In the remote wilderness of South Africa,
there are reports of a mysterious river creature
with strange powers.
What did they see exactly? It was like the red eye.
This sounds like nothing I've encountered before.
If you're not careful, you do find your imagination
running away with you.
Could it be a new arrival
or perhaps the return...
Look at this.
.. of a beast from Africa's prehistoric past?
There it is. There it is.
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.
Something behind me.
I'm journeying into the unknown to reveal...
Yes.
.. the secrets hidden in these dark waters.
I've received a report of a strange beast
spotted in a river in South Africa.
A man was walking along a remote stretch
of the Buffeljags River when he saw what he thought
was a woman drowning.
He rushed to help, but when he got close,
he realised that it wasn't a woman at all.
The creature was the size of a human, but it had a pale shimmering body.
He says he found himself rooted to the spot
as if hypnotised or under a spell, and the creature made its escape.
The report says that the man believes
that what he saw was an ancient beast.
Known in South Africa as the Kaaiman.
I've been to southern Africa. I know the waters here.
But this description doesn't fit anything I've ever heard of.
So, what is this beast of legend?
What is the Kaaiman?
The Buffeljags River, scene of this mysterious sighting,
snakes through Western Cape province.
And just looking around, it's incredible.
This is like a... looks like an oasis.
It is so green here. The rest of South Africa
at the moment is... is experiencing this very severe drought.
But not here. And the reason for that is,
the clouds that come across, they hit the mountains
and it rains on this side.
So, everything here is very lush
and the river apparently is doing very well.
Lots of water in the river.
The incident I'm investigating happened at this time of year.
So I'm hoping that similar conditions on the Buffeljags
will give me a good chance of an encounter of my own.
I've arranged for a guide to get me on the river.
Jeremy. Nice to meet you. Hello, Jeremy, I'm Dave.
Dave knows the stretch of the river well.
There is something about the dark water
that gives me an eerie feeling.
The river here is deep and wide.
But as we head upstream, it narrows and the forest closes in.
So, this is the Buffeljags River
which is pretty close to the southern tip of Africa.
So we're... we're beyond the zone where you'd expect to see
that big wildlife. Your lions and elephants,
that kind of thing.
It's very enclosed, it's very sheltered. The water's flat.
It's got this dark, stained, this tea-coloured water.
Lots of structure. Lots of branches, vegetation.
So, it really is its own secret world, and you can really imagine
a place like this without any other fishermen,
I can see having its own secret inhabitants
who are pretty much left alone.
So could this be the private lair of a man-sized ancient beast?
We can go down to the bottom and then work out...
I want to get a line in the water to find out.
We're gonna be fishing a popper, and the reason it's called a popper
is... it's floating on the surface.
So, it traps a little bit of air, makes it pop, makes a disturbance,
and it's very obvious to something that this...
..a couple of feet down under the surface.
The Kaaiman was sighted close to the river bank.
Here, weeds and fallen trees give plenty of cover.
This is classic territory for ambush predators
waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Fish on.
That's a nice one. Yeah. There we go.
You got it? Yeah.
There we go.
There we go. That's nice. Hit that on the surface.
Lovely fish. A largemouth bass. Classic ambush predator.
It's waiting in all that structure and all those weeds.
Something moves, bang. And it is almost like bite first,
ask questions later.
The Kaaiman report described a pale,
shimmering, silver body.
But this bass is too dark to fit that.
And there's another difference. I'm actually looking for something
ultimately quite a bit bigger than this.
Largemouth bass grow to only about two feet in length,
far shorter than man-sized creature I'm after.
I fish on for several hours, but see no more activity.
What I do see is farmland.
According to Dave, there's a farming community nearby.
Perhaps the people there will be able to give me some fresh information
about the Kaaiman sighting.
Well, I've heard there's a cousin of the Kaaiman eyewitness
who lives here in the town of Suurbraak.
Her name is Maggie Gentile.
If I can find her, I could be a step closer
to getting some answers about what was seen in the river that night.
It's a really pleasant place actually.
We've got a bit of tropical in the midst of a Mediterranean climate.
It's a small community,
and I'm hoping it's the sort of place where everybody knows everybody.
I'm looking for somebody called Maggie Gentile. Do you know?
Er, Maggie, yes.
I'm looking for Maggie Gentile.
No? OK, no problem. OK. Thank you.
Hello. I'm looking for Maggie, Maggie Gentile.
Finally, someone recognises the name.
And I'm pointed towards where I can find Maggie.
Thank you.
Hello?
Hello. Hello. Hello. Are you Maggie? Yes.
Er, I'm Jeremy. Pleased to meet you. Welcome.
I explain to Maggie how I got her name.
And my interest in her cousin's story.
In the early January they were having a braai... Yes.
..at the picnic area. All of a sudden,
they get aware of the sound
that came up out of the waters. What did they see exactly?
The top part is lady, and then the other half is fish.
When she comes up, she looks at him.
It was like the red eye. It was as if the eye attracts him.
Like hypnotised or something. Yes.
Some people are talking about a Kaaiman.
Other people is calling it a mermaid.
Sightings of mermaids, mythical creatures with a head
and upper body of a woman and the tail of a fish
have been reported across the world and throughout history.
Mermaids turn up everywhere.
From ancient Greek mythology to medieval folklore.
Christopher Columbus describes seeing mermaids
on his voyage to discover the Americas.
And I have investigated freshwater sightings
in Guyana in South America.
Maggie tells me that in this part of South Africa
belief in mermaids is widespread.
And to understand how deeply engrained it is in the local psyche,
there's a place nearby I have to visit.
East of Suurbraak lies the Klein Karoo,
a semi-desert region known for its cloudless skies
and hostile extremes of heat and cold.
It is here that the region's earliest human inhabitants
are thought to have lived.
It turns out, these mermaid stories didn't just come out of nowhere.
There are similar stories going way back thousands of years.
Er, obviously, we can't talk to the people who had those experiences,
but they did leave records behind. So, if I could find those,
that should start to give me a more complete picture
of what I'm looking at here.
The Karoo is dry and arid now,
but it's thought that millions of years ago,
this whole area was under the sea.
Wasn't expecting to see this here. We've got some water.
Erm, driving around this country, this part of the country here,
so dry, so arid, so barren.
Here we have water. It's not very deep.
But you can already see it's a real oasis of life.
There's dragonflies, there's birds' nests here.
Despite the presence of water, this seems like the last place
on earth you'd expect to find anything resembling a fish.
There's a bit of a sort of an overhang here. Might try down here.
I've been told to look out for caves where people may have taken shelter.
This looks like the perfect place for, erm...
Imagine it's pouring down with torrential rain.
Here you'd be perfectly sheltered.
Here we go. Here we go.
Look at this. Look, look, look.
These are animals. Four-legged animals.
There! Right. So, here we go.
There's creatures here. There are several of them.
They all have a head, arms and a tail.
You don't have to use your imagination. It just leaps out.
These paintings of human-fish hybrids could be 50,000 years old.
I'm now taking in more detail. So they all have a head,
two arms, torso, and then the tail, like a fish tail.
But there's other things going on. There a wavy line
forming a bit of a semi-circle that could represent
the surface of the water. So you've got most of them
just under the surface, and then you've got a few
that have come through. What I've often found
looking into stories of... of water monsters,
very rarely does anything come out of nothing.
It lends credibility to what I've been hearing lately.
It's tantalising. There is something that is real on a certain level.
The paintings suggest that mermaids have been part of the culture here
since the times of cavemen.
Is it possible that tens of thousands of years later,
these same beliefs live on?
I'm now in the town of Zoar,
and what I really wanna do is find
one of the older people, one of the tribal elders
who'd probably be one of the people to tell me what stories are there
that have been handed down about creatures,
strange things living in the water.
I'm in South Africa trying to track down the real-life creature
behind a legend that's lingered for thousands of years.
The descendants of the Khoisan bushmen
who inhabited the caves at the time of the paintings
still live in the area today
and I've been given the name for the community elder.
Hello, are you James? Yes. Hello, I'm Jeremy.
Good day. Good day. Nice to meet you.
I've been hearing about a belief
or a tradition that goes back a long time about mermaids.
According to, er, certain older people in the community,
they have had actual sightings.
One of them claimed that she actually saw
this phenomenon. There was this movement.
The water actually parted
as if something was moving within the water.
They actually got frightened because there was this gust of wind
that shook the bushes and things.
This phenomenon actually caused water to splatter
and some of the water fell on this one lady's arm.
She had marks on her forearm.
And, so this was a movement they saw in the water... Yeah.
..er, and there was the sound like a wind.
They didn't get a clear sight of what it was. Yeah.
She said that definitely... Yes. OK.
.. that could only have been the doings of a mermaid.
It is said that yearly
the mermaids will come and they will take a youngster
to live with them under the water.
James' story is significant.
The mermaids here are seen by some locals
as dangerous creatures that might take children.
James told me of other recent mermaid sightings.
One report was from the shores of a huge lake
formed by a man-made dam.
Thing about these stories of mermaids
is a lot of them tend to be associated
with dams, places where there are dams.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna head out there,
see if I can take a look
and see what actually lives beneath the surface there.
The lake near Jozini is said to be home to another mermaid.
Some locals believe that mermaids are more likely to stalk areas
where humans have interfered with their water.
The Pongolapoort dam was the largest dam in South Africa
when it was built.
And it created a deep reservoir where beasts could lurk unseen.
Well, this is the dam. I can see...
In the downstream direction, I can see the river,
sort of fairly, er, modest-sized river,
but upstream, a massive body of water.
Jozini town is small,
but it offers me a chance to prepare for the task ahead.
I'm just taking a moment to revisit some of these... mermaid stories.
Just reminding myself what kinda thing I'm looking for.
I'm going over some of these stories, the mermaid sightings.
And... what's starting to become apparent
is that a lot of these stories, they seem to be talking
about the same kind of thing. The details might vary a little bit,
but something with a silvery body,
erm, lives in the water. It's about the size of a person.
Fishing on Lake Jozini is highly regulated
and few permits are granted.
But I've been give special permission,
and I've arranged for a boat to take me out.
The reservoir stretches all the way up into the neighbouring country
of Swaziland.
And it's surrounded by wildlife reserves,
where leopards, zebras, rhinoceroses and elephants roam.
Well, this is a reminder that here in Africa
there are fantastical creatures that are well known,
and they are 100% tangible and real.
But imagine if somebody said to you, there is this animal.
Its ears, double the area of its face,
it has a nose that reaches down to the ground,
and it has two very enlarged teeth that poke out,
I mean, you'd say, you're making that up.
But you'd be the person who's wrong.
I'm becoming more convinced that there is a real-life creature
behind some of the fantastical mermaid accounts.
Both the recent ones and those of ancient legend.
And this could be the place to find it.
We've anchored up. Anchor to both ends.
The wind is holding us in position. Couple of baits out.
The pickup on the reel opens. So, if anything takes it,
they can swim off without feeling any resistance.
So, it's now just, er... sitting and waiting.
What is lurking in the dark depths of this lake?
Could the real creature behind the mysterious, shimmering mermaid
be checking out my bait right now?
Yeah, we have one.
The fight feels familiar.
Things are starting to move beneath the surface.
Here we go.
This is an aggressive predator I've caught
throughout southern Africa.
OK. So, a tiger fish. Why do they call it that?
Well, one theory is it's the teeth,
the very sharp, predatory teeth there.
These striped tigers maybe Africa's toothiest fish,
but it's not the creature behind the stories I'm investigating.
You can't mistake this fish, you can't misidentify it.
These grow, at the most, twice this length.
We're not talking any of these human-size.
And this not the face of a mythical beauty from the deep.
There we go.
I continue to fish down the lake, and the bites come thick and fast.
There is something on here.
There are clearly plenty of tigers in this lake.
There it goes.
Tiger fish have their own dangerous reputation.
Packs of these fish are said to have devoured
a boatload of people elsewhere in southern Africa.
So, if the man-sized fish behind the mermaid stories is in this lake,
it can clearly hold its own against formidable predators.
But whatever it is, it's not biting.
Or it's being kept from the bait by swarms of tiger fish.
Perhaps I'll have better luck when night falls.
All right. Erm, Phil, these things I've been hearing about,
the other people have seen, it tends to be, er,
possibly something that's nocturnal. So, in terms of...
.. normally you fish, at the end of the day,
you pull everything in, and that's it.
Would it be possible to continue into darkness?
Africa is not the safest place to be out at night.
Crocs, hippos mainly. They're nocturnal.
During the day, you don't see them that much. At night-time,
they move around more. The elements can turn at night,
the weather can change. Erm...
So, yeah, we're gonna have to keep our wits about it,
and just stay safe out there.
It's a risk, but I feel my best chance of catching this beast
maybe in the dark.
I've found whenever I'm fishing at night, it's almost like
entering another world,
or going to this, sort of, timeless state.
And...
If you're not careful, you do find your imagination
running away with you.
Most of the mermaid sightings happened at night
when moonlight and darkness can play tricks on the eye.
Big predators like to operate under cover of darkness.
So, if there is a beast here, this should be a good time.
But tonight, nothing is taking my bait.
Have these guys been out fishing? Looks like it might be
one of the local fishermen. Should we...
Can we pull alongside, maybe? Yeah. See if we can...
Just wondering if you've been catching anything. Yeah, just one.
Just the one? What is it? The barbel. A barbel?
Can I have a look? Yeah, please, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah.
You got it? Yeah, I got it. Here we go. Don't drop in the water.
All right. So, what they call here barbel, what I know as catfish,
these potentially grow to human size.
So, that's interesting. You've got a glimpse of the belly.
I don't know. Maybe that is...
Not really shimmering, but it is... it is pale.
Barbel is the local name for sharp-toothed catfish,
a species that can grow up to six-feet long.
So, there could be man-sized specimens in here.
OK, thanks a lot.
But it feeds at the bottom of lakes.
So, a barbel seen belly up at the surface
is likely to be a dead one.
I don't think this is the creature behind the mermaid incidents.
My search goes on.
The Lake Jozini disappearances blamed on mermaids
happened some time ago.
But I've come across a report of a recent incident.
In a river down the coast, a fisherman claims
to have been attacked after hooking a mermaid.
This supposedly happened upstream of a town called Port Saint Johns.
This is the biggest concentration of people I've seen
for quite some time. But the reason for this...
..is over here. That is the river.
River runs that way. Over there, we've got the sea.
We've actually got the river mouth.
There's probably been a settlement here for generations,
centuries even. And I'm guessing if I start talking to people here,
in terms of these mermaid stories, what is it that people have seen,
what is it that they are believing.
OK. Thank you. Yeah, of course.
No-one seems to know the fisherman who was attacked.
And without any more detail, the trail goes cold.
But I hear about something else that's worth following up.
Traditional healers here, sangomas, are said to have
a special relationship with the Kaaiman or mermaid.
So I'm hoping to find a sangoma who can tell me more.
Er, house of sangoma, is this right here?
I'm directed to an address on the edge of town.
OK.
Yes.
Here, a sangoma has agreed to speak to me through her daughter.
The mermaids, what do they look like?
The colour of the skin, it's white,
and it has a fish tail.
How do people know about them?
Is it because some people have seen them?
They do come in their dreams and reveal some secrets.
That's how they know about the mermaids.
And whereabouts are they?
They are usually found in waters where it is very deep.
It means that there are places there to hide.
I'm told that the sangomas regularly perform rituals
for the mermaids in places near deep water.
I'm not sure where there's
a particularly deep part of the river,
but I've been invited to join them early in the morning.
So, early start today.
What I'm hoping to do is... witness this ritual.
As yet, there's nobody here. I'm waiting for the sangoma,
her daughter and some other people.
I guess I'll just carry on... waiting.
It turns out I'm waiting in the wrong spot.
The meeting point is not by the river, but down by the sea.
They're just setting up at the moment back from the water.
The fact that people do this is an indication
that this belief in mermaids, in something strange under the water,
that belief is still very much still alive.
Sangomas are like shamans in other cultures.
And the unique relationship they claim with mermaids
allows them to offer protection to other members of the community.
It looks like this is about the boy.
The location's very significant. We're right here at the water's edge.
It's about danger in the water, and it's about protecting yourself
from that danger.
The danger here it seems comes from the ocean.
For the sangoma, this is where the mermaids reside.
So, is the creature behind this mermaid myth
which I've been looking for in rivers actually a sea-dweller?
I need to know more about this coast and what's in the water here.
I find some lifeguards on duty,
and they're eager to tell me about the dangers here.
One of them, Patrick, has some shocking news.
I lost my last three lifeguards and three surfers? Yeah.
So you say, you... what, you lost three... three lifeguards?
Three lifeguards that have been attacked here. Yeah, yeah.
So, is the creature I'm after also a killer?
The lifeguards who were attacked, where did that happen?
Yeah. It happened, er... See that... the last wave? Yes.
They were right there, right? So, quite a long way out.
Really out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yes, yeah.
You're quite close to the river here.
Quite close. There's the river on the other side.
Er, it's not far from here. Do people swim in the river?
It's very dangerous to swim in the river.
There is a big risk of, er...
We've got a lot of sharks. What kind of sharks are they?
Er, we've got zambezi.
Zambezi sharks are also known as bull sharks.
I caught one the last time I was in South Africa.
Turning up, turning up, turning up.
This is gonna break the gap. This is gonna break the bloody gap.
Bull sharks have the remarkable ability
to thrive in both salt and fresh water.
They're at home in the sea, but will also venture up rivers,
sometimes hundreds of miles inland.
So, could bull sharks be the real-life creature
behind the mermaid stories?
They certainly grow big enough, over ten feet long,
and they inspire both fear and awe.
Normally, when you think about sharks, you just think
about that fin cutting the surface if you see anything at all.
But when some sharks feed, they come out of the water,
and if the belly was facing you, you'd see a pale shape,
cloaked in spray.
But Maggie underlined another crucial detail.
When she comes up, she looks at him.
It was like the red eye. It was as if the eye attracts him.
She said the mermaid's eyes shine red.
The one thing that would totally nail it for me
would be this business of eye-shine.
To take my investigation further, what I need to find out
is do bull shark eyes reflect red?
But to answer that question, erm, what I need to do
is somehow find out a way of getting up close to a shark at night
and shining a light in its face.
Sharks, like a lot of night hunters,
have a reflective layer in the eye called the tapetum lucidum.
It reflects light back through the retina,
making vision more sensitive in low light.
This phenomenon is well known.
But the colour of a bull shark's reflected eye-shine isn't.
To find out more, I've contacted scientist Gareth Jordaan
at the Oceanographic Research Institute in Durban.
Gareth. Jeremy. Hello. Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too Are we all set? Yes, you can follow me. Sure.
Despite working closely with sharks,
Gareth has never experimented with their eye-shine at night.
I talked about this hypothetical situation
of shining a light in the shark's face. Yes.
Er, I realise this might be a bit of a unusual request,
but, I mean, is there anyway, when everything closes down here,
I might be able to get in and... try that with one of these?
I'm sure you will be able to get inside, then get up close
and personal with these sharks if you're lucky.
A bit of out of hours experimentation.
Out of hours experimentation.
That would be amazing.
The institute's research aquarium holds a number of shark species
including grey reef and silvertip sharks,
both close cousins of the bull shark.
All right. So I'm ready to go. I've taken a mask and a snorkel.
This is important. A light.
That's where I'm gonna be getting in. Now, it looks quite flimsy
and insubstantial, but they tell me that's quite thick Plexiglas there.
But if you have a clear barrier, the sight of large predators
with teeth up close, sometimes it takes a little bit of, er...
of getting your concentration back and actually focusing
on what you have to do. These mermaid stories
that I've been hearing, one thing that keeps coming up is red eyes,
red eyes. So I want to know if I can keep bull sharks
basically on the suspects list.
What I'm looking for to keep them on the list is red.
I'm heading into the dark depths to get eye-to-eye
with some of the most notorious aquatic predators
on the planet.
I'm in South Africa,
trying to track down the creature behind supposed mermaid sightings
and mysterious attacks in rivers and on the coast.
The much feared bull shark at home in both salt and fresh water
is a serious suspect.
But, to be sure, I need to find out if the eyes in this family of sharks
reflect red.
I need to get close
and hit the shark's eye with the beam of my flash light.
Initially, the sharks hang back.
But finally, one strays into range.
There's my answer.
I wasn't necessarily expecting an answer that quickly,
but that's an answer. There is a little hint of yellow in there,
there's a tiny bit of green.
But the one thing I didn't see at all,
there's no red there whatsoever. After that promising little bit
of information, er, bull sharks are off the list.
The reported red eye-shine is too specific to ignore.
So I press on for more clues.
With incidents on the coast and upriver,
I know I'm looking for a fish that's at home in both environments.
And that narrows the search.
What I'm doing, I'm trying to find a sea fish,
fish that lives in salt water which is also capable
of surviving in fresh water.
There's actually very, very few fish that can do this.
Normally, that river mouth is an absolute barrier.
But they're talking here about dusky kob.
The dusky kob or kabeljon is a man-sized fish
growing up to six feet and a hundred and fifty pounds.
And this is a fish that everybody thinks of as a sea fish,
but apparently, they are found up the rivers,
including the Breede River.
This is the river I've actually fished before.
It's very clear from this, very clear what I need to do next.
I need to go and fish the Breede River.
The Breede River in Western Cape province
is connected to the Buffeljags,
the scene of the mermaid incident I came here to check out.
So my investigation has come full circle.
There's a few people around, er, but... most of these houses look like
there's nobody at home. I think this is very much
a sort of a vacation...
.. settlement when people come here for just a few weeks
and then, they're off to their main homes.
But, there's a few vehicles.
The last time I was here, the place was pretty quiet,
but now, it seems almost deserted.
Oof. This all has a bit of a sort of, almost end of the world feeling.
It's not just... end of land meeting water
but, sort of, almost end of time.
Erm, massive dunes. Just and they just...
The thing about dunes is that they keep, they keep marching.
And they're halfway across the road. That is so big.
There could almost be a house underneath there. There probably isn't,
but that's the size of it. I mean, it does make you wonder.
Things that man has constructed, and nature,
and here they're in something of a...
There's a bit of a tussle going on, and it's not quite clear...
.. who's coming out on top.
Fortunately, I know someone from my previous visit
who has a boat.
Skipper Mark has agreed to take me out on the river.
He's been fishing here for more than 20 years
and has caught kob before.
I've never caught one, and I don't know much about them.
I'm hoping Mark will have the local knowledge
that could indicate whether they're worth pursuing as a suspect.
How are the numbers like today compared with,
I don't know, 100 years ago, something like that?
They're under quite a bit of pressure.
A lot of recreational fishermen that catch them.
Some of the guys, it's their first big fish ever,
and they'll take it home for the mountings or whatever.
They've got those quite big eyes.
Erm, at night, if you... if they catch the light,
do they reflect back any at all, or any particular colour? Yeah, they...
At night-time, er, they seems, it seems to reflect back red.
They get a reddish sheen in the eye.
When she comes up, she looks at him.
It was like the red eye.
Eye-shine is only part of the story.
Could a dusky kob be mistaken for a half-woman, half-fish
with pale, shimmering skin?
The only way to know for sure is to catch one.
The fish I'm after occupies both fresh and salt water.
So my best chance of finding it could be where the two meet.
In the lower reaches of the Breede.
It's a strip of squid that I've tenderised a little bit,
so that it leaks a bit of scent into the water.
And then, some bait elastic which holds it.
That's fairly well attached, but there's also small fish here,
and just to, sort of, deter them a little bit.
Yes!
What I'm after can grow to the size of a person.
Argh. But can also be mistaken for a woman.
It's swimming to the side there. And has a silver, white glow.
So, it's just still free.
But this is not a kob.
Right. So, this took a whole fish on the bottom.
But disappointingly small. I'm after...
after something that puts a real bend in the rod. But this is a...
This is a game fish known as a garrick or a leerfish.
They get considerably bigger than this, but...
Now, it's interesting to see the fish are moving.
But just hoping for something a bit bigger.
Garrick can grow quite big, up to four or five feet,
but they don't make their way into fresh water.
They will enter estuaries like this, but that's as far as they'll go.
You won't find one of these upstream
where some of the mysterious mermaid sightings occurred.
Right. Drop it back.
It's reassuring to get a catch,
but it's still not what I'm looking for.
The tide has just turned. The tide has just...
The waters just swung around, and that happened pretty well
straight after the boat settled. So... well, what that might be doing,
it might mean that might be in the vanguard.
There might be other fish also moving up on the tide.
I need to get my line back in the water.
For a long time nothing happens.
Then finally, a take.
And this time, it's big.
Yeah, this is a heavy fish.
We have a fish.
This feels quite a good size.
I might need to come along this side. It's swimming, swimming upstream.
It's a kick, a kick, a kick, a kick. It's off again.
This is, er... This is gonna be an interesting fish, I think.
We're in about 15 feet of water.
It's going down.
Under the boat. I think it could be quite... Get the anchor up.
I'm starting to worry a little bit now because this fish is...
on this gear, it's taking a while to come in.
There's a risk that the shark would just come and chop it in half,
which we don't want. It's still at surface, it's still at surface
There it is, there it is, there it is, there it is.
Running again.
In sight. I can see the fish.
OK.
We have it in the boat. We have it in the boat.
Dusky kob. This is what I was after. And it's a good size one.
Dusky kobs spend most of their life in the sea,
but also migrate into rivers.
At just over five-feet long,
this shimmering fish is easily woman-sized.
Mark, my guide, has already confirmed
that kob have a red reflective layer in their eyes.
So, have I finally got my hands on the silvery creature
behind the mermaid mystery?
So I'm thinking, for some of those stories at least
where people claim to have seen
a supernatural creature, a mermaid breaking the surface of the river,
I actually think this real-life flesh and blood creature
is what they saw.
The belief in a creature that's half-woman and half-fish
is deeply rooted in South African culture.
Over the centuries, it has been endowed
with supernatural powers and blamed for disappearances, and even deaths.
This fish demonstrates that there may be
real-life creatures behind the stories,
hidden away in dark waters
that are every bit as marvellous as the myth.
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