo is situated in the tropical heart of Africa.
02:18It is regarded as one of the most violent places on earth.
02:21My plan is to travel up the Congo River into the interior of this vast continent
02:26and catch myself a monster.
02:28This region has enormous mineral wealth, but 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 but with almost no infrastructure.
03:00A really difficult place to travel.
03:02On top of that, the country was under a dictatorship and 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 and 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 and I heard some stories.
03:32Stories of fish so huge that they are said sometimes to drag the fishermen out of their dugout canoes,
03:37drowning them in the water.
03:39And 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.
03:52Somebody dragged it on board and I took a photograph.
03:55And 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.
04:12The people of the Congo are very superstitious.
04:14They believe that this great river is inhabited by the spirit Mami Wata.
04:19But could this water spirit actually be a rare and massive fish
04:22like 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, you'd say,
04:57really you should bash this fish on the head, put 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, sentiment 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. Simple as that.
05:15With 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.
05:30But 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.
05:38This is an electric catfish.
05:40Ah, but here?
05:42OK, OK.
05:45It's got very sharp spines here.
05:47I'm here to catch a catfish that's rumoured to reach 8 feet in length
05:54and weigh over 300 pounds,
05:56a leviathan among the world's river monsters.
06:01The 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 under 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.
07:05This dark heart of Africa is still as unknown to outsiders as it ever was.
07:11I know little of what lies ahead as I venture into one of the darkest places on Earth.
07:20The Congo River is the lifeblood of this region.
07:44Villages cling to its banks.
07:47It provides a vital transport link and is an essential source of food.
07:54As I venture further north, I notice that little has changed over the last 25 years.
08:00I'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.
08:08As yet another day draws to a close, I'm getting desperate to see what fish are in the river.
08:16But I have no bait.
08:18That is until the boatmen suggest a local favourite.
08:21Soap.
08:23Any old soap will do.
08:24It's not just your traditional animal fat-based soap, but any antiseptic soap.
08:32You 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.
08:46I'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,
08:58and this is just the kind of place where everything settles out and where the fish congregate.
09:05But as the hours pass, the only thing that's biting are the mosquitoes.
09:28I'm pretty sure that was just the current, and every now and again you get a real surge.
09:47But things are very quiet, and that's...
09:51I don't know.
09:54It's quite a surprise.
09:58Fish on!
10:01Fish on!
10:13That's a fish.
10:14I'm in the Congo, deep in the dark heart of Africa, searching for a monster catfish.
10:21Lay this down.
10:23I recognise this as one of the giant catfish species, but this is just a baby.
10:28Even so, he gave me quite an impressive runaround, which is a bit scary, because it's said they can grow to over 100 times this size, and drag fishermen from their boats.
10:39I know of catfish in the Amazon big enough to swallow people whole, so there's no reason why this river couldn't be home to fish of a similar size.
10:54Crucially for me, there's virtually no commercial fishing here, unlike, say, the Amazon, where you've got a huge commercial fishing fleet that extracts literally tons of fish every day.
11:07So if that's one river in the world where you might hope to find a real monster lurking undisturbed in the depths, this is it.
11:19This is the end of the line for this boat, and as we pull into a remote fishing village, I get my first sight of a Congo river monster.
11:28Anguille. Anguille?
11:29Yeah.
11:30They call them eels. I'm used to eels that are about that round and maybe 18 inches, two foot long.
11:35These things, you know, they're the thickness of your leg, and 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.
11:45They're just such weird-looking creatures.
11:53I'm not going to put my hands in the mouth there. There are some pretty nasty-looking fangs in there.
11:58They look sharp, they also look quite dirty and unhygienic.
12:03I think I've got an idea on these. I think these are lungfish.
12:06Really?
12:07Oh!
12:09That is because this fish actually has an air bladder which is used as a lung, so it can actually breathe out of water.
12:14And 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 and then there was a...
12:24Took some air in and then belched out of the gills.
12:28Small eyes generally on a fish means that, you know, they don't use them much for feeding.
12:32They're probably using vibration or scent in the water.
12:37More than vision to find their food.
12:39This was caught on a palm nut.
12:41So, it suggests, you know, an omnivorous feeder.
12:44I mean, that mouth, to me, looks like it's going to take fish.
12:47I'd guess like a lot of fish around here, you know, it's sort of opportunistic.
12:50It'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.
13:11I find myself a large motorized dugout to take me the remaining stretch of my journey to the village of Bonga.
13:19This village is ideally situated being at the confluence of two rivers, the Congo and the Sanga.
13:25From past experience, I know that this is just the kind of place where big fish gather to feed on small fish.
13:35After 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.
13:50The memories of that time come flooding back.
13:57As 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.
14:14The slightest sound had my head pounding.
14:20I thought I was going to die.
14:23Now I'll have to relive that nightmare as I sit out fishing, night after night, on the same stretch of river.
14:31As I arrive at the village of Bonga, the air is warm, thick, heavy, sluggish.
14:38This is to be my home for the next few weeks, and it's where my journey really begins.
14:44I'm met by the chief, Nguema.
14:49Luckily 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.
15:04Nguema brings out a covered basin with something moving around in the bottom.
15:09On closer inspection, I glimpse snake-like markings.
15:14I wonder if he is testing me.
15:16Out here, first impressions matter.
15:18I cannot be seen to lose face.
15:22Did he pick?
15:23No, no.
15:24There's no fish.
15:25There's no fish.
15:31Which fish has given me the most painful injury?
15:34Is it A, an alligator gar, B, a piranha, or C, a catfish?
15:45I 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.
16:11I'm in the village of Gbonga, 500 miles up the Congo River.
16:15The village chief, Nguema, brings out a covered basin.
16:18In the bottom is a creature with markings like those of a snake.
16:21I'm not sure what to do, and take this as a kind of test.
16:24I'm not sure what to do, and take this as a kind of test.
16:25That's a fish and a half, that is.
16:27That's a Mungusu.
16:28And that looks just like a snakehead.
16:29That's, gosh, that's a fish and a half, that is.
16:39That's a mongoose, and that looks just like a snakehead, but it's in Africa, but it's
16:46so similar, so similar, that bony head and a very muscular body, and the other thing
16:50is they're capable of living in, you know, lots of them all in a very small amount of
16:54water, so they're very well adapted to sort of low oxygen conditions. I better put it
16:59back, I think, don't worry about too long.
17:05There's just so many variations on the fish theme here, and just a brilliant example of
17:09what they call convergent evolution. You get, you know, fish in a completely different part
17:13of the world, which have the same strategy for survival, and actually look very similar.
17:19This does sound like the place for big catfish. The biggest he's seen was about nine foot
17:34in length, but that was a while ago. Nowadays, maybe five or six foot. I mean, that's still
17:38a very big fish.
17:40Nguema has said he will help me in any way he can, starting tomorrow with a trip to meet
17:46other 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. The previous inhabitants
17:59vanished during the last civil war.
18:05During the past hundred years or so, while much of the world was marching forward, the
18:09Congo 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, and I can't
18:21help but feel that the people here must harbour feelings of antipathy towards outsiders.
18:28My sudden appearance last night has surprised many of the villagers. But their main concern
18:34this morning is the chief's brother, who failed to return from a fishing trip last night.
18:41There are two main methods of fishing here, drift nets and longlines equipped with multiple
18:46hooks. Both techniques are fraught with danger, and the chief takes me to meet fishermen to find
18:52out more. In my experience, this is not only the best way to learn about the fish, but you
19:00also get to hear stories that normally never make it to the outside world.
19:08At the first fishing settlement we stop at, I meet Ngomba, who tells me about his friend,
19:13who 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
19:23one morning, as usual, to check his lines and he didn't come back. What happened was that
19:32two days later, somebody found his body and he had one of his hooks through his shirt and
19:39actually into the flesh of his arm. From the situation of the man's body and the line, they
19:47were just able to deduce that he must have been pulling in the line and then just somehow got
19:52the hook caught in him.
20:09And he was pulled over the side. On the same line, on another hook, was a large catfish.
20:33The size of the catfish, well, you know, he indicated that. Now, around here, that isn't
20:40the length of the fish, that is actually the width of the head, so we're talking a fish
20:44well over a hundred pounds.
20:46I wonder what the chief thinks about my mission to catch a monster catfish, especially in the
20:52light of this incident and the disappearance of his brother.
20:56We head back to the village and join the rest of the fishermen, who are heading out to set
21:09their hooks for the night ahead. And Gwema takes me along. Over the coming weeks, his help
21:16could make the difference between success and failure.
21:19I've got close to a hundred hooks there, all baited with, well, some with soap, some with
21:26bits of snail. And this is very precarious. I'm fairly heavy compared to the people here,
21:31but we've got quite a wobbly boat. And the idea of pulling in a big fish from a boat like
21:41this is a bit interesting, to say the least.
21:48The first weight has gone in. It's about six feet deep, something like that, it looked like.
21:53And what we're going to do now is put the line out towards the middle of the river with the
21:58hooks at intervals, and then there's a final weight just to hold everything in place.
22:02You get tension building up in the line. You get these hooks just whipping past you as
22:15you're paddling out into the middle. Actually trying this fishing for myself, it really brings
22:23home the reality of that story of the fisherman who had the hook stuck in his leg when he was
22:28pulling in some fish. The canoe is very unstable, your feet are very close to coils of line,
22:33you've got dozens of hooks in the boat, and all it needs is just a slight slip, a slight lapse
22:39of concentration, and you're over the side and 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.
23:04And I make my way to an area of the river that, according to the locals, hold some of the biggest catfish in this region.
23:15What 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, using its whiskers to detect prey.
23:40It is one of the Congo's top predators.
23:53I'm in position, nicely before dark, which is good, and unlike the local fishermen who go back home, go to sleep, come out in the morning to check their lines, I'm going to sit here on the rods.
24:10The mosquitoes will be in soon, so I should be buttoning up my shirt, putting on some repellent, but once I've done that, it's just sit and wait.
24:21Eventually, having sat through wave after wave of mosquitoes, I'm forced to quit and head back to camp.
24:44The chief's actually just come round asking if he can borrow some fuel.
24:57His brother still isn't back from fishing. He's now well overdue, so what's going to happen, some people are going to go out and have a look, try and find him.
25:04If that wasn't actually worrying enough, I've just heard from the house next door that, you know, the way things work here is that there's no such thing as an accident.
25:13Everything has a cause, and because this disappearance comes at the same time as my being here, you know, there are people starting to say that I am responsible for this.
25:23The atmosphere here has changed. Many of the villagers seem stony-faced. I don't know what's going on, which worries me.
25:32Superstition is incredibly powerful here, and I have no idea what might happen to me if any harm comes to the chief's brother.
25:39500 miles up the river Congo, and the fragile peace in the village where I'm staying has been shattered by the disappearance of the chief's brother.
26:00And 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.
26:14I knew I was heading into the unknown when I set out on this trip, but I didn't foresee anything like this happening.
26:30I've just actually heard commotion down by the side of the water and, 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.
26:45One thing, it just shows how this kind of thing happening is, you know, it's not that uncommon, but thank goodness this time, you know, it's had a happy ending.
27:00The following morning, it is only when I talk to one of the fishermen that I become aware of the extent of the danger I was in last night.
27:14If the chief's brother had not come back, some of the villagers were going to stone me to death.
27:19The rules out here are very different, and as we head out to check the lines, I try to put the events of last night behind me.
27:33It is now apparent how fundamental the chief is to my success here.
27:37Not just in helping with the fishing, but maybe more importantly, in ensuring my safety.
27:42If anything were to happen to him while he's out with me, I dare not consider the consequences.
27:51And it's then we catch a snag.
27:55It's a fish, a fish which pulled the line.
28:00Without 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.
28:19I've gone into some of the scariest waters in the world, but in this situation, I'd be very afraid to leave the safety of this wobbly canoe.
28:27That block was here.
28:46It's very snag down there, very snag.
28:49I try to act normal and remain calm, but this is exactly the scenario I was dreading.
28:55It actually got caught on one of the other hooks.
28:57Now, you know, it doesn't bear thinking about it.
29:00If that hook had gone in fully past the barb, you know, you're just not going to come up.
29:04It's becoming clear to me that the real danger might not be the monster fish, but the process of trying to catch them, and the desperation of the fishermen to feed their families.
29:21And Mami Wata may not be a supernatural being.
29:25Perhaps she's just a cultural invention to soften the reality of a premature watery grave.
29:30Carefully, we release the tangled line in case there's a fish still attached.
29:35It's a slow process to get all the hooks in.
29:38Four hooks up, no fish so far.
29:41Five hooks, no fish.
29:42All the bait's gone.
29:43Six.
29:44Seven.
29:45Another one, no fish.
29:46Eight.
29:47You can see the bits of snail coming up.
29:49Still no fish.
29:50Nine.
29:51Empty hook.
29:52Ten.
29:54Ten hooks on that line, no fish.
29:57No fish.
29:58We continue on the opposite side of the river, retrieving the other lines, but 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.
30:1576 hooks, there might be one or two in the boat as well, but 76 hooks have been out there for, I don't know, 15 hours, something like that, overnight.
30:26And not a single fish.
30:29And I'm starting to think now, I'm starting to do the maths and think, here I am, I'm going to fish with one hook.
30:35This is equivalent to me sitting by the river for 75 nights.
30:40That's two and a half months and catching nothing.
30:43It's quite a surprise.
30:45I've seen fish in the markets and you sort of think, oh, there's loads of fish around.
30:49But of course those markets, you know, they are very much collection points for fishermen operating in a wide area.
30:55And who knows how long ago they were caught, catfish can be tethered and kept alive after capture for several weeks.
31:01It's looking like a much, much tougher challenge than I thought, just catching anything here.
31:06I 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.
31:26Nothing so far.
31:28I haven't caught my trophy fish yet, but then many of the villagers haven't caught anything at all.
31:34As well as the big ones, you know, they need to catch the small ones.
31:36And, you know, too many days not catching anything, that's seriously bad news.
31:42Much worse news than it is for me.
31:44As one day merges into another, I spend the days setting long lines and the nights fishing alone in areas where local methods are not suited.
31:52But day after day, the results are the same.
31:58And that presents me with a dilemma.
32:00Because if I were to catch a giant catfish, I would normally want to return it unharmed.
32:05But that would horrify the people who have helped me, who scratch a meagre existence from this river.
32:11After recent events, I'm beginning to understand how intricately intertwined superstition is here with everyday life.
32:25This has gone from being a quest to catch a killer catfish to a matter of survival.
32:30Not just for the villagers, but for me too, thanks to the power of superstition.
32:41It's been 25 years now. Such a long journey to get back here, but so far for nothing.
32:50And I'm almost starting to wonder if the last quarter century has maybe even seen an end of the giant catfish of the Congo.
33:02And now the weather seems to be closing in.
33:05If the rainy season comes early, the 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, but actually that didn't make any difference last time I was here.
33:21I was just bitten so much that, you know, the parasites just overwhelmed my defences.
33:26And I'm thinking now that possibly just going out every night is actually possibly a little bit reckless.
33:32But it's said here that the arrival of the rains brings with it the catfish.
33:41This could be the turning point I'm desperate for.
33:44I've come back to the Congo to catch myself a monster catfish and to discover if the river spirit, Mamiwata, is dragging fishermen to their depths.
34:03But it's beginning to dawn on me that the origin of Mamiwata might not be a spirit or even a fish, but the hazardous fishing methods used here.
34:13And now the weather seems to be closing in, but it is said that the arrival of the rains brings big catfish.
34:21This could be the turning point I'm desperate for.
34:23I feel the line, waiting to detect the slightest sign of interest from a fish.
34:31The mosquitoes begin their nightly assault, and the river is throwing everything at me.
34:36I don't know what I'm going to catch first, a fish or malaria.
34:40But my setup is perfect, and I'm not moving.
34:48This trip is beginning to feel like the most difficult challenge I've ever faced.
34:53This is another reason for doing things the local way.
35:02The weather just so unpredictable, this storm just came from nowhere.
35:06And, you know, sitting here like this, it does make you appreciate the sense there is in the way everybody else does their fishing here.
35:14You know, you stay out on the lines like this, and either you get soaked to the skin, or you just get destroyed by the mosquitoes.
35:23As the hours pass, I have little to do but bail out the boat.
35:32And eventually, it's me that has to bail out.
35:38It really does rather seem that everything is just conspiring against me. I had such a good setup there.
35:51I had a couple of good baits out, the boat was positioned nicely.
35:54And if anything had been in the mood to feed, you know, I had the perfect ambush set.
36:00And nicely before dark as well.
36:02You know, the sun went down, the darkness closed in, and then a few spots of rain, and then, you know, this hit.
36:10The morning is cloaked in blackness, an overcast sky from the heart of an immense darkness.
36:28It's not wise to head out alone in these conditions.
36:33So with no sign of the storm abating, the chief comes to get me, to help him gather the lines.
36:38As we head out, I think about the fisherman who was dragged to his death by a monster catfish on his line.
36:45Weather like this makes everything more hazardous.
36:49The rough river releases rafts of debris.
36:52Soap and heavy rain make the boat incredibly slippery, washing the hooks and lines around my feet.
37:00This will put to the test everything I have learned in my short time here.
37:06Again, I wonder if the chief is testing me.
37:09And again, I cannot afford to lose face.
37:15The line that's through all is tight.
37:23It's really hard to untow the knot here.
37:27Which can mean it's a fish.
37:32So it's me to make sure that once I've untied it, I've got a good grip on it.
37:37Okay.
37:40I am bringing over the hooks here.
37:42Hands on the hooks don't like that.
37:46Oh, okay.
37:49I'm getting absolutely soaked.
37:51But I don't mind that if that's fish.
37:58Then the break I've been waiting for.
38:01It's the fish, it's the fish, it's the fish.
38:12The chief and I have come out in a raging storm to 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.
38:38I thought I felt something else possibly.
38:54Something moving, something moving down there.
38:58Two 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 and send those other hooks flying.
39:13But fortunately it looks like they've already lost a lot of their power struggling to get off the lines.
39:17I mean luckily these fish have probably been on the line for a little while.
39:22Let's get all this line well clear from me.
39:26And I can feel something else pulling.
39:29I think there's something pulling on the end of this one.
39:32There is, there's a kick definitely.
39:34I'll just get this hook sorted.
39:35There we go.
39:56There we go.
39:59Oh!
40:05Wow, how about this, how about this.
40:19Nothing, nothing, nothing.
40:21And 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 sized sunni there, three very nice size sunni.
40:29The weather's kicking off though, I mean it's coming, it's getting worse.
40:32It was lightning.
40:34I want to have a look at these fish but I think, you know, priority should be get back to the village.
40:38Have a good look at them there.
40:40My priorities I realise have changed.
40:4325 years ago I left the Congo feeling cheated for not having caught the big fish.
40:49I return determined to settle the score, but I'm leaving feeling humbled by this great river
40:54and the people that eke out a meagre existence in this crucible of violence.
40:58Again, I didn't catch the big one.
41:02Maybe they're no longer here, but I did discover that the three I caught
41:06could 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 those accidents could have happened.
41:20You'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, and you just lose your concentration for a moment
41:31or 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, you're over the side.
41:40And actually in that situation, even a fish this size, you know, you're not going to have a chance against it.
41:45This is going to pull you under, you cannot pull against a fish even this size.
41:50The story of Mamiwata 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.
42:01For me, Mamiwata does exist, not as a spirit, but as an entity created by the realities of life here.
42:07The 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?
42:22I'll show you how at animalplanet.com forward slash river monsters.