In the outback of Australia,
a mysterious beast is causing mayhem.
I was getting dragged towards the river.
One I never thought I'd ever encounter.
It's bigger for me than a lot of other "big fish" moments.
A mighty predator...
Like Muhammad Ali, he's the king of the river and he knows it.
.. waiting in the shadows.
If you dove down, and seen a fish come at you
that's twice your body size, would you stay in the water?
I'm Jeremy Wade,
fisherman and adventurer.
For more than 35 years, I've travelled the globe
hunting for monsters. Look at this beast.
But mysteries are still out there.
There's something behind me.
I'm journeying into the unknown
to reveal... Yes!
.. the secrets hidden in these dark waters.
I've come to Australia to investigate a recent incident.
Somewhere inland, on a remote river system...
.. two friends were out fishing,
when their boat sprang a leak and sank.
A few weeks later, they went back to recover it.
And from out of the gloom, a six-foot beast attacked them.
The shocking encounter left them battered and bruised.
This water is far from the domain of potential suspects,
like crocodiles and bull sharks.
So what was this aggressive beast?
And why would it go after people?
The exact details of the story are sketchy.
But what I do know is that it happened in one of the many little-known rivers
on the eastern side of Australia, in New South Wales.
So I begin my investigation in Sydney,
the major city in this part of the world.
Sydney has a dark past.
In the 1800s, it was a place where convicted criminals from Britain
arrived by the thousands,
shipped here to live out their sentences.
Just looking at this mini theme park here and just, er,
try to travel back in time, 200 years.
For the people who first came here, it was anything but a fun destination,
and actually, if I had been born 200 years earlier,
erm, who knows? I mean, just an unlucky roll of a dice.
You didn't have to do very much. We're not talking about serious crimes.
People were shipped here for, what today,
would be considered very minor offences,
shipped to the far end of the world...
..to live out the rest of your life in a place that,
back then, was very different. A very unfamiliar
and a very, very... A very harsh place.
This is Cockatoo Island, which sounds very exotic and touristy,
but it used to be a prison.
It was like the Alcatraz of Australia.
And even if you managed to break out,
and you jumped in the water,
you ran the risk of being eaten by sharks.
Being a major port, Sydney has a number of fish markets.
And they're a great place to start finding out what lives in the water here.
The story I've heard, the problem is it's only barebones.
I don't have much, in the way of detail, but I do know
it was too far inland to be a bull shark
and it definitely wasn't anything like a grouper.
So, what else could it have been?
Are there any big fish around here that aren't on my radar?
I'm not looking for small fish. I'm looking for big fish.
So I come in here looking for one thing, or with a particular line of inquiry,
and I just find it easy to get side-tracked here.
I'm looking at all sorts of stuff, but a lot of variety of fish here.
That's quite a surprise, actually.
But I think most of it is marine,
not a lot of freshwater variety in Australia.
Do you have any other river fish, big river fish?
Er, I think we don't have the river fish here.
So everything is from the sea. All from the sea. Yeah.
Do you ever see any other fish, river fish?
There is some barramundi. I see, I saw the barramundi, yeah.
There is some silver perch, and Murray cod, too, from the river.
Silver perch? Yeah. Murray cod. Murray cod. Yeah.
Definitely Murray cod? Yeah, definitely Murray cod.
How big are the ones that you see? Around one kilo, two kilos.
Right, OK. You have those? Sometime we have them, not today.
Not today? Yeah, not today. You see any bigger than that?
No, we've never seen... No?
And where do they come from? Er, I'm not sure.
Right, OK, thank you. Thank you. Thanks very much.
Of the three fish he mentioned, barramundi aren't found around here
and silver perch are too small to scare anyone,
but the Murray cod is a surprise.
Well, I've been to Australia a few times before,
and I've never caught or even seen a Murray cod,
or even, for that matter, heard anybody talk about it.
And it's never really... I've never considered going after one,
because as I understood, I mean, this is a fish that I knew about,
but as far as I understood, they were pretty much extinct.
The early settlers just wiped them out, overfished them.
Could it mean that the beast is back?
The Murray cod, which is not related to the Atlantic or Pacific cod,
is a powerful predator,
and it was one of the largest freshwater fish in the world.
Records from the late 1800s tell of a fish
reaching six feet in length and a weight of 250lb.
I don't know exactly where the story
about the attack on the swimmers came from,
and New South Wales is the size of Texas.
To determine whether there's a chance
that the Murray cod could be a suspect,
I need to find out more about this freshwater predator.
Are they extinct or are they really still here?
I'm hoping I can get some clues from the oldest library in Australia.
With over six million items in its archive...
.. can I find a monster from the past?
This is quite a treasure trove of information
going back 150 years or so.
The challenge now is make some sense of it.
The papers state that a Murray river cod has been caught,
weighing over 250lb.
It's May 21st, 1857.
You've got four guys,
and they've got this fish on their shoulder.
For a river fish, that is big.
It's on its back, tail is nearly down to the ground,
and it's actually got a weight on here. It's 97lb,
which is a precise weight. That looks like a 97lb fish.
But there's something more alarming here.
These pictures here tell a different story.
These are massive catches.
This is fishing on an industrial scale.
We're talking about a river here, we're not talking about the open ocean.
It's quite, erm, disturbing.
And that was only the start.
Records show a fish massacre,
with huge numbers being taken from the rivers.
"In 29 years, 26,214,502 pounds of Murray cod
"has been eaten by the people of Melbourne."
Last year, it was only, like, half a million pounds.
So, although we're talking big numbers,
there is a really steep decline there.
There's something else here.
"We understand they have become very scarce."
It looks like the monster Murray cod were fished out.
A sadly familiar tale.
But within the records, one location keeps cropping up.
That's the same general area where the story came from.
The Macquarie River.
So that collection of documents and photographs
actually gave a very clear history of the Murray cod.
And on top of that as a bonus,
it gave me a very clear pointer on possibly where I should go next.
The history, yeah,
it was one of massive freshwater fish, huge fish,
and not just their growing to a big size,
but also in huge numbers,
and there was this very large commercial fishing operation
built around that which just crashed because the population of fish plummeted.
It's all about overfishing. They saw it coming,
they weren't able to do anything about it.
But if they are truly coming back, where should I go
in this enormous river system?
And looking through the records there,
one place that kept cropping up was the Macquarie River.
And that's actually not that far from here.
So I think, based on everything I saw there,
the Macquarie River, that is the place I need to go to first.
Cut off from the rest of the world for millennia,
Australia is an immense wilderness,
where animals have evolved in isolation.
Here you will find creatures that exist nowhere else on Earth.
Imagine the first settlers coming here. You see something hopping along,
with a head poking out of its stomach,
because they carry the young in the pouch.
That's gotta be a weird sight, if you don't know what it is.
So seeing these guys beside the road here,
it's a reminder of what a special place I'm in.
This is not like any other place in the world,
in terms of what animals you find here on land,
and the same goes for underwater.
After five hours of driving, I've reached the Macquarie River.
That's nice. That is very nice.
Things look promising.
It's a small river,
but experience has taught me that sometimes big fish
can be found in surprising places,
if the conditions are right.
It's not just a boring uniform channel.
There's stuff going on, there's rapids.
Rapids means oxygenation, there's oxygen in the water,
there's slower pools, there's rocks...
.. there's weeds.
Perfect for big fish to hide.
Enough talking. I think, get the gear and go down there,
and look for, look for some spots.
This is clearly deep water,
big boulders and moving quite slowly, so...
.. put something down in the bottom here,
and see if anything mooching around bumps into it.
Yes!
I'm on a mission to find the perpetrator
of an underwater attack in Australia.
The strange thing is, my first suspect is a fish
I thought was extinct, the Murray cod.
We have a fish on. And now I've hooked into something.
There's a large bronzy fish on there.
I'm gonna jump back and then come around.
Maybe not.
Whatever it is, is still quite strong.
It's going to tire itself out.
I just saw something there.
It's riding close, it's riding close.
Puff of mud.
It's a carp.
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I knew there were carp in Australia, but, erm...
.. this is the first one I've caught.
I've fished for carp for a long time,
and they can grow big.
In Europe, they can grow to well over 60lb.
But here in Australia, 25lb is considered a giant.
See, sort of mixed feelings holding this. It's nice to catch a fish.
Carp are an invasive species here in Australia. These take over waters like these,
where you don't have such a diversity of the native species.
Part of you wishes they weren't here, but you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
It's got to that point where even if you were to kill every single one that was caught,
it wouldn't actually make any difference.
Off it goes.
And I'm guessing that's not a fish on its own.
There's plenty more where that came from.
And I'm not wrong. Soon, I'm into another.
Carp have taken over this river.
With these fish in charge eating everything up,
there's little chance for anything else to get a foothold.
Time for a new plan.
I need to find out more about the attack on the two men.
It's supposed to have happened in this part of New South Wales.
So I head to a local watering hole to see if I can find some answers.
I'm barely in the door and there it is,
right in front of me.
These are the first ones I've seen, the first ones I've seen in the flesh.
Not only are they Murray cod, they're decent-sized Murray cod.
This one looks to be about 70lb.
Look at the size of the mouth on these.
That's sort of a fist-sized mouth.
How's it going? Hello, there. George.
A fisherman named Stewart says he's seen a Murray cod,
and not just on a wall.
We've started our own Murray cod hatchery here
to make sure they stay in that river.
Practices today of catch-and-release are a big thing,
and everyone's into it, too, which is really great.
And because of that, they're making a comeback. It's looking really good.
Clearly, some cod managed to survive the commercial fishing.
But these trophies remind us of a time
when anglers also killed fish.
Now it sounds like restocking and better fishing practices
have helped the Murray cod begin to fight back.
But Stewart says this iconic Australian fish
does have a dark side.
They're an aggressive fish, especially the bigger they are,
and, yeah, he's the king of the river, and he knows it.
He's like Muhammad Ali. He knows he's the best,
and he's going to take out anything that gets in front of him.
They love structure. He might be just sitting there still as anything.
They're green and hard to see. Once they're under the water, like a crocodile.
And anything that goes past their territory,
he's only going to go that far in front of him, and he can vacuum him in like that.
It's a big water pump, just sucks them in.
Baby ducks, lizards...
They'll eat it, even if they're not hungry.
Stewart hasn't heard much about the swimmer's story...
.. but another local named Clarky has.
I have heard a lot of stories, Jeremy, and I have heard that story, yeah.
I've heard lots of stories over the years about big fish.
One in particular sticks out.
There was a bloke that got a job as a clearance diver,
up on the dam, to look after the dam wall
and check it for any irregularities or whatever.
He went down and he came back up. It was 10 or 15 minutes later,
and said, "You can have your job, I don't want it."
Er, why was he scared? Well, I suppose to put things in context,
if you dove down 30 metres,
and seen a fish come at you that's twice your body size, would you stay in the water?
So whereabouts was that? Er, Copeton Dam.
Clarky is certain that this was a Murray cod,
and he advices me not to take them lightly.
They're predatory fish and the inside of their mouth is razor-sharp.
I've heard rods break, I've had hand reels...
.. out in the river. You never find them again. They're very aggressive fish.
If you get on to a big one, hang on, Jeremy, for the ride
because it'll take ya.
So against the odds, one of the world's largest freshwater fish
has come back from the brink.
The locals are very clear that Murray cod numbers here are rising.
But are they growing big enough and aggressive enough
to be responsible for the story I heard about?
I need to meet one face-to-face.
Copeton Dam is only about 30 miles away.
Could this be my chance to find the culprit
and see a fish I once thought had gone?
Right, well, it's very important that I don't get ahead of myself,
but I am...
.. starting to anticipate the moment of catching my first Murray cod.
I need to cast my mind back now to about 35 years
when I first started travelling
to various far-flung rivers, and there was a short list then
of freshwater fish that I wanted to catch.
And then there were other fish which...
..as far as I was concerned, were off the list.
Erm, they'd gone, I was too late,
born too late, and the Murray cod was this fish
that had all but disappeared.
So, holding that Murray cod, if I get to be in that position,
is going to be
a moment that is bigger for me
than a lot of other "big fish" moments.
But Copeton Dam is not going to be easy.
It's so big, you'd almost spend your entire life
just, you know, just to get to know a place like this.
It's a bit of a needle in a haystack situation, so...
.. where exactly do I start?
Yes!
I've travelled to Australia to reveal the identity
of an underwater attacker.
All signs point to a fish
driven to near extinction... Hello, there.
.. but possibly making a comeback.
A Murray cod.
Copeton Dam is almost 18 square miles of water.
That's about the size of Manhattan.
As a flooded river valley, it's filled with sunken trees.
Perfect cover for a big ambush predator.
It's a good place to start.
This resembles one of the species of fish in here, the Bony bream.
I'm going to fish with super-sized lures,
mimicking prey fish and attracting the Murray cod with their vibrations.
My sub-surface investigation begins.
But it's not easy.
Any predators would be lying in wait,
hidden among the sunken trees and boulders.
So I am trying to get as close as I can
without getting caught up.
If I am not getting snagged...
All right. It's off, it's off, it's off.
..I'm probably in the wrong spot.
About a dozen kangaroos, all watching me very intently then.
So I was thinking, "Do they know something I don't know? Is something about to happen?"
And they've all just hopped away now.
So maybe I read too much into that moment.
Yes! Fish on. Fish on.
It's caught in a log. It's caught in a log.
It's feeling very strange, feels very strange.
What if it's a turtle, or something weird?
There it is. It's off, it's off, it's off.
I mean, it's off the snag. Still there.
It's coming up to the surface.
It's coming up. It's coming up.
There it is.
First fish from the lake.
Not a Murray cod. This is something called a Yellowbelly.
And I guess one of those would be, potentially,
a meal for a large Murray cod.
But I think it's good to see some activity.
Yellowbelly, also known as Golden Perch.
But they only grow to about 30 inches.
So it's not on the suspect list.
Right. I am now,
me, personally, I am switching into night-vision mode,
and I won't see the land,
but I'll hear it. So, sense of hearing gets dialled up.
It's challenging, fishing.
Probably gonna get snagged up a few times,
but that's sort of half of the course.
I like night fishing. It is like you've entered a different world.
I know there are big fish down there.
This is the kind of situation when you start wondering,
"What else might be down there? Do I wanna fall in?"
Yeah. It's a spooky place at night.
I fish into the night.
Clarky said the diver's brush with a giant Murray cod here
was only a few years back.
These fish can live for up to 50 years.
Chances are that giant is still around.
After a few hours of sleep, I'm back at it.
In this part of the lake, I'm really struck
by just how low the water level is.
Quite a steep bank here
which really gives an idea of how far the water's fallen.
I'm guessing we're about
60-70ft down on the high-water mark.
Is this exceptional drop in water
causing the Murray cod to change their behaviour?
Almost three days and nights of fishing, with very little to show,
is taking a toll.
Time to stop fishing.
Sometimes, stopping fishing is the best thing you can do,
because you need to fish with focus and with energy,
and as soon as you haven't got that, erm,
you risk missing an opportunity, if it comes along.
Local fishermen usually provide the best intel.
All right. How have you been getting on? Very quiet. Quiet?
So, that's some very interesting information.
Yes, the...
This lake is very low now.
It's 18% of full capacity. So that's less than a fifth.
Basically, there's demand for water. So they're letting it out.
And right now, it's falling rapidly.
It's gone down just in the last 24 hours.
You can see how far it's gone down. It's noticeable. There's a ring,
and the fish don't like that.
For the Murray cod, it will feel like someone
is taking the roof off their house.
So they'll hunker down and wait it out
until things get back to normal.
So it's gonna be tough fishing, apparently.
Time to leave the dam.
I need to find some new water.
On the map, there's a promising-looking river
just a few miles away.
Remote enough, hopefully,
for any Murray cod to have been left undisturbed.
It's worth a shot.
But the dam isn't the only body of water
struggling with volume.
There's no water.
I find myself at a river with nothing in it.
So, on the map, there's a blue line, but in reality, it's just this brown.
I had heard there had been big droughts in this part of Australia,
but I'm now seeing it for myself.
So it is a river, but it's a river in name only.
Australia has recently been ravaged by extreme drought.
Have the Murray cod here become its latest victims?
What I need to do to save myself another wasted journey is
talk to a few more people.
So far, some of my best information has come from local watering holes.
Perhaps, another visit will unearth some new leads.
His mouth was that big.
Do you guys know anything about the fish up on the wall? No, mate.
Geoff Boyle has fished the waters around here all his life,
and he tells me about a special river
and an encounter with an extraordinary Murray cod.
My dad and his brother were fishing on the Gwydir River... Yeah.
Erm, and this is about 55 years ago. They had a hand-line,
and they waited for about 10, 15 minutes
and then there's a bang.
Fish. Bang, my dad's hanging on to this hand line
for all he's worth, and he yelled out at his brother,
"I can't hold him. I can't hold him. You better give me a hand."
They're both hanging on, getting dragged towards the river.
Didn't know what to do. Then all of a sudden,
his brother looked over his shoulder and there was a tractor.
So they raced back, tied the line off the back axle of the tractor.
You wouldn't believe it. Guess what?
The tractor started slowly getting dragged towards the river... Right.
.. and bang, pop, straight into the river.
So the cod actually dragged the whole tractor into the river,
and there's the tractor, just there.
So there's lots of stories about these fish.
Yes. There is a lot of stories.
And that's the Gwydir River, you said?
Gwydir River. Gwydir River. OK.
Well, there's no shortage of Murray cod stories.
Everywhere I ask now, there's stories,
and they're sort of getting a bit wilder as we go on.
I particularly like the one about the tractor, the Gwydir River.
What was really interesting about the Gwydir was somebody told me it is spring-fed.
So, even in conditions of drought,
like we have now, there should still be water.
So if there's fish there, there should be water.
That fact seems too good,
too significant to ignore. So I think...
I think the Gwydir is calling me.
Erm, that would seem a very interesting place
to be my next stop.
I head a couple of hours north towards the Gwydir.
It's in the same general area as the attack story,
and all the rivers here are connected.
Hopefully, a spring will mean that the river and any fish in it
are safe from the drought.
It's water. There is water, erm...
So this all comes from a spring somewhere, apparently, but...
..it's not much water.
That's pretty shallow. It's pretty shallow.
I can almost see the bottom in every...
Well, I can see the bottom everywhere I look.
And I don't know. If we're talking about a big fish...
I mean, even fish that size, I have trouble
sort of imagining them in here, but, er...
The thing to do is explore, explore a bit more,
hope to find water that's a little bit deeper.
It doesn't look very hopeful, to be honest.
Erm, but I'm here and I've got some gear.
So, I think, pack some stuff and go for a bit of a walk.
Shallow water presents a different kind of challenge.
When I'm fishing, very often, what I'm trying to do is,
I'm trying to imagine the world from the fish's point of view.
It helps me to fish, and I can't quite do it with this water.
Often, water is mysterious when it's deep.
This is shallow water.
You think you can see all the underwater beaches. You can't.
There are shadows, there are weeds.
Something... Something strange about it.
I think there is a way that I can shortcut my way to that, erm,
fish-eye vision.
It's deeper than it looks.
Australia is home to some of the world's deadliest creatures.
I'm investigating an underwater attack.
And now I need to be careful that I don't become the victim.
I'm deep in the remote outback of Australia,
on the hunt for the Murray cod.
Anything that goes past their territory, they'll eat it even if they're not hungry.
I'm trying to find out what lies beneath the surface of this river,
where I'm told Australia's largest freshwater fish could be hunting.
So I've taken the plunge.
That was very interesting, very interesting.
Underwater is a whole other world.
You could get lost down there.
This is gonna really help me fish.
There's so much water that I might walk past
so many places for fish to hide, even in water like this.
Even big fish to hide, in water like this.
And it's very easy to imagine something lurking out of sight.
And from what I've heard about the Murray cod,
this aggressive behaviour, this territorial behaviour,
in the back of my mind was this thought
that at any moment, something could just... boom! Just, I don't know, ram me,
sort of suddenly just appear from nowhere.
It's a whole other world, and it's a spooky world,
and it's actually quite a scary world.
With this fresh perspective,
I can better focus my approach to find the Murray cod.
No pool will be ignored.
Time to tackle up my fly rod.
Unlike the deep water in the dam,
this river is shallow and full of weeds.
A fly line should glide along the surface of the water,
and the fly will imitate a small prey fish.
These flamboyant creations have a sting in the tail.
Time to gear up and head out.
This is snake country. That's why I'm not doing sandals,
I'm not going barefoot.
I've got wading boots on there with sort of neoprene socks on,
which is possibly slightly overdressed for this heat,
but it's not overdressed for the snakes.
The water here is really clear, which is...
It's a mixed blessing. It means I can see the fish, which is great,
but they can see me, which isn't so great.
So I have to keep my head down below the horizon.
It's pretty challenging. It's looking at the water,
working out your tactics, how are you gonna position yourself, how are you gonna cast.
My first attempts don't attract any attention.
Time to switch to a surface lure.
So the idea of this is to make a bit of disturbance,
but it's sort of the right kind of disturbance.
It's something on the surface in distress.
Such as a fish or even a small mammal.
What happens is, they pick that vibration up on their senses,
and they hit it.
I know now that these pools are deceptively deep,
but this lure should not go unnoticed.
What! Yes! Fish on. Fish on.
Right under rod here. There we go. That's good fish.
That's off.
That was a big fish. That was a big fish.
When you have one shot, you have to take it.
I fear my chance has vanished into the deep.
Took it right...
.. about three feet away from the rod tip.
Right, I can't dwell on that. The light is fading.
I push on.
But unlike at the dam,
fishing in the dark amongst the trees
will be almost impossible.
Time is slipping away.
Damn.
Big, dark shape in the water, spikey fin.
Big Murray cod on the end of my line and...
It didn't break the line, or it slipped the hook.
It wasn't... Erm, yeah, it slipped the hook.
So, erm, what I've got to do now, I've got to...
Yeah, I've just got to sort of reset, come out tomorrow.
And I'm slowly getting a feel for it.
It's just having the opportunity, reacting correctly,
a little bit of luck on your side,
and there's the big fish, but it hasn't happened yet.
Maybe tomorrow. That's what we always say, maybe tomorrow.
The next day, I continue my search.
I've already covered so much water without success,
but I can't stop.
I'm also getting reports that a storm is coming.
Finally, some water for this parched land.
But the last thing I need is to be caught in a flash flood.
I venture deeper into the river system
and keep searching.
Suddenly, like a switch...
That's a fish. I missed it. I missed it.
My fly barely hits the water before it's attacked.
Yes! It is off.
Every cast has become a target.
I can't connect.
Off.
But I can identify the fish.
Positive ID on Murray cod.
It seems that the impending rain and promise of higher water...
Yes. .. have brought the beast out of hiding.
It's off.
Now, their notorious aggression...
That's a fish. It is off.
.. and territorial nature... And it's coming after it again.
.. are in full view. He's gonna go after it again.
Look at this. He's gonna go after it again,
and it has taken it again.
Off.
They do seem to be very aggressive. Get too close to where they live, they don't like that.
Then, in a deep, dark pool...
It's following, it's following, it's following, it's following.
Yes! Yep. Fish on. Fish on.
Gotcha! Gotcha, gotcha!
There we go. Murray cod.
And it's a chunky fish. Amazing.
That just hammered that surface lure,
just came up to it, and bang, aggression. These fish are all about aggression.
It's when they wanna feed, but also when you're in their face,
get too close to where they live, they're just out, and they're at you.
Judging by its size,
this one has been stalking these waters
for the best part of a decade.
A big one of these, I think, easily, might have accounted for that story.
I can look at this all day, but being a fish,
I don't want it too long out of the water.
I've caught all sorts of things all around the world.
This is one that I never thought I would see on the end of my line, and here it is.
These things... I think it's part of their character.
It is like, "Let me go."
That whole king of the river and they know it.
You know, "What are you doing? Just leave me alone." Boom, gone.
That is the Murray cod for you.
My journey started with a classic fisherman's tale
of a terrifying encounter with a beast
in the dark waters of the Australian outback.
From everything I've seen and learned since then,
I've no doubt it was a Murray cod.
This is a powerful, and when they want to be,
very aggressive and territorial fish.
Look at this. He's gonna go through it again.
And when the swimmers came too close, it triggered an explosive response.
But this story is much more than that.
To see a fish come back from the brink,
in the way the Murray cod has done,
is something really special.
It's still got some way to go, of course,
but it shows what can happen if a fish is given a fighting chance,
and that is the story worth sharing.
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