My name is jeremy wade —
Monster hunter and fishing detective.
Push off! I'm gonna have to go for a swim.
I'm in south american, spending an entire year
Going further
And deeper
Than i've ever been before
In search of freshwater killers.
And from a forgotten forest north of the amazon,
I've heard chilling reports.
People are vanishing, their bodies never found.
The disappearances are said to be work
Of the same deadly culprit —
The water mama.
Locals describe her as a deadly freshwater mermaid...
Who lures victims from the surface
And drags them down into the depths.
Over the years,
I've learned that behind stories of fantastical beasts,
There's often a real flesh and blood creature.
When i hear about people disappearing
From the same small, remote area of jungle,
You have my full attention.
My hunt for the truth will send me deep
Into the most unexplored and deadly corner of south america.
Help!
A killer freshwater siren may sound far-Fetched,
But there's no smoke without fire,
And i'm hooked.
— captions by vitac — www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
Around the world,
Legends tell of ships wrecked and sailors drowned,
Lured by the irresistible beauty of mermaids.
Half-Fish, half-Human,
Mermaids have been reported for thousands of years
From every ocean on the planet.
Most sightings are believed to be cases of mistaken identity,
Dolphins or manatees misidentified as mermaids
By men who had spent too long on the high seas.
Those tales are largely confined to history,
But the water mama is different.
This lethal body snatcher is said to live in freshwater
And is terrorizing remote villages right now.
The stories are coming from a remote river
In the deep interior of south america's
Least explored country — guyana.
The river is hidden beyond towering mountains and a vast,
Sprawling savanna.
To get any further, i've got to hit the road.
I'm not expecting to catch the water mama on a rod and line,
But i want to know what is pulling people into the river.
For six hours, i follow the dusty track
That cuts through the desolate landscape
To the banks of the river.
But when i reach the water,
The mission ahead becomes far more daunting.
This is a mesmerizing labyrinth of winding channels.
More than 4,000 miles of waterways
Snaking through the largest unbroken rainforest on earth.
In fact, the word "guyana" means "land of many waters."
I hire a boatman with a small dugout.
But where do i start to look for a legend?
These guyanese waterways have to be some of the most
Unexplored anywhere in the world.
And if there's anywhere that's going to surprise me
With what lives underneath the surface,
Then this place could be it.
If i'm going to identify the creature responsible
For the disappearances i've heard about,
I'll need to track down witnesses.
Deep in the inhospitable interior,
The jungle is broken only very occasionally
By tiny pockets of habitation.
So i'm relieved when i spot signs of life.
Indigenous people have been fishing and farming here
For centuries...
But it's not often an outsider turns up announced,
Asking uncomfortable questions
About deaths and disappearances.
I have to proceed with caution.
I do have one thing on my side.
In this former british colony,
Most of the population speak english.
That they were going down to fish...
And i quickly confirm
The scale of the disappearances.
The accounts are disturbing,
But none of the villagers i meet can give me tangible
Details to work with...
Until i find a man called laurence,
Who tells me about a chilling incident
That happened close by.
Oh, yes, um...
Never seen again?
The distraught family summoned a shaman
To identify the culprit.
He had no doubt that this was the ruthless work
Of the water mama.
I'm told that the children disappeared
From a place not far from the village,
So that's where i'm starting my search for their killer.
Yeah, that's looking good.
What i'm looking for is said to be able
To take out a human being,
So i'm going to need pretty serious gear.
But this fits the bill, though,
This is basically a variation on what i've used to catch
Some of the biggest fish i've ever caught.
The light is fading,
But that could work in my favor.
Many predators become more active under cover of darkness.
I don't have to wait long.
Something big has taken my bait,
And it's not going to come in without a fight.
This thing is definitely a river monster.
I'm in guyana,
In search of the river monster responsible for
Strange disappearances in these waters.
People are blaming a predatory body snatching mermaid called
The water mama.
And casting my line into the heart of the attack zone,
I've hooked into to something big.
This is, uh, an interesting size fish.
Oh!
I've been struggling for what seems like an age,
But the fish shows little sign of tiring.
Well, they're very strong lunges.
But finally, i manage to haul it out of the gloom
And into sight.
Look at that.
This is what they call a banana catfish here
After the yellowish coloration on the belly.
I know it more as pirarara or a redtail catfish.
And this is a pretty monstrous one.
They actually fear this fish in parts of brazil.
They say it takes young children.
Uh, maybe this is responsible for causing disappearances
In this river.
They don't have big biting teeth,
But they do have pads that feel like coarse sandpaper.
A fish like this
Could certainly drag a child to its death.
But that's where any similarities
With the water mama end.
Redtails are bottom-Dwelling fish
That stay hidden beneath the surface.
So i'm not sure how they could have inspired the legend
Of a creature that's normally spotted
Coming up out of the water.
I need more information about the deadly water spirit.
I'm told of a more recent fatal attack
That the whole community agrees is the work
Of the water mama.
The victim's widow lives in a village upstream.
If i can track her down, perhaps she'll be able
To give me some clues about the identity
Of her husband's attacker.
News of my arrival travels fast through the small community.
So by the time i get to the widow's house,
She's waiting for me and ready to talk.
Can you tell me what happened to your husband?
He'd made this journey many times before.
Inside the boat was an eerie reminder of her husband —
The clothes he was wearing when he left.
Everything except a body.
But the cast-Off clothes tell me that whatever took him
Didn't pull him from his boat.
It waited until he was in the water...
Before it struck.
His grieving widow has no doubt about what did it.
What does the water mama look like?
And what color?
But with no actual witnesses,
I need to rule out any other possible explanations.
No sign of any fight? No?
What's the water like there, is it — is it rough?
Is it deep? No.
I need to piece together the evidence i've heard
To figure out how this man met his untimely end.
Very puzzling indeed, this particular disappearance.
A canoe floating down the river with nobody in it
But this pile of clothes.
No sign of any scuffle, any disturbance,
Which seems to rule out foul play.
Um, the water there, um, shallow, calm,
Which seems to rule out drowning.
My guess is that he probably
Took off his clothes to get in the water
Just to cool off, but what happened then?
The most notorious killers in these waters
Are the south american relatives
Of alligators and crocodiles — caimans.
But the widow is convinced that this was not the work
Of a reptile. No?
Caimans rarely stray far from their home territory,
And they regularly have to surface to breath.
A search party trolled the entire area for many days.
If there was a caiman here large enough to kill a man,
Somebody would have spotted it.
As i'm leaving,
I pick up an important new clue.
The widow tells me that her husband went missing
At exactly this time of year — december.
Many river creatures' movements are seasonal,
And timing can be everything.
Being here now, in the right place at the right time,
Improves my chances of catching the culprit.
I head to the scene of the crime,
The stretch of river
Where her husband's empty boat was found.
This is exactly the kind of place
Where a predator would live.
There's a narrowing of the bank, creating a push of current.
On either side of the push,
You've got turning water and a little bit of slack.
And it's the kind of place where anything that's floating
Down the river —
A dead animal, anything at all —
Is gonna settle.
So if i put a bait out, there's a very good chance
That a lurking carnivore will find it.
And my first cast...
Oh, here we...
Proves that my gut instinct for a predator behavior
Is right on target.
That's — that's something. That's something.
The answer, right after this.
I'm in guyana, exploring the legend of the water mama.
I'm investigating the most recent case,
A man who disappeared from this river
Without a trace.
That's — that's something. That's something.
Is it gonna stay on?
And at the scene of the crime,
Something has quickly taken my bait.
Deep-Bodied, something in the water's deep-Bodied.
It's a piranha.
A black piranha —
The largest of the piranha species,
And a voracious predator.
Although they can take chunks out of flesh
And even sever bone,
I don't believe that they would be capable of taking down
A man.
The piranha certainly could be among the creatures that would
Dispose of the evidence once the deed has been done.
The question is, what did the deed?
I continue fishing in search of other predators...
But insatiable piranhas keep stealing my bait.
I might have more luck after dark,
When these ravenous flesh-Eaters are less active.
Back at the village, i find a woman who believes
She had a narrow escape from a water mama
When she was a child.
Suddenly, the water erupted in front of them...
And the children ran for their lives.
She believes it was a leaping water mama.
Where is this place?
So this isn't part of the river. This is a lake?
It's a lake, yeah.
This chance clue is a game-Changer.
It dramatically cuts down the suspect list.
If the water mama is seen in lakes as well as rivers,
Then logically, the creature i'm looking for must be found
In both places, too.
And there are very, very few river monsters
That fit the bill.
I've already dismissed caimans and piranhas.
The only other dangerous animal i know that crosses
Between the two habitats is an old advisory of mine.
A real amazonian heavyweight —
The arapaima.
Arapaima may not have the teeth of predators like piranhas,
But they've got unmatched size and power,
As i know all too well.
I've been to a couple of arapaima farms in brazil,
And on one unforgettable occasion,
I was attempting to trap arapaima
When one erupted from the net
And slammed me in the chest.
This is the arapaima's m.O.
They're normally harmless to people,
But if cornered by a net or on a line,
They can suddenly transform into giant, deadly missiles.
Hundreds of pounds of muscle and bone launches into the air.
And if you happen to be in its path,
The blow could kill you.
There are certainly echoes of this river monster
Within the stories i've heard.
Because of the water bubbling...
They have, like, a fish tail.
They have white people skin.
This water come very high.
But in 20 years of fishing in south america,
The arapaima injuries i've heard of all happened
To people who were actively trying to catch them.
So if arapaima here are attacking people
Seemingly unprovoked, i need to find out why
They've become so aggressive.
I've got to catch one of these elusive giants.
To increase my chances, i seek out local fishermen.
Eventually, i find a man who says he knows a place where
Arapaima lurk...
And there is — there's a big lake.
And he's willing to take me there.
Arapaima have a very particular habit.
They build underwater nests, hollows in the lake bed
Or riverbed for laying their eggs,
And that's what he's brought me to see.
So i could, if i walked out here,
I could maybe find the nest? I can see it?
This might be a risky mission, but it could help me discover
Whether there's anything unusual
About guyana's arapaima.
Hmm.
It's not very deep, the water,
But there's about a foot or 18 inches of mud...
Under that before i come to anything firm.
I've got a stick to test the depth,
And i'm hoping to find any lurking creatures
Before they find me.
I'm not seeing any caimans in this lake, but, um...
I say about crocodiles,
It's the crocodiles you can't see
That the ones you've got to worry about.
Ooh.
That was something in the weeds. Gave me quite a start.
I may have excluded caimans from my hunt,
But that doesn't mean
They've excluded me from theirs.
I'm in guyana, in search of the real-Life river monster
Lurking behind the legend of the water mama.
And i've just stumbled into the underwater nest
Of my prime suspect.
I think i found it.
This nest, with its steep, sloping sides,
Is a clear signature of an arapaima.
There's a definite dip falling off very suddenly.
But it's a lot larger than any i've ever seen
Or heard of before.
And i'm still in it, i'm still in it.
And it's coming up here, sort of clay, the bottom,
And there's a slope. There's a slope.
I'm coming up, i'm coming up.
That's big, that's big.
It's a crater.
The fish that created this must have been an absolute giant.
Perhaps this nest is the explanation
For the seemingly unprovoked attacks.
When i investigated the case of swimmers
Mauled by large wels catfish in germany,
I discovered that the fish only became aggressive
When people strayed too close to their nests.
Perhaps this is what happened here.
Might these people have been the victims,
Not of the water mama,
But of a giant mama arapaima defending its nest?
And back at the village, i uncover a story
That confirms my suspicions.
Up to the knee, and he scrambled up far as he could go.
Right.
Winston watched helplessly as a nesting arapaima
Attacked his friend.
Fish knocked him over? Yeah.
This is the first time
I've ever heard of an arapaima attack like this.
This fish was not trying to escape a fishing net.
It was actively targeting a person.
Perhaps the same thing happened to the woman's husband.
It seems to add up.
As well as in lakes, arapaimas sometime nest in calm,
Shallow sections of the river.
Just the kind of places where the attacks
I've heard about happened.
And the size of the nest i found suggests there are giants
Out there.
It can't be that big, it can't be.
To prove my theory, i have to catch an arapaima
Big enough to kill a man.
But there's a problem.
All over the continent,
Arapaima were hunted so close to extinction,
That here in guyana, fishing for them has been banned.
The only person who might be able to help me is the chief.
I'm told that in exceptional circumstances,
He can grant permission to fish for arapaima.
He's willing to allow me to fish,
Under a very strict condition.
Fly?
This is something i've never attempted before.
I happen to have some fly fishing gear with me,
But i didn't think i'd be trying to catch anything as big
As an arapaima with it.
Right, what kind of fly is going to tempt an arapaima?
Well, what most people understand by fly fishing is
Using something that actually looks like a fly.
But, some flies, so-Called, actually,
It's not an insect they're mimicking,
It is a small fish.
So something that like that pulled through the water,
It does actually look like a very lifelike little fish.
But i need to make something even bigger that an arapaima
Might mistake for food.
To cast this fly, i have to use a fly rod.
But the necessary flexibility comes at the price of power.
Fly fishing is normally a method for small fish.
Now you can land very big fish on light gear,
But in order to do that, you need generally nice,
Open water so you can just let the fish swim back,
Swim forth, tire itself out, there you go.
But these lakes here, they are just full of fallen trees
And all manner of snags.
Letting a fish swim around,
It's just gonna go through all that kind of stuff.
Line's gonna break.
I just don't see how it's going to work.
But i have no other choice.
I find a fisherman willing to take me to the lakes,
Which are cut off from the river
And concealed in the forest.
At this time of year, that's where i'll have the best chance
Of catching a giant.
Arapaima are built for explosive bursts of speed.
Over a short distance, they can reach just about
The same speed that i'm traveling now.
So if i was to hit something now,
That would feel about the same as being hit
By an angry arapaima.
Arapaima don't have teeth that could devour a human.
But if one delivered a killer blow,
There's no shortage of ravenous flesh-Eaters here
To ensure no trace would be found.
It's time to start checking out lakes.
We go into stealth mode, silently scanning the surface
For the telltale signs of arapaima.
Like the mermaids of mythology, arapaima have an un-Fishlike
Need to come to the surface to breathe air.
I study every ripple, trying to figure out
What's causing each one.
Oh, that is a fish, that is a fish.
A splash like that is what i'm looking for.
Ah!
But my first cast confirms that this is going to be even harder
Than i thought.
The time frame that you're talking about with arapaima,
You're talking seconds.
The fish will rise, it's going in a certain direction.
And you almost need to continue that trajectory in your head,
Throw the fly out, start to retrieve, and the idea is,
Is that the fly intercepts the path of the fish.
The chief gave me strict instructions.
I'm not permitted to use heavy gear or bait on this fish.
Ah!
But the more time i spend trying,
The more unlikely it seems that this technique will work.
Well, normally i wouldn't hesitate too much about fishing
Into the night, but that's not an option here.
Fly fishing, of course,
It's all about seeing where the fish are.
And at night, you can't do that, and you can't be flashing
Lights around or anything.
So basically, time for me to get some sleep and out here
Again tomorrow.
As the days go by, i fish from dawn to dusk.
But i've got no bites to show for it.
Get him?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's on, it's on, it's on, it's on.
My search for a real river monster behind
The body snatching spirit called the water mama
Has brought me to a hidden lake.
I believe a giant arapaima could be responsible
For some of the disappearances.
Get him!
And i finally got a bite.
Oh.
Not only is this my first arapaima on a fly,
But from the weight of the line,
It also feels like the biggest one i've ever hooked.
I've never tried to bring in a fish this size
On such delicate gear.
And just as i think it's tiring...
The beast is gone.
The hook can't have been that well in.
As the fish jumped and shook its head,
It released the pressure on the line
For a fraction of a second, and the hook didn't hold.
So i saw an arapaima half out of the water very, very briefly.
And then it was gone.
So next time, i've just got to do the same again
But... Keep it on and get it in.
After all the commotion,
No other fish are going to be hanging around.
I'm told there's one more place we can try,
But it's a lot farther from the river
And buried in exceptionally dense jungle.
It's starting to rain.
I'm hoping it's the cue the fish have been waiting for.
Yeah, yep, yep.
It's the fish!
But can i keep it on my line?
It's gonna jump.
Coming up again.
Whoa!
It's the fish!
On a remote lake in guyana,
I've just hooked a supersized arapaima...
It's gonna jump!
On a fly.
This is a large fish.
But i'm feeling massively under gunned.
It's coming.
All i have to pull in this giant is a thin rod
And a wobbly canoe.
That's the fish there.
I'm trying to stop the fish coming to the surface.
If it jumps, it could spit out the hook.
But it seems the fish is calling the shots.
Heavy fish, heavy fish, heavy fish.
Rod in a painful curve, painful curve.
As the fish comes closer, the danger becomes very real.
If it jumps in our direction, the results could be deadly.
It's coming up, it's coming up, it's coming up.
It's gonna jump, it's gonna jump, it's gonna jump,
It's gonna jump.
This is a lot bigger than any arapaima i've caught before.
I need to get it into the shallows.
In a bit more, please.
This fish weighs at least 250 pounds.
Hold it, 'cause i'm...
Ah! Look at this!
Arapaima on a fly. This thing...
It's actually, i was gonna say, it's built like a missile.
This is a tired fish, believe or not.
Two of us can hardly restrain it.
If it's just... Doesn't it look like a missile?
Long, streamlined body,
I think about three times the size of the one that hit me.
Sent me flying, left me in pain for over a month.
This thing came flying at you, hit you in right place,
Or we say, the wrong place, you wouldn't know about it.
Just a final flashing, fleeting moment,
And then lights out for good.
I think that's a strong fish.
This is the biggest fish of my south american fishing career,
A river monster as deadly as any beast of folklore.
And if you caught a glimpse of something this size, color,
And shape, appearing on the edge of your vision,
Your mind could fill in the gaps.
Here in guyana,
Where legends of mermaids pervade local beliefs,
You might think that you've seen the water mama.
But one thing's for sure,
There are arapaima here so massive,
They could easily deliver a fatal blow.
And if that happened,
The river scavengers would quickly clear away
Every last shred of evidence...
Except, perhaps,
A tidy pile of clothes.