River Monsters (2009–2017): Season 4, Episode 6 - Russian Killer - full transcript
My name is Jeremy Wade.
I'm an explorer
and fishing detective.
I'm always on the lookout
for mysterious fishy tales
that don't quite add up.
Careful! Careful! Careful!
This is a big one.
And one such story
that I've just heard about
from the far wild east of Russia
has really snagged my interest.
A fishing trip
gone horribly wrong.
Three men mysteriously disappear
on a remote and wild river
in Russia.
It has all the hallmarks
of a classic "River Monsters"
investigation...
Telltale clues that this was not
just a simple fishing accident.
I believe they encountered
something in the water,
something big enough
and terrible enough
to cause the death
of not just one man...
but of all three.
October 2009,
the Amur River in
the far wild east of Russia.
Three men set out
on a fishing trip.
It's the kind of trip they've
made many times before.
Only this time, it's different.
This time, they never return.
A year later, the bodies
of two of the men are found...
Or what's left of them.
Long dead, apparently drowned.
The third body
is never recovered.
Over the years,
there have been many rumors
of disappearances,
deaths, and monsters connected
with the Amur River.
But it's impossible to get
any more information.
It's as if there's something
in the water
that they don't want the
outside world to know about.
So I've had nothing concrete
to go on...
until now.
Russia is a place
I've never been to before.
It's the largest country
in the world,
and the Amur is the world's
10th longest river.
At 2,700 miles,
it's nearly twice as long
as the Colorado.
The region is home to some of
the largest land predators...
Tigers and bears.
But what's in the river?
Legend has it the river
was carved out
by a huge black dragon
as it dragged its body
from the sea.
And something still lurks
in its depths,
killing fishermen to this day.
I want to find out what it is.
What I need are facts.
And after three days
of traveling,
I arrive at the town
of Nikolayevsk
near the river's mouth.
Once a wealthy place,
it's now more like a ghost town.
I'm looking for details
of what exactly happened
to those three fishermen.
In this remote location
where few outsiders travel,
getting information
is not going to be easy.
So I go fishing...
At a small feeder stream
on the outskirts of town.
People in isolated communities
can be suspicious of strangers,
so I'm using myself as bait.
Oh! Oh!
To see if the novelty
of an outsider
might tempt somebody to talk.
I... I think I just
briefly hooked something.
But I don't want to
strike too early
and reveal that
it's information I'm after...
Not until I've gained
their trust.
This one.
Okay, blue fox.
Okay.
Thank you.
Fishing for me is often about
thinking outside the box.
My efforts are rewarded.
I get an invitation to
join them inside their home,
but first, I want to prove
that I'm capable
of bringing a fish in.
Whoa.
But wherever I fish,
I seem to run into competition
I wasn't expecting.
Hey! Hey! Hey! I've got a dog
here.
No! No! No! No! No! No!
In the Amazon,
I've had to compete with caiman
for the fish on the line.
And in Alaska,
a bear took my fish.
But a dog is a first.
Well, I don't want a dog
with a hook in its mouth.
That would not be...
That would not be fun.
What a lovely fish...
A lovely chum salmon.
Beautiful coloration,
pink band down the side,
those dark spots on the back.
I'm told this river is stuffed
with salmon.
Interesting.
I think you're starting to see
that sort of metamorphosis
that they undergo when they come
in the rivers,
that sort of hook
on the lower jaw,
hump of the back there.
A lot of the locals are keeping
these for the pot.
I think while nobody's looking
I might slip this one back,
though.
This catch is significant,
because no monster can exist
without a food supply.
This abundance of salmon
would fulfill that role.
I join Egor Poroshan and
his friends inside to warm up.
And as we talk,
I'm hoping I'll get
the information
I have come here for.
Does anyone know of the
fishermen who disappeared?
Wade: Other fish?
After some general fishing chat,
Egor tells me a key fact about
the three men who vanished.
Well, I've managed to find out
a little bit more.
The fishermen actually
weren't from here.
They were from a town a little
way further up the river.
With some borrowed transport,
I head west to the town
of Innokentyevka.
With fewer than 5,000 people,
this fishing community
is one of just a handful
along this stretch of the Amur.
There's a tough mix of races
and cultures
all brought together
for one reason... fish.
With such a small population,
it shouldn't be too hard
to find someone
who knew the fishermen.
The man I meet is a Neve,
one of the many tribes
of indigenous people
who originally inhabited
this region.
His name is Eduard,
and his cousin was one of the
fishermen who died that day.
Treading gently,
I ask about what happened.
His cousin went fishing
with two other people
a couple of years ago,
and, uh, they disappeared.
Two bodies were actually found
the next year.
The other person
hasn't been found.
Very quickly,
I eliminate some of the more
obvious possibilities.
So, this really
sounds like something
that doesn't have
an easy explanation.
One of the guys on the boat
was inexperienced.
It was his first time out,
but the other two people
were very experienced,
knew what they were doing.
The boat was designed to be
on that kind of water.
It was a sea-going boat,
and the weather was nothing
out of the ordinary.
And, uh, three people
somehow disappeared.
I ask what
they were fishing for,
and he's curiously evasive.
They were clearly
not fishing for salmon.
This strange conversation
leaves me
with more questions
than answers.
I get the feeling that
something's being concealed.
Can you show me
where it happened?
He does, however,
agree to show me on the map
where they would have
been heading.
Well, he's shown me
where it happened.
I think what I've got to do now
is actually get out
on the river.
My investigation
needs to be thorough.
Once all the obvious
possibilities
have been crossed off,
I can take a hard look
at the suspects in the water.
And since I've never
fished here before,
I've no idea what's down there.
Well, this is pretty much
where the boat went down,
and just looking around,
this isn't the open sea,
this is the mouth of the river.
It's relatively sheltered.
Not only that, I'm thinking
that if the people on board were
even semi-competent swimmers,
they would have had half
a chance to reach the shore.
The knowledge
of these fishing grounds
would have been handed down
through generations.
There was something
else involved...
Not just the weather
and the water.
So, what they were fishing for
has to be somehow responsible.
Some fishermen
have just stopped by,
and they've got something
in a net they want me to see.
They've asked not to have
their faces shown,
further evidence that something
suspicious is going on here.
Perhaps they were poaching,
but what for?
This is a seal that's got
drowned in the net.
I wasn't expecting this.
I had it in my mind that
I was about to see a fish,
but could a seal be the monster
of the Amur River?
Bearded seals average
600 pounds.
Tangled and thrashing in a net,
they are easily big enough
to drag a careless fisherman
to his death.
So, there's lots of them around,
apparently,
but mainly out in the mouth
of the river.
I ask if seals
cause fishing accidents.
They reply that they've never
heard of that happening.
The thing about nets is they are
quite, sort of, indiscriminate.
I mean, they're obviously
fishing for a large animal
the size of those meshes.
Far too big for salmon.
So, if they weren't trying
to catch seals or salmon,
then what were they fishing for?
Again, I can't seem
to get an answer.
On the surface,
people are helpful,
but on another level,
no one is talking.
This place has a veil of secrecy
that I need to penetrate.
Fish markets usually provide me
with information.
With none around,
I head, instead,
to the fish processing plant.
The vast salmon populations
have drawn not just predators
like seals to the Amur River,
but people, as well.
And everyone's involved,
young and old, every race
and culture in the whole area.
But instead of finding answers,
my suspicions only deepen.
People are friendly enough,
but again, no one seems to want
to give anything away.
Just what is going on?
So, once again,
I use myself as bait
to try and gain their trust.
There are fish
off the factory's dock,
but I'm not seeing any monsters.
It's not quite.
It's a bit roach-like,
about 4 or 5 ounces.
And it was caught on a hook
with a little bit
of silver paper attached.
Finally, the plant's manager
tells me of a fish that lives
just off the dock,
a fish big enough to destroy
fishermen's tackle,
so it's never been caught.
I take up the challenge.
If this story is right,
I'm not taking any chances.
I'm using my monster rod,
a wire trace,
and line with a breaking
strain of 200 pounds.
This place would certainly
appeal to a monster...
An easy, vast, and ready supply
of fish scraps
to feast upon.
But with all this free food,
will it find
my offering appealing?
A bite.
It's another surprise.
I'll try and swing this in.
Basically,
putting a lump of dead fish
out by the waste shoot
at the fish factory,
and I'll just see
if I can just swing this in.
That's a catfish.
That looks incredibly like
a wels catfish,
but wels catfish
don't exist out here.
But that looks like
a very close relative anyway.
Um, wels catfish grow
very big... 200 pounds or so.
If these things grow
to that kind of size,
that could be the culprit.
That could be the fish
we're looking at.
I've caught giant wels catfish
from the river Ebro in Spain.
Fish so big, they nearly
pulled me into the river.
So, this is a predator,
and the reason it's hanging out
here, I guess,
is because of all the food,
all the dead fish.
And with the annual run of
salmon every year, I don't know,
it's possible that this species
could grow to
an interesting size.
It turns out that there are
two species of catfish
living in the Amur,
and one is potentially
a true river monster.
Called the Soldatov catfish
after a famous
Russian fish biologist,
it's said to grow
to a similar size
as those infamous
wels catfish from Europe
that I've investigated before.
But very little is actually
known about it.
Could a giant catfish,
fattened on the fish waste
from this plant,
be the monster of the Amur?
But it's nice to catch a fish,
and a predatory fish,
out of this river.
I've little doubt
that what lives here
and smashes
the fishermen's tackle
is a giant,
overfed one of these.
But is it responsible
for the disappearance
of three fishermen?
To get more information,
one of the lads tells me
about a man called Misha.
He's a hunter and fisherman,
and I'm curious to know
what he thinks
about the possibility
of a supersized catfish.
This is a story that Misha
heard about on the river here.
There were two fishermen,
went out netting one day.
Nothing out of the ordinary
about that.
But what happened is
that they got a very big fish
in their net,
and he says this was
about 700 kilos,
about 1,500 pounds...
Very large fish.
And they were trying to pull
the net in with the fish in it,
so they were over one side
of the boat.
This fish was so big that
it actually flipped the boat
and they fell
into the cold water.
This was in late autumn,
and the water was so cold
that they actually died.
It's the conclusive evidence
I needed
that there is a fish big enough
here to drown fishermen.
And he says
it's a very big fish,
this one, about 1,500 pounds,
a very powerful fish,
and it's got a big mouth.
1,500 pounds is a colossal size.
Can you give me some more
details of this fish?
Can you describe it to me?
But the fish he's describing
is not a catfish.
It's something else entirely.
What he's saying is that
in body shape,
it's very reminiscent
of a shark,
even though we're talking
about a fish here
that lives up rivers.
He says, especially the tail.
That is quite shark-like.
But it's got, running down
its back and down its sides,
it's got rows of spikes,
and he says they're very sharp
and you can hurt yourself if you
come into contact with those.
And it's got a big mouth.
This is a predatory fish that
normally feeds on other fish...
On smaller fish.
And it's also got these feelers
hanging from its snout.
And I put all of that together,
and to me, that says sturgeon.
It doesn't sound like
any sturgeon
I've heard about before.
This fish they had in the net,
what kind of fish was it?
Finally, I have a name
for my culprit... kaluga...
A monster fish that has killed
fishermen in the past.
Could the three men
have been drowned
trying to wrestle a huge
sturgeon into their boat?
A 1,500-pound monster
would surely be the fish
of a lifetime.
But can I catch one?
At least now that I know
what I'm after,
I can prepare accordingly.
Sturgeon have long,
sensitive nasal feelers.
So rather than a wire trace,
I use a thin, super-tough,
braided line
that's harder to detect.
From my previous sturgeon
fishing experience in the U.S.,
I know that fish...
Well, not just sturgeon...
All fish will hang out
in deep water.
If you got a scoop
on the bottom,
you tend to get food
with the current coming down
and it deposits
at the upstream end.
It sort of tumbles around
in a sort of a vertical eddy.
And that's the place where any
fish would naturally hang out
to intercept food coming down.
Out here on this fast river,
the dangers are tangible.
It's incredibly deep,
and the current is stronger
than it looks.
It's a place that can and has
swallowed up fishermen
and left little trace.
Bump on the bottom in a sec.
I can just feel that
bumping on the bottom.
Bump. Bump.
Sturgeon have been on earth
for 200 million years
and have hardly changed since
the time of the dinosaurs.
Individuals can live
as long as 100 years.
Knowing what I know
about sturgeon,
I'm preparing for anything.
I've caught a 300-pound
white sturgeon in Oregon
which took me over half
an hour to get in.
White sturgeon are huge,
but kaluga apparently
can get even bigger.
There we go.
There we go.
There we go.
There we go.
White sturgeon can weigh
an enormous amount,
but kaluga, apparently,
can weigh even more.
The biggest kaluga on record
tipped the scales at
a staggering 2,205 pounds,
bigger than the heaviest
recorded white sturgeon.
They have the potential
of being the biggest
river monster of all time.
But to catch one,
I'm going to have
to change the tactics
I'd normally use
for hunting sturgeon.
Most sturgeon species
have a mouth
shaped for feeding
on the bottom.
But the kaluga is unique
in the sturgeon world.
It's an active predator.
With a forward-opening mouth,
it hunts salmon and other fish,
engulfing them
in its cavernous jaws.
I'm just gonna try something
a bit different.
I'm gonna try
an artificial lure.
Because the kaluga
is a predator,
it eats small fish,
I put something on, which...
Well, that's gonna vaguely
resemble something alive
down there on the bottom.
It's sort of a caricature
of a fish, this, really.
I'm gonna let it fall down
to the bottom,
and we're gonna drift
with the current.
And I'm just gonna lift the rod
up and down.
And so this is just gonna
flutter, particularly this tail.
It's gonna flutter in the water.
And it should attract... just
the movement and the vibration.
It's the kind of thing
that will attract the attention
of a predator.
Suddenly, it strikes me
that there are no other
fishermen out here,
and now I find out why.
River police.
I'm politely told that fishing
for kaluga is illegal.
If I had caught anything,
I'd have been
in serious trouble.
Just as I'm starting to make
headway in this investigation,
this is a real blow.
Here, there's no concept
of catch and release.
I have to stop fishing.
This would explain why people
haven't been talking.
They were breaking the law.
Why are people willing
to risk their freedom
just to catch a fish?
To unravel this mystery,
I go to talk to the head
of the wildlife protection
authority in this region.
His name is Valentin.
Good day.
Can you tell me,
are there many in the river?
He tells me the Amur was once
full of these giants.
The situation in the Soviet area
is that there was a ban
on fishing for kaluga.
But in the '90s with
the collapse of the USSR,
this region saw something
of a free-for-all.
And apparently, kaluga
came under relentless attack.
The kaluga
has nearly been wiped out.
Why is it that people
keep fishing for them?
What makes it so valuable,
so attractive to the poachers?
Just getting my head
around the numbers here.
The thing that's driving
this whole situation
is the eggs of the kaluga.
This is a type of sturgeon,
and it carries caviar.
About 13% to 14% of the body
weight of a mature fish,
a female fish, is caviar.
Apparently, today in Moscow,
one kilo, two pounds of caviar
are gonna bring in
about 500 U.S. dollars.
To a fisherman,
this is like striking gold.
For a salmon fisherman here,
just one kaluga
could bring them the same money
as working
for 3½ years salmon fishing.
So, I mean, you can absolutely
understand the temptation.
And given this level
of motivation,
Valentin is just not
optimistic at all
about the future of kaluga
in this river.
It does seem very much
as if the fish here is doomed.
Later, I find out just how bad
this problem really is.
Because of the high value of
caviar on the black market,
poaching is run by mafia-style
organized crime.
People wouldn't talk
because they were scared
of the repercussions.
Could the three fishermen
who disappeared
have come across
one of the last giants
and in the ensuing battle,
lost their lives?
And perhaps
the biggest question...
Are there any kaluga sturgeon
left in the Amur at all?
I'm finding myself
in a difficult situation.
I want to see if there are
any monsters out there,
but the kaluga is protected.
There's a possible way
around this.
People here have said
that I could go
and catch one by accident,
but, technically,
this would be poaching,
even though I'd be putting
the fish back alive.
But to catch one like this
would be morally wrong.
I'm halfway around the world.
I've got the boat,
I've got the fishing gear,
I've got the food...
Everything I need...
And I'm just so reluctant
to give up,
having come this far.
So, I've been looking into ways,
is there any way
I can just circumvent this?
And I think I found the way.
Valentin has put me in touch
with a team of scientists here
monitoring fish stocks
on the Amur.
They've allowed me to join them.
This is my only chance
of seeing a kaluga...
If, of course,
there are any left.
But the first thing I witness
is not a fish
but clear proof that poachers
haven't given up
on trying to find kaluga.
Two boats going at high speed
one after the other
on the other side.
And apparently
that is a police boat
chasing some poachers.
And at the moment,
I think the poachers
are getting away.
The distance between
the two boats is lengthening.
The thing about the value
of caviar
is that with the profits
that you make,
you can afford a faster boat
than what the police have got.
Out here on this vast river,
trying to catch anything
is going to be hard enough,
but something as rare
as a kaluga
is going to be
almost impossible.
But then, they say that about
many fish I go in search of.
A lot of people who fish
with line all the time
have this idea that fishing
with nets is very easy.
You just put the nets out,
and you empty out the river.
But it's actually
quite technical.
If there's trees,
other snags on the bottom,
they'll catch onto those,
but also, on the boat,
you're feeding it out.
It can catch onto bits
of the boat,
hence the cloth there,
but also bits of clothing,
as well...
Buttons, things like that.
I'm only allowed to do this
because I'm with a licensed
scientific team.
But as we wait
for a chance encounter
with one of these rare giants,
I'm about to witness
another side to this disaster.
This is actually quite spooky.
It looks like a migration
of fish.
There's all these fins
sticking out of the water,
and what it is,
it's salmon upside down
and their tail fins
breaking the surface,
and they're all sort of drifting
down with the current.
And they're all dead.
Of course, it's normal for
salmon to die after spawning.
I wonder if that's what's
happening here.
Even more of what we're seeing
too many of...
dead salmon.
And a lot of them now
in fairly advanced stages
of decomposition,
which sometimes
makes them fall apart
and nicely go through the net.
Other times, you just get
endless, smelly fragments
just all over the place.
Just seeing
all these dead fish...
I mean, it's unpleasant just
from a visceral point of view,
just the smell of death.
This one is...
pretty horrible.
That was a male fish,
and it looked like that fish
hadn't spawned.
And the more we set our nets,
the more I get the feeling
that something out of the
ordinary is happening here.
Some of the ones that have
actually broken open
'cause they're so decomposed...
They've still got eggs in.
They've still got
lots of eggs in.
So this isn't normal.
Normally,
dead salmon have no eggs.
They've sowed the seeds
of the next generation.
But...
this isn't a normal situation.
There's something going on here.
Back at the scientists'
research vessel,
taking a break from netting,
I find some salmon still alive
close to shore
and decide to perform a test
using a thermometer borrowed
from the scientists.
So, there's a very dramatic
difference in water temperature.
I could feel it with my hands,
but according
to the thermometer,
in the stream, the water
was 10 degrees Celsius.
49 degrees Fahrenheit.
And the mouth of the stream
where the salmon are
milling around is 15.
58 degrees Fahrenheit.
And then here,
at the side of the river where
the dead salmon are is 25.
76 degrees.
That's a massive
overall difference
of 27 degrees Fahrenheit.
I mean, that's just
such a difference,
and the difference it
makes to the fish,
again, very graphic...
The difference between
being alive and being dead.
The scientists tell me
that the temperature
in the river
should be about the same as it
is in the spring-fed stream.
But before I arrived,
this region had the biggest
heat wave in living memory,
making the river
temperature soar
to a level
that salmon can't survive.
Is this disaster a result
of global warming?
The scientists don't know,
but without a food supply,
it's another nail
in the kaluga's coffin.
I ask Victor,
one of the scientists,
when was the last time
he saw a monster kaluga
from this river?
So, Victor grew up
on the banks of this river...
On the banks of the Amur...
Has been fishing here
since he was a small boy.
The biggest kaluga he's seen
was about 1,300 pounds.
The biggest one he's caught
himself was about 1,200 pounds.
And the fish that length,
he says, is about 16 feet long.
And he remembers...
This is interesting...
Fishermen are like this...
He remembers the exact date
that it was caught...
On the 6th of August, 1981.
It's been more than 30 years
since he caught
a monster kaluga here,
but he goes on
to tell me a story
that could provide a clue
to explain the mystery
of the missing fishermen.
About 40 years ago,
there was a fisherman
from his village
who went out one day
setting hooks.
Very interesting technique.
These hooks have no bait
on them.
Then fish will actually bump
into the line, get caught up.
And this fisherman went out
on his own to pull in the line,
and he didn't come back.
When they recovered the boat,
they were able to piece together
what probably happened.
Yeah, thank you.
The man must have been
retrieving the long line.
Long lines can be
hundreds of yards long
with hooks at regular intervals.
Somewhere on the line
was a kaluga.
As it felt itself being pulled
towards the surface,
it panicked.
In a flash,
the tables were turned.
As the fish took out more line,
several of
the already retrieved,
6-inch, sharpened hooks
stuck the fisherman.
Unable to free himself,
the man was dragged
to his death.
This story has eerie echoes
of a case I investigated
in the Congo looking
for the suni, a giant catfish.
But even the biggest of these
would be dwarfed by the kaluga
I'm hunting for here.
That fish pulled a man
out of a small dugout.
Long lining is illegal
on this river,
but if the three fishermen
were poaching,
they may have been using
a long line as well as a net,
which could have been
doubly dangerous.
In the chaos of a huge,
thrashing kaluga,
were they all dragged
to their deaths?
I have proved in the past
that a man in the water
is no match for a fish
not even half his weight.
So a 1,500-pound angry giant
could easily take out three men.
But are there any giants left?
We set out again in one of
the small fishing boats
to try and net one,
just like those dead fishermen
did a couple of years ago.
The difference is,
our intentions
are not to kill the kaluga,
but a huge thrashing monster
doesn't know that.
We set net after net,
each drift and retrieve
taking over two hours,
before moving to another spot.
And with more and more
dead salmon showing up,
there seems to be nothing left
alive in this river.
But then...
bubbles breaking the surface
are a sign that something's
coming up from deep below.
Oh, more bubbles here.
There's something very
definitely alive in our net.
That is a big fish.
So, this is it, the kaluga
sturgeon of the Amur River.
Now, this is big by normal
freshwater fish standards,
but by the standards
of what this fish
can potentially grow to,
this is a small one.
But I've never been so happy
and relieved
to find a fish alive.
These fish
grow well over 1,000 pounds.
A big one of these,
15-foot long...
I can well believe now the
stories of those smashing boats.
I'm afraid that the last
of the giants may be gone.
But as fortunes can still be
made from the fish that remain,
this story can only end
in tragedy for the kaluga,
and sometimes for the fishermen
who still hunt them illegally.
Despite having heard
those stories
of deaths and disappearances,
the real victim
is actually this fish,
which we've fished
very hard for.
This is the biggest one
that I've seen.
This thing's being hunted really
to the edge of extinction,
all for the sake
of its valuable eggs.
That's really very sad,
and I really hope that
this population comes back.
But even in the face
of this human onslaught,
nature has a surprising ability
to cling on.
As this rare living dinosaur
returns to the deep,
I find something in the boat
that gives me a glimmer of hope.
It's quite something
when I think that I've heard
so much about this fish,
particularly in terms
of the very large size
that it can reach...
Over 1,000 pounds,
15-16 foot long,
and to think
that when I put this back,
over the course of many years,
it could grow big enough
to drag people out of boats.
But here it is,
a perfect miniature kaluga.
Without doubt,
it's my smallest ever
river monster,
but in terms of the significance
and hope it carries,
it could be the biggest
of my entire career.
I'm an explorer
and fishing detective.
I'm always on the lookout
for mysterious fishy tales
that don't quite add up.
Careful! Careful! Careful!
This is a big one.
And one such story
that I've just heard about
from the far wild east of Russia
has really snagged my interest.
A fishing trip
gone horribly wrong.
Three men mysteriously disappear
on a remote and wild river
in Russia.
It has all the hallmarks
of a classic "River Monsters"
investigation...
Telltale clues that this was not
just a simple fishing accident.
I believe they encountered
something in the water,
something big enough
and terrible enough
to cause the death
of not just one man...
but of all three.
October 2009,
the Amur River in
the far wild east of Russia.
Three men set out
on a fishing trip.
It's the kind of trip they've
made many times before.
Only this time, it's different.
This time, they never return.
A year later, the bodies
of two of the men are found...
Or what's left of them.
Long dead, apparently drowned.
The third body
is never recovered.
Over the years,
there have been many rumors
of disappearances,
deaths, and monsters connected
with the Amur River.
But it's impossible to get
any more information.
It's as if there's something
in the water
that they don't want the
outside world to know about.
So I've had nothing concrete
to go on...
until now.
Russia is a place
I've never been to before.
It's the largest country
in the world,
and the Amur is the world's
10th longest river.
At 2,700 miles,
it's nearly twice as long
as the Colorado.
The region is home to some of
the largest land predators...
Tigers and bears.
But what's in the river?
Legend has it the river
was carved out
by a huge black dragon
as it dragged its body
from the sea.
And something still lurks
in its depths,
killing fishermen to this day.
I want to find out what it is.
What I need are facts.
And after three days
of traveling,
I arrive at the town
of Nikolayevsk
near the river's mouth.
Once a wealthy place,
it's now more like a ghost town.
I'm looking for details
of what exactly happened
to those three fishermen.
In this remote location
where few outsiders travel,
getting information
is not going to be easy.
So I go fishing...
At a small feeder stream
on the outskirts of town.
People in isolated communities
can be suspicious of strangers,
so I'm using myself as bait.
Oh! Oh!
To see if the novelty
of an outsider
might tempt somebody to talk.
I... I think I just
briefly hooked something.
But I don't want to
strike too early
and reveal that
it's information I'm after...
Not until I've gained
their trust.
This one.
Okay, blue fox.
Okay.
Thank you.
Fishing for me is often about
thinking outside the box.
My efforts are rewarded.
I get an invitation to
join them inside their home,
but first, I want to prove
that I'm capable
of bringing a fish in.
Whoa.
But wherever I fish,
I seem to run into competition
I wasn't expecting.
Hey! Hey! Hey! I've got a dog
here.
No! No! No! No! No! No!
In the Amazon,
I've had to compete with caiman
for the fish on the line.
And in Alaska,
a bear took my fish.
But a dog is a first.
Well, I don't want a dog
with a hook in its mouth.
That would not be...
That would not be fun.
What a lovely fish...
A lovely chum salmon.
Beautiful coloration,
pink band down the side,
those dark spots on the back.
I'm told this river is stuffed
with salmon.
Interesting.
I think you're starting to see
that sort of metamorphosis
that they undergo when they come
in the rivers,
that sort of hook
on the lower jaw,
hump of the back there.
A lot of the locals are keeping
these for the pot.
I think while nobody's looking
I might slip this one back,
though.
This catch is significant,
because no monster can exist
without a food supply.
This abundance of salmon
would fulfill that role.
I join Egor Poroshan and
his friends inside to warm up.
And as we talk,
I'm hoping I'll get
the information
I have come here for.
Does anyone know of the
fishermen who disappeared?
Wade: Other fish?
After some general fishing chat,
Egor tells me a key fact about
the three men who vanished.
Well, I've managed to find out
a little bit more.
The fishermen actually
weren't from here.
They were from a town a little
way further up the river.
With some borrowed transport,
I head west to the town
of Innokentyevka.
With fewer than 5,000 people,
this fishing community
is one of just a handful
along this stretch of the Amur.
There's a tough mix of races
and cultures
all brought together
for one reason... fish.
With such a small population,
it shouldn't be too hard
to find someone
who knew the fishermen.
The man I meet is a Neve,
one of the many tribes
of indigenous people
who originally inhabited
this region.
His name is Eduard,
and his cousin was one of the
fishermen who died that day.
Treading gently,
I ask about what happened.
His cousin went fishing
with two other people
a couple of years ago,
and, uh, they disappeared.
Two bodies were actually found
the next year.
The other person
hasn't been found.
Very quickly,
I eliminate some of the more
obvious possibilities.
So, this really
sounds like something
that doesn't have
an easy explanation.
One of the guys on the boat
was inexperienced.
It was his first time out,
but the other two people
were very experienced,
knew what they were doing.
The boat was designed to be
on that kind of water.
It was a sea-going boat,
and the weather was nothing
out of the ordinary.
And, uh, three people
somehow disappeared.
I ask what
they were fishing for,
and he's curiously evasive.
They were clearly
not fishing for salmon.
This strange conversation
leaves me
with more questions
than answers.
I get the feeling that
something's being concealed.
Can you show me
where it happened?
He does, however,
agree to show me on the map
where they would have
been heading.
Well, he's shown me
where it happened.
I think what I've got to do now
is actually get out
on the river.
My investigation
needs to be thorough.
Once all the obvious
possibilities
have been crossed off,
I can take a hard look
at the suspects in the water.
And since I've never
fished here before,
I've no idea what's down there.
Well, this is pretty much
where the boat went down,
and just looking around,
this isn't the open sea,
this is the mouth of the river.
It's relatively sheltered.
Not only that, I'm thinking
that if the people on board were
even semi-competent swimmers,
they would have had half
a chance to reach the shore.
The knowledge
of these fishing grounds
would have been handed down
through generations.
There was something
else involved...
Not just the weather
and the water.
So, what they were fishing for
has to be somehow responsible.
Some fishermen
have just stopped by,
and they've got something
in a net they want me to see.
They've asked not to have
their faces shown,
further evidence that something
suspicious is going on here.
Perhaps they were poaching,
but what for?
This is a seal that's got
drowned in the net.
I wasn't expecting this.
I had it in my mind that
I was about to see a fish,
but could a seal be the monster
of the Amur River?
Bearded seals average
600 pounds.
Tangled and thrashing in a net,
they are easily big enough
to drag a careless fisherman
to his death.
So, there's lots of them around,
apparently,
but mainly out in the mouth
of the river.
I ask if seals
cause fishing accidents.
They reply that they've never
heard of that happening.
The thing about nets is they are
quite, sort of, indiscriminate.
I mean, they're obviously
fishing for a large animal
the size of those meshes.
Far too big for salmon.
So, if they weren't trying
to catch seals or salmon,
then what were they fishing for?
Again, I can't seem
to get an answer.
On the surface,
people are helpful,
but on another level,
no one is talking.
This place has a veil of secrecy
that I need to penetrate.
Fish markets usually provide me
with information.
With none around,
I head, instead,
to the fish processing plant.
The vast salmon populations
have drawn not just predators
like seals to the Amur River,
but people, as well.
And everyone's involved,
young and old, every race
and culture in the whole area.
But instead of finding answers,
my suspicions only deepen.
People are friendly enough,
but again, no one seems to want
to give anything away.
Just what is going on?
So, once again,
I use myself as bait
to try and gain their trust.
There are fish
off the factory's dock,
but I'm not seeing any monsters.
It's not quite.
It's a bit roach-like,
about 4 or 5 ounces.
And it was caught on a hook
with a little bit
of silver paper attached.
Finally, the plant's manager
tells me of a fish that lives
just off the dock,
a fish big enough to destroy
fishermen's tackle,
so it's never been caught.
I take up the challenge.
If this story is right,
I'm not taking any chances.
I'm using my monster rod,
a wire trace,
and line with a breaking
strain of 200 pounds.
This place would certainly
appeal to a monster...
An easy, vast, and ready supply
of fish scraps
to feast upon.
But with all this free food,
will it find
my offering appealing?
A bite.
It's another surprise.
I'll try and swing this in.
Basically,
putting a lump of dead fish
out by the waste shoot
at the fish factory,
and I'll just see
if I can just swing this in.
That's a catfish.
That looks incredibly like
a wels catfish,
but wels catfish
don't exist out here.
But that looks like
a very close relative anyway.
Um, wels catfish grow
very big... 200 pounds or so.
If these things grow
to that kind of size,
that could be the culprit.
That could be the fish
we're looking at.
I've caught giant wels catfish
from the river Ebro in Spain.
Fish so big, they nearly
pulled me into the river.
So, this is a predator,
and the reason it's hanging out
here, I guess,
is because of all the food,
all the dead fish.
And with the annual run of
salmon every year, I don't know,
it's possible that this species
could grow to
an interesting size.
It turns out that there are
two species of catfish
living in the Amur,
and one is potentially
a true river monster.
Called the Soldatov catfish
after a famous
Russian fish biologist,
it's said to grow
to a similar size
as those infamous
wels catfish from Europe
that I've investigated before.
But very little is actually
known about it.
Could a giant catfish,
fattened on the fish waste
from this plant,
be the monster of the Amur?
But it's nice to catch a fish,
and a predatory fish,
out of this river.
I've little doubt
that what lives here
and smashes
the fishermen's tackle
is a giant,
overfed one of these.
But is it responsible
for the disappearance
of three fishermen?
To get more information,
one of the lads tells me
about a man called Misha.
He's a hunter and fisherman,
and I'm curious to know
what he thinks
about the possibility
of a supersized catfish.
This is a story that Misha
heard about on the river here.
There were two fishermen,
went out netting one day.
Nothing out of the ordinary
about that.
But what happened is
that they got a very big fish
in their net,
and he says this was
about 700 kilos,
about 1,500 pounds...
Very large fish.
And they were trying to pull
the net in with the fish in it,
so they were over one side
of the boat.
This fish was so big that
it actually flipped the boat
and they fell
into the cold water.
This was in late autumn,
and the water was so cold
that they actually died.
It's the conclusive evidence
I needed
that there is a fish big enough
here to drown fishermen.
And he says
it's a very big fish,
this one, about 1,500 pounds,
a very powerful fish,
and it's got a big mouth.
1,500 pounds is a colossal size.
Can you give me some more
details of this fish?
Can you describe it to me?
But the fish he's describing
is not a catfish.
It's something else entirely.
What he's saying is that
in body shape,
it's very reminiscent
of a shark,
even though we're talking
about a fish here
that lives up rivers.
He says, especially the tail.
That is quite shark-like.
But it's got, running down
its back and down its sides,
it's got rows of spikes,
and he says they're very sharp
and you can hurt yourself if you
come into contact with those.
And it's got a big mouth.
This is a predatory fish that
normally feeds on other fish...
On smaller fish.
And it's also got these feelers
hanging from its snout.
And I put all of that together,
and to me, that says sturgeon.
It doesn't sound like
any sturgeon
I've heard about before.
This fish they had in the net,
what kind of fish was it?
Finally, I have a name
for my culprit... kaluga...
A monster fish that has killed
fishermen in the past.
Could the three men
have been drowned
trying to wrestle a huge
sturgeon into their boat?
A 1,500-pound monster
would surely be the fish
of a lifetime.
But can I catch one?
At least now that I know
what I'm after,
I can prepare accordingly.
Sturgeon have long,
sensitive nasal feelers.
So rather than a wire trace,
I use a thin, super-tough,
braided line
that's harder to detect.
From my previous sturgeon
fishing experience in the U.S.,
I know that fish...
Well, not just sturgeon...
All fish will hang out
in deep water.
If you got a scoop
on the bottom,
you tend to get food
with the current coming down
and it deposits
at the upstream end.
It sort of tumbles around
in a sort of a vertical eddy.
And that's the place where any
fish would naturally hang out
to intercept food coming down.
Out here on this fast river,
the dangers are tangible.
It's incredibly deep,
and the current is stronger
than it looks.
It's a place that can and has
swallowed up fishermen
and left little trace.
Bump on the bottom in a sec.
I can just feel that
bumping on the bottom.
Bump. Bump.
Sturgeon have been on earth
for 200 million years
and have hardly changed since
the time of the dinosaurs.
Individuals can live
as long as 100 years.
Knowing what I know
about sturgeon,
I'm preparing for anything.
I've caught a 300-pound
white sturgeon in Oregon
which took me over half
an hour to get in.
White sturgeon are huge,
but kaluga apparently
can get even bigger.
There we go.
There we go.
There we go.
There we go.
White sturgeon can weigh
an enormous amount,
but kaluga, apparently,
can weigh even more.
The biggest kaluga on record
tipped the scales at
a staggering 2,205 pounds,
bigger than the heaviest
recorded white sturgeon.
They have the potential
of being the biggest
river monster of all time.
But to catch one,
I'm going to have
to change the tactics
I'd normally use
for hunting sturgeon.
Most sturgeon species
have a mouth
shaped for feeding
on the bottom.
But the kaluga is unique
in the sturgeon world.
It's an active predator.
With a forward-opening mouth,
it hunts salmon and other fish,
engulfing them
in its cavernous jaws.
I'm just gonna try something
a bit different.
I'm gonna try
an artificial lure.
Because the kaluga
is a predator,
it eats small fish,
I put something on, which...
Well, that's gonna vaguely
resemble something alive
down there on the bottom.
It's sort of a caricature
of a fish, this, really.
I'm gonna let it fall down
to the bottom,
and we're gonna drift
with the current.
And I'm just gonna lift the rod
up and down.
And so this is just gonna
flutter, particularly this tail.
It's gonna flutter in the water.
And it should attract... just
the movement and the vibration.
It's the kind of thing
that will attract the attention
of a predator.
Suddenly, it strikes me
that there are no other
fishermen out here,
and now I find out why.
River police.
I'm politely told that fishing
for kaluga is illegal.
If I had caught anything,
I'd have been
in serious trouble.
Just as I'm starting to make
headway in this investigation,
this is a real blow.
Here, there's no concept
of catch and release.
I have to stop fishing.
This would explain why people
haven't been talking.
They were breaking the law.
Why are people willing
to risk their freedom
just to catch a fish?
To unravel this mystery,
I go to talk to the head
of the wildlife protection
authority in this region.
His name is Valentin.
Good day.
Can you tell me,
are there many in the river?
He tells me the Amur was once
full of these giants.
The situation in the Soviet area
is that there was a ban
on fishing for kaluga.
But in the '90s with
the collapse of the USSR,
this region saw something
of a free-for-all.
And apparently, kaluga
came under relentless attack.
The kaluga
has nearly been wiped out.
Why is it that people
keep fishing for them?
What makes it so valuable,
so attractive to the poachers?
Just getting my head
around the numbers here.
The thing that's driving
this whole situation
is the eggs of the kaluga.
This is a type of sturgeon,
and it carries caviar.
About 13% to 14% of the body
weight of a mature fish,
a female fish, is caviar.
Apparently, today in Moscow,
one kilo, two pounds of caviar
are gonna bring in
about 500 U.S. dollars.
To a fisherman,
this is like striking gold.
For a salmon fisherman here,
just one kaluga
could bring them the same money
as working
for 3½ years salmon fishing.
So, I mean, you can absolutely
understand the temptation.
And given this level
of motivation,
Valentin is just not
optimistic at all
about the future of kaluga
in this river.
It does seem very much
as if the fish here is doomed.
Later, I find out just how bad
this problem really is.
Because of the high value of
caviar on the black market,
poaching is run by mafia-style
organized crime.
People wouldn't talk
because they were scared
of the repercussions.
Could the three fishermen
who disappeared
have come across
one of the last giants
and in the ensuing battle,
lost their lives?
And perhaps
the biggest question...
Are there any kaluga sturgeon
left in the Amur at all?
I'm finding myself
in a difficult situation.
I want to see if there are
any monsters out there,
but the kaluga is protected.
There's a possible way
around this.
People here have said
that I could go
and catch one by accident,
but, technically,
this would be poaching,
even though I'd be putting
the fish back alive.
But to catch one like this
would be morally wrong.
I'm halfway around the world.
I've got the boat,
I've got the fishing gear,
I've got the food...
Everything I need...
And I'm just so reluctant
to give up,
having come this far.
So, I've been looking into ways,
is there any way
I can just circumvent this?
And I think I found the way.
Valentin has put me in touch
with a team of scientists here
monitoring fish stocks
on the Amur.
They've allowed me to join them.
This is my only chance
of seeing a kaluga...
If, of course,
there are any left.
But the first thing I witness
is not a fish
but clear proof that poachers
haven't given up
on trying to find kaluga.
Two boats going at high speed
one after the other
on the other side.
And apparently
that is a police boat
chasing some poachers.
And at the moment,
I think the poachers
are getting away.
The distance between
the two boats is lengthening.
The thing about the value
of caviar
is that with the profits
that you make,
you can afford a faster boat
than what the police have got.
Out here on this vast river,
trying to catch anything
is going to be hard enough,
but something as rare
as a kaluga
is going to be
almost impossible.
But then, they say that about
many fish I go in search of.
A lot of people who fish
with line all the time
have this idea that fishing
with nets is very easy.
You just put the nets out,
and you empty out the river.
But it's actually
quite technical.
If there's trees,
other snags on the bottom,
they'll catch onto those,
but also, on the boat,
you're feeding it out.
It can catch onto bits
of the boat,
hence the cloth there,
but also bits of clothing,
as well...
Buttons, things like that.
I'm only allowed to do this
because I'm with a licensed
scientific team.
But as we wait
for a chance encounter
with one of these rare giants,
I'm about to witness
another side to this disaster.
This is actually quite spooky.
It looks like a migration
of fish.
There's all these fins
sticking out of the water,
and what it is,
it's salmon upside down
and their tail fins
breaking the surface,
and they're all sort of drifting
down with the current.
And they're all dead.
Of course, it's normal for
salmon to die after spawning.
I wonder if that's what's
happening here.
Even more of what we're seeing
too many of...
dead salmon.
And a lot of them now
in fairly advanced stages
of decomposition,
which sometimes
makes them fall apart
and nicely go through the net.
Other times, you just get
endless, smelly fragments
just all over the place.
Just seeing
all these dead fish...
I mean, it's unpleasant just
from a visceral point of view,
just the smell of death.
This one is...
pretty horrible.
That was a male fish,
and it looked like that fish
hadn't spawned.
And the more we set our nets,
the more I get the feeling
that something out of the
ordinary is happening here.
Some of the ones that have
actually broken open
'cause they're so decomposed...
They've still got eggs in.
They've still got
lots of eggs in.
So this isn't normal.
Normally,
dead salmon have no eggs.
They've sowed the seeds
of the next generation.
But...
this isn't a normal situation.
There's something going on here.
Back at the scientists'
research vessel,
taking a break from netting,
I find some salmon still alive
close to shore
and decide to perform a test
using a thermometer borrowed
from the scientists.
So, there's a very dramatic
difference in water temperature.
I could feel it with my hands,
but according
to the thermometer,
in the stream, the water
was 10 degrees Celsius.
49 degrees Fahrenheit.
And the mouth of the stream
where the salmon are
milling around is 15.
58 degrees Fahrenheit.
And then here,
at the side of the river where
the dead salmon are is 25.
76 degrees.
That's a massive
overall difference
of 27 degrees Fahrenheit.
I mean, that's just
such a difference,
and the difference it
makes to the fish,
again, very graphic...
The difference between
being alive and being dead.
The scientists tell me
that the temperature
in the river
should be about the same as it
is in the spring-fed stream.
But before I arrived,
this region had the biggest
heat wave in living memory,
making the river
temperature soar
to a level
that salmon can't survive.
Is this disaster a result
of global warming?
The scientists don't know,
but without a food supply,
it's another nail
in the kaluga's coffin.
I ask Victor,
one of the scientists,
when was the last time
he saw a monster kaluga
from this river?
So, Victor grew up
on the banks of this river...
On the banks of the Amur...
Has been fishing here
since he was a small boy.
The biggest kaluga he's seen
was about 1,300 pounds.
The biggest one he's caught
himself was about 1,200 pounds.
And the fish that length,
he says, is about 16 feet long.
And he remembers...
This is interesting...
Fishermen are like this...
He remembers the exact date
that it was caught...
On the 6th of August, 1981.
It's been more than 30 years
since he caught
a monster kaluga here,
but he goes on
to tell me a story
that could provide a clue
to explain the mystery
of the missing fishermen.
About 40 years ago,
there was a fisherman
from his village
who went out one day
setting hooks.
Very interesting technique.
These hooks have no bait
on them.
Then fish will actually bump
into the line, get caught up.
And this fisherman went out
on his own to pull in the line,
and he didn't come back.
When they recovered the boat,
they were able to piece together
what probably happened.
Yeah, thank you.
The man must have been
retrieving the long line.
Long lines can be
hundreds of yards long
with hooks at regular intervals.
Somewhere on the line
was a kaluga.
As it felt itself being pulled
towards the surface,
it panicked.
In a flash,
the tables were turned.
As the fish took out more line,
several of
the already retrieved,
6-inch, sharpened hooks
stuck the fisherman.
Unable to free himself,
the man was dragged
to his death.
This story has eerie echoes
of a case I investigated
in the Congo looking
for the suni, a giant catfish.
But even the biggest of these
would be dwarfed by the kaluga
I'm hunting for here.
That fish pulled a man
out of a small dugout.
Long lining is illegal
on this river,
but if the three fishermen
were poaching,
they may have been using
a long line as well as a net,
which could have been
doubly dangerous.
In the chaos of a huge,
thrashing kaluga,
were they all dragged
to their deaths?
I have proved in the past
that a man in the water
is no match for a fish
not even half his weight.
So a 1,500-pound angry giant
could easily take out three men.
But are there any giants left?
We set out again in one of
the small fishing boats
to try and net one,
just like those dead fishermen
did a couple of years ago.
The difference is,
our intentions
are not to kill the kaluga,
but a huge thrashing monster
doesn't know that.
We set net after net,
each drift and retrieve
taking over two hours,
before moving to another spot.
And with more and more
dead salmon showing up,
there seems to be nothing left
alive in this river.
But then...
bubbles breaking the surface
are a sign that something's
coming up from deep below.
Oh, more bubbles here.
There's something very
definitely alive in our net.
That is a big fish.
So, this is it, the kaluga
sturgeon of the Amur River.
Now, this is big by normal
freshwater fish standards,
but by the standards
of what this fish
can potentially grow to,
this is a small one.
But I've never been so happy
and relieved
to find a fish alive.
These fish
grow well over 1,000 pounds.
A big one of these,
15-foot long...
I can well believe now the
stories of those smashing boats.
I'm afraid that the last
of the giants may be gone.
But as fortunes can still be
made from the fish that remain,
this story can only end
in tragedy for the kaluga,
and sometimes for the fishermen
who still hunt them illegally.
Despite having heard
those stories
of deaths and disappearances,
the real victim
is actually this fish,
which we've fished
very hard for.
This is the biggest one
that I've seen.
This thing's being hunted really
to the edge of extinction,
all for the sake
of its valuable eggs.
That's really very sad,
and I really hope that
this population comes back.
But even in the face
of this human onslaught,
nature has a surprising ability
to cling on.
As this rare living dinosaur
returns to the deep,
I find something in the boat
that gives me a glimmer of hope.
It's quite something
when I think that I've heard
so much about this fish,
particularly in terms
of the very large size
that it can reach...
Over 1,000 pounds,
15-16 foot long,
and to think
that when I put this back,
over the course of many years,
it could grow big enough
to drag people out of boats.
But here it is,
a perfect miniature kaluga.
Without doubt,
it's my smallest ever
river monster,
but in terms of the significance
and hope it carries,
it could be the biggest
of my entire career.