ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My twenty-five years of mostly solo travel have been aided by too many people to mention individually, principally the fishermen of the rivers I have visited. My more recent involvement in filming has been very much a team effort. Kieron Humphrey was the producer at Carlton TV in London who first saw the possibilities of a documentary about an outlandish Amazonian fish and who touted the idea for over two years. Leonie Hutchinson was the commissioning editor at Discovery Europe who finally made Jungle Hooks a reality, and Gavin Searle was the director who put me through the mill in the making of it. Wildlife filmmaker Lucy dAuvergne first recognized the potential interest of fish mystery stories to a wider audience, and Harry Marshall at Icon Films in Bristol made these a reality, together with Charlie Foley at Animal Planet. For the subsequent making of these programs, my thanks go to the following: Directors/producers: Lucy dAuvergne, Duncan Chard, Steve Gooder, Doug Hope, Charlotte Jones, Alex Parkinson, Barny Revill, and Luke Wiles. Camera: James Bickersteth, Mark Chandler, Duncan Fairs, Brendan McGinty, Rory McGuinness, Rick Rosenthal, Robin Smith, and Simon Wagen. Other crew/support: Poppy Chandler, Holly Cue, Natalie Dunmore, Claire Efergan, Bryce Grunden, Joseph Hassell, Dan Huertas, Lorne Kramer, Andrea Lawther, Becky Lee, Sam Mansfield, Che McGuinness, Dean Miller, Belinda Partridge, Nia Roberts, Robin Shaw, Chris Stitchman, Racquel Toniolo, Solange Welch, Erica Wilson, and Abi Wrigley. Editors: Rama Bowley, Darren Flaxstone, Thomas Kelpie, Matt Meech, Glenn Rainton, Sam Rogers, and James Taggart. Executives: Andie Clare, Laura Marshall, and Lucy Middelboe (Icon Films); Brian Eley, Mick Kaczorowski, Marjorie Kaplan, Jamie Linn, Lisa Bosak Lucas, and Kevin Tao Mohs (Animal Planet); Jo Clinton Davis, Diane Howie, and Katy
Thorogood (ITV); and Bethan Corney (Five). For the safe delivery of this book I am indebted to my agent Julian Alexander, Scott Hoffman and Erin Niumata at Folio Literary Management, and my editors Rene Sedliar at Da Capo and Rowland White at Orion. My thanks, too, to the K. Blundell Trust, administered by the Society of Authors, which provided a grant toward one of my early Amazon research trips. Finally, special gratitude goes to Tim Marks, John Petchey, Martin Wade, and the late David Bird.
JEREMY WADE has a BSc in zoology from Bristol University and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) from the University of Kent. He has worked as a secondary science teacher, a newspaper reporter, and a senior advertising copywriter. He has written for publications including The Times, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, and BBC Wildlife magazine. His previous book, Somewhere down the Crazy River (with Paul Boote), was published in 1992 to stellar reviews. Prior to River Monsters, Jeremy made two documentary series for Discovery Europe: Jungle Hooks (2002, set in the Amazon) and Jungle Hooks India (2005), both since shown worldwide. He lives in southern England.
See www.jeremywade.co.uk for details of upcoming series and other news.
PHOTO CREDITS
Sawback lake monster Jeremy Wade / ardea.com.
Jeremy Wade with car Graeme Whiting.
Jeremy Wade with carp Jeremy Wade.
Jeremy Wade with a fifty-eight pound mahseer Jeremy Wade by Boda.
Zaire riverboat Jeremy Wade.
Zaire village children with tigerfish Jeremy Wade.
Peoples Republic of Congo, fisher boys Jeremy Wade.
Rio Purus storm Jeremy Wade.
Rio Purus aerial view Jeremy Wade.
First Amazon expedition, 1993 Martin Wade.
Jeremy Wade with bent rod Martin Wade.
Jos fishing on Lago Grande Martin Wade.
Butchered arapaima Jeremy Wade.
Amazon fishing canoes Jeremy Wade.
Harpooned arapaima Jeremy Wade.
Jeremy Wade with arapaima Jeremy Wade by Gavin Searle.
Amazon plane crash revisted Jeremy Wade.
Goonch Icon Films, by James Bickersteth.
Goonch underwater Icon Films, by Rick Rosenthal.
Cuiu-cuiu Icon Films, by Barny Revill.
Piraiba Icon Films, by Barny Revill.
Sawfish Icon Films, by Poppy Chandler.
Alligator gar Icon Films, by James Bickersteth.
Queensland grouper Icon Films, by James Bickersteth.
Daybreak on the Brisbane River Icon Films, by James Bickersteth.
The Djou Rapids, Congo River Icon Films, by James Bickersteth.
Goliath tigerfish close-up Icon Films, by Dan Huertas.
Goliath tigerfish Icon Films, by Dan Huertas.
Five-hundred-pound bull shark Icon Films, by Natalie Dunmore.
Half-eaten kob Icon Films, by Duncan Chard.
Electric eel Icon Films, by Alex Parkinson.
Stingray Icon Films, by Dan Huertas.
Longfin eel Icon Films, by Dan Huertas.
CHAPTER 1
GOONCH
When Atropos who snips the threads of life misses one thread she cuts another, and we who do not know why one thread is missed and another cut, call it Fate, Kismet, or what we will.
Jim Corbett,Man-Eaters of Kumaon,1944
THE RIVER IS A ROAR IN MY EARS as the unseen creature starts to drag me, step by stumbling step, toward the murderous water at the tail of the pool, and the moment when I can go no further on land. This is the fish I have been hunting for three yearsand the archetypal monster I have been after all my life. But such is its power, and the weight of monsoon water on top of it, that my desire to capture it with a line now seems like madness.
I want to stop time, to put off the moment, but the whirlpool in front of me continues to turn relentlessly clockwise between the left-to-right surge along the far bank and the countercurrent at my feet. This wheeling back eddy, spun from the main flow by a bulge in the black rock opposite, was my secret weapon, my means of evening the odds in what would otherwise be an impossible situation. And until a few moments ago, my plan was working. Id managed to confuse the fish enough to bring it into the narrow strip where the river runs backward, where the weight of the water was working with me, not against me. But now the fish seems to have worked out where I am and what Im trying to do, and it has turned back into the main flow and is heading exactly where I dont want it to go. If it reaches the outlet, there will be no holding it. And with this side of the riverbank transforming from a boulder beach into sheer cliff and mountainside rearing hundreds of feet high, there will be no following it either.
I picture the fish in the boiling depths, shouldering its way through the lightless waterthe great broad head filled with teeth and the thick muscular body trailing tentacles from every fin. Such is its appalling momentum through water that would grind a person to pieces that I can already taste the sickness and despair that will flood through me when the line cracks like a rifle shot and the rod springs back lifeless in my hands.
Then where will my investigation be? This story of a man-eating fish in