I'm Jeremy Wade.
I've made a career out of catching
the world's deadliest freshwater monsters.
Normally, I'm scouring for them
in the most remote corners of the planet...
Hey!
But recently,
I've been getting reports of killer fish
from a place I didn't expect... The United States.
From man-eaters growing monstrous
on human corpses...
Fish as large as myself, maybe more so.
To infamous, familiar foes...
Ooh!
In dark, dangerous waters.
The water around me just started filling with blood.
I'm looking for the people
who've encountered these beasts...
I think that he would have drowned me.
I would have ate supper with Jesus that night.
And then I'll risk my life going after them.
They can be pulled into the water
and never be seen again.
Ooh! Bit me once.
- Aah! - Oh!
That's a stupid thing to do.
Could one of the most developed countries in the world
have deadly monsters hidden in its rivers and lakes?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Having been on the trail of monsters all over the world,
I've learned to expect the unexpected...
from wrestling a 300-pound extraterrestrial in a city
to dragging an electric eel from a drying-out mud puddle,
but this could be my most unexpected quest yet.
Over the past few years, I've been receiving information
from all over the States,
telling me there are river monsters
lurking in America's backyards...
so I'm going on a hunt
to discover if there really are killers
in the fresh waters of the United States.
My journey begins in Florida, on the trail
of one of the world's most formidable predators.
And the reports that I've been hearing
suggest that this potentially lethal animal
is prowling unsuspected
right under the noses of tens of thousands of people.
This fish was the inspiration
for one of the most iconic movies ever produced, "Jaws."
In the film, a great white
stalks the coast of New England,
but the blockbuster is actually based
on a series of bull shark attacks
in New Jersey in 1916.
Two attacks didn't happen in the ocean,
but in a river 16 miles inland.
Bull sharks are top predators
in warm, coastal seas all over the world...
but they are also able to survive in freshwater,
which makes them trespassers into my territory...
and I'm getting reports suggesting
that they are well established in the Sunshine State.
I want to find out if these deadly animals
really are prowling Florida's inland waters,
and if so, is this a modern-day "Jaws"
just waiting to happen?
Although great whites steal the headlines,
bull sharks are responsible for more human fatalities
than any other shark.
In recent years, there have been several horrific attacks
off Florida's coasts alone.
Dawn Schauman was nearly killed by a 10' bull shark
off Melbourne Beach in 1993.
I'm hoping that her firsthand account
will give me a deeper insight into bull shark behavior.
And that was probably by 25 to 50 yards out past the waves,
maybe in 15 feet of water...
and then I just felt something slam into me.
I felt this burning in my hand and a burning in my leg.
The whole water around me just started filling with blood...
Dawn wasn't just worried about her own life.
She was 61/2 months' pregnant at the time.
And I did start panicking, and I think I remember
just, like, calling out for my mom
and just being really worried, like I needed help,
and then no one was there but me,
so I just relied on me,
and that's the point where I gather myself together.
She struggled back to shore as fast as she could.
Dawn was rushed to the hospital,
where she underwent surgery
to repair life-threatening wounds.
Just her leg needed 85 stitches.
21/2 months later, she gave birth to a boy.
He's now 18.
And he was born healthy,
and we named him Maclntyre "Shark" Schauman.
This near death experience
has given Dawn an expert understanding
of what could have led
to the bull shark attacking her.
You can make your odds go up
by doing something like what I did...
Swimming during cloudy, murky water, baitfish season.
If you swim in the early morning
or late in the afternoon, evening,
that's when the baitfish are coming through.
You know, if you see a lot of fish jumping out of the water,
you shouldn't be in there,
because something bigger's chasing them.
After hearing Dawn's attack story,
I feel more prepared to start trying to catch a bull shark
to prove they're prowling Florida's fresh waters.
My investigation will focus around the area
from where I've been getting the most reports
of bull sharks inland, the Indian River Lagoon.
In 25 years of fishing around the world,
I've learned that local knowledge
is key to catching elusive fish,
so whether I'm in Papua New Guinea,
Alaska, or Florida,
talking with locals is a must.
I've been put in contact with Mike Palmer,
who's been catching sharks for over three decades.
Tackling bull sharks is his forte.
He used to catch and kill, but for the past 15 years,
it's been strictly catch and release.
Mike will help me hunt my first American killer.
However, he shark-fishes from the shore,
without the security of a boat.
Mike's heavy-duty rod is attached to a harness,
which is strapped to the body,
so if the rod gets pulled into the water,
the fisherman goes in, too.
For fishing on a riverbank
and hooking a 500-pound bull shark,
there's nothing like it.
Sounds potentially dangerous.
Is that a correct summary perhaps?
We've actually hooked fish and got pulled down to our knees
and drug down to the water's edge,
and by some luck, the line broke.
What could be the worst possible thing
that could happen with this kind of fishing?
We could die.
We could be pulled into the water
and never be seen again.
I have fished for bull sharks before
in Australia and South Africa, but mostly this was from a boat
which can follow a hooked fish.
Fishing from land is something altogether different.
I'm going to need a stronger rig.
Because I could hook something
more than three times my weight,
I'm using some serious tackle, from enormous, forged hooks
to the strongest line I've ever used.
And we use the best harnesses to take the load off our back.
- How's it fit, Jeremy? - It feels good.
When we hook up on these big sharks here,
we have a spotter on the back of our harness.
We use the belts.
They have a little handle on the back,
so when we hook up that first surge,
I mean, you could easily go in the water.
During the daytime,
people use those little stretches
of beaches in the river,
and people in rafts playing this and that,
and when the sun goes down,
the whole life... The ecosystem changes.
That's when the sharks move into the shallows.
They feed on stingrays, they feed on mullets,
and it's a whole different world at night.
I want to get my bait out a couple of hundred yards
into the deep channel.
I can't cast that far,
so the only option is to paddle out and drop it in...
but floating in a plastic canoe
above killing machines potentially 12' long
is a little unnerving.
Back on shore, it's a waiting game...
but I think we've picked the right spot.
One of the things that Dawn said to look out for
is happening.
Schools of baitfish are jumping out of the water,
and something appears to be chasing them.
That is a fish on.
I'm leaning into this.
Although my reel is nearly on full drag,
the fish is still able to swim off with ease,
but the heaviest line I've ever used
is still just about holding out.
This has to be a monster.
After a 20-minute fight, I have it close to the shore.
There it is, there it is, there it is,
there it is, there it is.
As I pull it close to shore, it's clear I've hooked a giant,
but this is no shark.
Fish is beached now.
I'm gonna go in there and grab it.
It's a goliath grouper.
That is just a massive, a massive grouper.
After a 20-minute struggle, it should be worn out,
but it appears this beast has only just started.
Aah! Got to watch that hook.
As it thrashes, not only do I have to be wary
of the giant hook in its mouth,
but also the spikes along its back.
Slip this out.
Hook's out.
That is a beast.
The length is...
83 inches.
83.
69 inches.
That's just shy of 7' long and over 51/2' around.
At this kind of size,
it's going to weigh over 350 pounds...
but they can grow even bigger,
to over 600 pounds and 8' long.
I could feel it was a heavy fish,
and it was also taking line against a very heavy drag,
but what I was expecting to see when it came in close
was a big dorsal of a bull shark,
and then these spikes break the surface.
Although these are very tough, resilient creatures,
it's probably time to put this back.
I want to get it into deeper water to release it,
but even with Mike watching my back,
this monster isn't going anywhere easily.
Look out.
I'm knee-deep in water.
This fish's belly is still scraping the bottom.
Swimming anything like as tired as I do,
he'll sink into a corner somewhere
and just recover for a little while,
but priority for me is stick another bait out.
There's big bull shark out there.
Although not the monster I was hunting for,
that leviathan proves giants do live in these waters.
Buoyed by my success,
I fish on into the early hours..
But I get no further bites.
This heavily settled, modern metropolis
seems the wrong place to hunt
for potentially man-eating monsters.
I've come to meet Grant Gilmore,
an expert in bull shark behavior
who tells me otherwise.
The females enter in every spring,
giving birth in the lagoon
or in the downstream freshwater areas.
So, they're 500-, 600-pounds, 8' and 12'.
Then they leave.
The young stay for the first five or six years,
till they're five or six feet in length...
A large predator by freshwater standards.
So, at any time,
12' bull sharks could be prowling the waters,
just feet from these suburban backyards.
Like some latter-day Minotaur, could man-eating monsters
be stalking the labyrinth of Florida's canals?
How many of them might be swimming around?
Are we talking dozens, hundreds, thousands, or what?
Oh, certainly thousands.
I think they have to recognize
we do have these very large predators
that are right off your front door,
if you live on the water in Florida.
The Indian River Lagoon is over 150 miles long
and has numerous rivers feeding into it.
It's also connected to the ocean
by three inlets, one of which is at Fort Pierce.
Right up ahead there is the main way in
and the main way out between the open ocean
and these thousands of miles of freshwater canals.
So, this is where, at this time of year,
the 10' or 12' long, pregnant females are coming in
to drop their pups inland.
This is also the same place where those juveniles,
those 6', 7' long sharks,
having spent five or six years inland,
are swimming out.
So, this here... you can see
it's only a couple of hundred yards across...
Is like a highway for sharks, you know...
Potentially hundreds or even thousands of sharks
every year, swimming up and down,
and it's just, you know...
Just right past all these people.
I've heard how violent bull shark attacks can be,
I've learned about the numbers that could be out there,
and I've seen the territory they share with people.
There's only one thing left for me to do... catch one.
Yep. That's something on.
As we stop, start...
Yes, that's a big hook.
Ooh, ooh, yeah!
And I can feel the kick back.
Yeah, that's kicking away... Kicking away, kicking away.
Once again, I'm reassured to know
that Mike has got my back.
If a big fish pulls, the worst-case scenario
is I actually end up in the water.
Finally, the fin I've been waiting to see.
A little bit closer.
Yep. That's something on.
To get a closer look,
I need to tie a rope around its tail
and drag it ashore,
but I have to be careful.
Even after the longest battle,
sharks always keep something in reserve.
They go bigger than this,
but this is a respectable-size fish.
This juvenile bull shark is about 6' long
and is the right size to be leaving the freshwater
and heading out into the ocean.
The hook has cut the shark's mouth,
but once it's released, it will heal very quickly.
This shark's gums conceal
it's mouthful of razor-sharp, serrated teeth,
which it only unsheathes
moments before sinking them into its prey.
You can absolutely understand how somebody,
even with an exploratory bite in a way,
from an animal like this, you know,
could just bleed out, lose a lot of blood,
and that could be a fatal encounter.
This fish could have spent
the last five or six years actually
in the inland waterways, in the canals,
along with possibly thousands of others,
and that's certainly quite sobering.
You know, if your paths crossed with a creature like this,
it could end very badly, but I think the miraculous thing
is is that most of the time, bull sharks go their way,
we go our way, and actually, nobody's any the wiser.
Now I've landed one of these bull sharks,
it's clear they are swimming among us
in freshwater rivers and canals,
which run right through human habitation.
So far, attacks have only occurred along the coast,
and those attacks are probably more accident
than targeted assault.
They're mistaking humans
for their usual prey of smaller fish and dolphins.
Horror films and news reports forever remind us
of the threat of a shark attack in the ocean...
but what of these quiet, inland waterways?
Most people who use them are unaware of the killers
just beneath the surface.
And as more humans and sharks share these spaces,
a freshwater "Jaws" could be just around the corner.
The presence of bull sharks in Florida's canals
is one instance of man-made structures offering safe haven
to some of nature's deadliest killers.
But dams can create monsters.
Fish become trapped in a bigger, new habitat,
and if left undisturbed
can grow to man-eating proportions
like the wels catfish I caught in a dammed river in Spain.
Recently, I've been getting reports
of monster catfish sightings at the Bagnell Dam
in south-central Missouri,
which is at one end of the Lake of the Ozarks.
It's a treacherous place.
The lake behind the dam
is statistically the third most dangerous stretch of water
in the United States.
It's a deep, liquid black hole
where bodies regularly go missing.
Could the large number of missing human bodies
be linked to the reports of supersized catfish?
I begin my investigation
by meeting up with local historian Michael Gillespie
to find out what he knows about the missing people.
No one really knows how many bodies
have been lost in the lake and never recovered.
But the best known incident involving that sort of thing
was back in 1954.
It was a boating accident involving an excursion boat
called the Grand Glaize.
This ought to be a lot of fun.
The Grand Glaize left Bagnell Dam
just in front of a large thunderstorm
that was moving in.
It was Memorial Day weekend.
The boat went out across the lake
and about two or three miles up the lake
when it hit the leading edge of that storm.
Just as the boat turned into a sheltered cove,
a strong gust of wind capsized it.
15 people went into the water...
and of those 15, 8 were drowned.
Three of those eight bodies were never recovered.
One of the victims' fathers, actually out of his own expense,
contracted to have divers search for his drowned daughter.
They never did find her.
It's possible the bodies sank to the lake bed
and were consumed by catfish.
It's a grisly scenario I've encountered before
in the Kali River, India,
where catfish have grown gigantic
from eating semi-cremated bodies
put there during river burials.
Maybe something similar is happening here.
I know there are large catfish in here,
but possibly, there are some giant catfish in here.
By "giant," I mean fish as large as myself and maybe more so.
It really does seem as if there are seriously large fish
in the water behind that dam.
And what's interesting to me
is that this is not some tropical jungle.
We're talking about a body of water here
that is right in the heart of the developed world.
But before I cast my line into the murky depths,
I want to know what sort of monsters
could be investigating my bait,
so I meet somebody who spends his working life
in these treacherous waters.
Salvage diver Tim McNitt
has clocked up thousands of hours diving here.
If there are monsters in this lake, he should know about it.
So, as well as boats and things that people have dropped...
I mean, are you sometimes
retrieving bodies out of the water here?
Yeah. I've recovered eight bodies in my lifetime.
Sometimes they're in branches or trees underwater.
Sometimes they're vehicles underwater.
Have any of the bodies retrieved
ever had anything partially feeding on them?
I have seen... bodies of that nature.
Catfish are known to be scavengers.
They will eat anything that fits in their mouth.
And if they get big enough, then humans are on the menu.
I want to know if the catfish in this lake reach that size.
What's the biggest catfish you've seen?
Oh, probably at least a six-footer...
6- to 7-footer, close to 280, 300 pounds.
Head on them about that big... Bigger than me, heavier than me.
At last... a firsthand account from somebody
who has seen a monster catfish in this lake.
I need to start fishing as soon as possible,
so I meet up with Steve Brown,
who knows these dangerous waters well.
The dam here is home to three types of catfish...
The flathead, blue, and channel.
I've never caught any of these before,
but I'm interested in the two largest,
which could grow to man-eating size.
I've taken the unusual step of fanning out four rods
to maximize my coverage of the water.
Using this method, I get a barrage of bites.
But keeping track of four active rods is a challenge.
Despite my best efforts, I'm only landing small fry.
We just want to find a bigger one... that's all.
Over the next few days, I carry on fishing.
The bites come thick and fast.
See how greedy these things are?
But there's no sign of a giant.
Still well short of the size we want.
I decide to try a trick I learned
on a previous adventure.
We got deep water here very close to the sides.
It's a very steep bank there. That just continues.
And about 25, 30 yards out,
there's actually... It's the old riverbed.
And remembering back to wels catfish in Spain,
get a base on the old river bed.
That was always productive.
So, I'm hoping to do the same thing here.
This plan seems to be working.
I get immediate interest in my bait.
Yeah, that's a good fish. That's a good fish.
That was within minutes,
seconds even almost, of putting in the bait.
This... this feels like something.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Where's the net?
Lovely... In the net, in the net.
This is a blue catfish weighing 58 pounds.
Oh, yes. Oh, gosh.
People think catfish are ugly, slimy scavengers,
but, I mean, this fish is just a muscular predator.
I'm so pleased with that.
That's all I wanted to see... A big catfish.
It might not be big enough to eat a person,
but I can see the potential.
Close to four feet. Eight inches across the head.
I got six inches.
Scaling that up to the size of catfish that Tim saw,
the mouth would be big enough to fit around somebody's head.
There are big fish in this lake.
That would be frightening to actually bump into that
in low-visibility.
You know, you literally don't see it
until you're a couple of feet away.
I'm convinced there are monster-sized catfish
in the Bagnell Dam,
which probably supplement their diet with human corpses,
but one question remains...
Are they scavenging bottom-feeders
that take pieces of dead bodies
or killers that take human lives?
In past investigations,
I have put myself at risk to prove a point...
like taking a dip with piranhas
to show they don't always attack humans...
or using myself as bait when I tangled with eels
in New Zealand.
Ow! Aah! Look at that! Look at that!
Look at that, look at that, look at that! Ah!
This case calls for an equally drastic measure.
To prove they could be killers,
I need to feel the full force of a catfish attack.
I'm going to be the bait once again.
There's an ancient form of fishing called noodling
that predates rod and reel.
When catfish are spawning,
they make nest holes in rivers and lakes.
You dive underwater and put your arm
or sometimes your entire body into the nest.
Then, the catfish, defending its eggs, attacks.
When it bites your hand, you grab its jaw,
then pull it out of the water.
To put my money where the catfish's mouth is,
I'm traveling to Oklahoma, where noodling is popular.
Not having my fishing gear
and knowing that I will be the bait
makes me uneasy.
To find out what I could be up against,
I meet Bobby Sparks,
a noodling veteran with a cautionary catfish tale
which does little to settle my nerves.
And we were going along with two buddies of mine,
and they were quite a ways in front of me,
and I stumbled over this hole.
And I thought, "Hey, man. This is a good one.
I started into this hole."
I got kind of about half the way down in it,
and he come up and hit me real hard.
This fish was possibly breaking a hundred pounds.
He come up completely over my army boot, size 12...
all the way up to nearly my knee.
The fish had the bottom half of Bobby's leg in its mouth
and wouldn't let go.
And he clamped down. He started shaking and spinning.
I didn't know whether I was up or down.
I was almost to the top.
I couldn't get my nose above the water.
And he was pulling me down.
He was gonna pull my leg completely off.
That last pull...
Because he was pulling me down in
when my friends finally got to me
and caught me and pulled me out,
and I didn't know if I'd had the strength
to fight back at it enough
to get out of that hole.
If your friends hadn't been with you on that day,
what do you think would or could have happened?
I think that he would have held me there and drowned me.
I really feel that...
I would have ate supper with Jesus that night.
There's so much power.
There's so much strength.
That's their domain,
and I have full respect for them in their home.
Clearly, I need to learn how to noodle correctly.
It's too dangerous to attempt on my own.
I've managed to hook up with Nate Williams
and his friend Dylan,
both experienced noodlers.
Not only am I apprehensive about the dangers,
but the pressure is on to catch a true river monster.
They're halfway through a noodling contest
where only the biggest catfish will do.
The team with the heaviest total weight
from their three largest fish wins the prize.
After the contest, the fish are released back into the water.
I've promised to keep the exact location
of Nate's isolated stretch of river a secret
to prevent other noodlers from picking up our trail.
Here, I'll get a chance to land the freshwater beast
that eluded me at Bagnell Dam...
The flathead catfish,
one of the species that can reach man-eating proportions.
I've done extreme fishing normally with the rod.
Fish on!
It normally feels like you're in pretty direct contact
with the fish.
Whoa! Aah!
This is real hands-on, isn't it?
And I can imagine that gets pretty intense.
Yeah. This is a very different form of fishing.
It's one of the most extreme and dangerous methods of fishing
that you're gonna find.
You know, you reel in a fish for 45 minutes on a pole,
even if he's very large... The same size as these fish...
He's gonna be tired by the time
you actually get him in your hands and handle him.
These fish have every bit of fight in them right now.
You're gonna stick your hands in there.
You're gonna feel the full force straight on your hands
without ever wearing him down.
Right. Okay.
You want to keep that grip as tight as you can,
because they can sense weakness.
And when they feel you just loosen it,
that's when they'll try to do their death roll.
You got that bottom jaw. It's a big handle.
And if they slip past that, they'll get up here,
and they'll just go to spinning,
and they'll kind of wear grooves in your arms.
See? Like that?
Sometimes, they'll come way up here.
I mean, they can really get you anywhere in here,
and they'll come up, and that's what they do.
They just wear around your arm.
If his mouth is closed, and he's balled himself up
where he can't actually fit out,
then you're just gonna be stuck,
and they can hold you down there.
Every year, people die noodling with drowning.
Sometimes, they're head's close to the surface,
and they just can't quite get there.
Yeah. It's clear your head and don't panic, isn't it?
- Yeah. - Right. Okay.
Let's go and do this thing.
Time for talking tactics is over.
I think we just got to the edge of the hole...
Before going underwater,
it's essential to build a mental picture
of the layout below the surface.
Otherwise, I could panic
if I come across something unexpected.
After feeling around,
I've worked out that there's a flat shelf
that drops down to the river bed.
In this vertical face is an opening
that goes back into the bank.
In here is where a catfish could be hiding.
At the moment, I can't tell how far back the hole goes.
I'll only find that out by sticking my arm in there.
This is a sport where fortune favors the brave.
It's time I step up to the plate.
I feel around for what seems like an eternity,
but there doesn't appear to be anyone home.
I get the feeling I'm maybe not in there far enough.
Is that the idea?
Yeah. You got to go in there.
I haven't reached far enough into the hole.
In the hole. - Yeah. Yeah.
As we feel around the opening, something rams our legs.
- Ooh! Ooh! - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
He's in there. Keep it blocked.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We have to make sure
that the hole is totally blocked
so it can't escape.
I submerge again.
This time, I push headfirst into the hole,
which just keeps on going and going.
Visibility is zero,
and as I feel around,
something bites my hand... hard.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
It's my first flathead catfish.
Nate puts a stringer through its mouth
and out its gill flap so it can't escape.
Ohh!
Well, that fish was lying there... boom!
Bit me once and let go.
And then I sort of fumbled around
and then... actually reached into its mouth.
It's a creepy feeling. I'm putting my body in there.
Dylan's feeding me in, pushing me in,
headfirst into a hole under the water.
There's something that's gonna bite me in there.
It's dark. I can't see anything.
What a stupid thing to be doing.
As fishing goes, it doesn't get much more mad than that.
As Nate promised, the catfish is still full of fight.
It tries to do a characteristic roll.
If we can't control it, it has the strength to snap my wrist.
Ohh!
That's actually... That's still there.
Luckily, he decides to let me go.
Big flathead catfish. I mean, well named.
That head is flat, that lower jaw poking up, as well.
But just... just what a beast.
This fish must weigh at least 50 pounds,
making it a strong contender for the contest.
Considering the fish that attacked Bobby Sparks
was twice the weight of this one,
any doubts I had begin to dissolve.
When I first heard people
talking about North American catfish
as being fish that can potentially kill people,
my first reaction was, "This is a bit unbelievable.
This is something I've got to look in to."
But now, having actually tried this form of fishing
where what you're actually doing
is trying to provoke the fish to bite you
and then hang onto you while you're under the water,
in the dark, with just one lungful of air,
I can really, really appreciate how these fish
can potentially cause human fatalities.
Time is running out.
We have to load up our three biggest catfish
and get to the weigh-in.
Other teams are returning from their noodling locations
all over the county.
It's a tense time, as everybody gets their catches weighed.
Oh, my.
Pressure mounts as I start to get recognized.
My reputation for catching monsters is on the line.
It's our turn to weigh our catches.
Hopefully, that fish'll be at least 50 pounds.
Last on the scales is the catfish I pulled out,
and it weighs 53 pounds.
This gives us the combined weight of 155 pounds.
But is this enough to win the contest?
Third place goes to the team of Michael Gill.
The second place was the team of David Walker.
First places goes to the team of Nathan Williams.
Thanks to the skill of Nate and Dylan,
my noodling inexperience has passed unnoticed
and my reputation as a monster catcher
remains intact.
After claiming our prize,
it's time to release these monsters back into the river.
I came to America
to see if there are killers in its fresh waters.
I found deadly bull sharks prowling Florida's canals,
right under the noses of thousands of people.
An exploratory bite, and that could just bleed out.
You'd lose a lot of blood,
and that could be a fatal encounter.
I hooked a spike-backed leviathan from inland shores.
I uncovered that there are man-eating-sized catfish
in a Missouri dam that could be feasting on human corpses.
Head on him about that big... Bigger than me, heavier than me.
And after going noodling,
I'm in no doubt that catfish of this size
have the strength to drag somebody to a watery death.
Ohh!
As I wrap up my adventure,
I leave convinced America's rivers, lakes, and canals
really are home to potential freshwater killers.