Ice-Capped mountains,
Wild rivers and isolated coves.
Southern alaska may be spectacular,
But this remote land can be a harsh and treacherous place.
Recent reports have caught my eye
Of fishermen disappearing, vanishing without a trace.
But for every case that makes the papers,
Others appear to go unreported.
Sometimes, people will be on a trip,
Just having a pleasure day,
And they never come back.
My name's jeremy wade.
For many years, i've been investigating
Mysterious disappearances on rivers and lakes,
Revealing the strange and sometimes deadly creatures
That lurk beneath the surface.
Fish on! Fish on!
In alaska, mysterious deaths
Are commonly blamed on boating accidents or bad weather.
But with a growing case file,
I'm beginning to wonder if these deep, forbidding waters
Are, in fact, concealing a cold-Water killer.
— captions by vitac — www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
Every year, people venture into alaska's remote waterways,
Never to return.
They vanish, leaving no clues, no witnesses and no bodies.
The extreme weather is often blamed for this loss of life.
But is that too easy a conclusion?
Many fishermen are among the death toll.
So i've come here to look beneath the surface
To find out if they're being lost
To something other than the weather.
I want to know if there's something in the water
That's killing people.
One recent tragedy is typical.
There are only a few clues
But enough to arouse my suspicions.
A fishing boat was discovered upturned on a mud bank.
Although their life jackets were found,
The two occupants had vanished.
If bad weather had been closing in,
Being experienced fishermen,
They would have put their life jackets on.
But they didn't.
The only things missing, besides their bodies,
Were their fishing rods.
From what little is known about the incident,
It seems that something
Must have caught the victims by surprise.
It's very little to go on.
But with so many fishermen killed in alaska,
I need to know if that deadly surprise
Is lurking in these waters.
My investigation begins
Where their upturned boat was discovered,
On the eastern edge of prince william sound,
Off alaska's south coast.
The evidence of the fatal fishing trip
Was found in a remote bay,
Where a branch of the copper river delta
Drains into the sea.
When the tide comes in, all of this is underwater.
But at low tide, like now,
You just get this massive expanse of mud flats.
And it's here where the boat was found.
Now, how it got here, nobody knows for sure.
One possibility is that whatever happened happened somewhere
Out at sea, and the boat washed in on the tide.
But another possibility is that something happened inland,
And the boat actually got here by floating down the river.
Since the fatal encounter
Could have happened along the coast or upriver,
I've got double the normal challenge.
The culprit could either be in freshwater or out at sea.
I decide to start in the type of water i know best.
The nearest town is cordova,
A remote fishing community of 2,000 people.
If anyone can tell me what's in the rivers here,
It will be the locals.
We've got these gigantic king salmon.
Yeah. A friend of mine caught one, like...
It's a big fish.
About 10 days ago out here in a gill net.
Really? Yeah. About 5"1'.
Whereabouts was that? Was...
Right under the copper river salmon.
They come in there, and they spawn right here.
Is it shallow?
They tell me that large king salmon
Breed in the copper river
And that i should meet a man
Who has been fishing here for 30 years,
River guide stan groves.
I think lots of people
Get in trouble underestimating what was in this river.
And once you fall in that river,
If you get out of sight, you're gone.
What's the biggest fish that most people
Could realistically expect to hook in this river?
It's possible for a salmon to be up to 90 pounds.
So, it's the king salmon? Yep.
Chinook, king salmon.
This is no ordinary salmon.
Growing up to 5 foot long,
With a maximum recorded weight of 135 pounds,
It's the giant of all the pacific salmon.
The fish's size and the river's power
Are a dangerous mix.
This water's fast.
When the big fish hits that line and takes off,
It knocks you off your balance.
So, you've actually seen
People pretty much pulled into the water
By king salmon? Absolutely.
There's no doubt about it at all.
Big cowboy, 6-4, 235 pounds.
"there ain't no fish in this river's
Gonna pull me off my feet."
Pretty quick, you hear a kerplunk,
And there, his hat's floatin' down the river.
And my son had to jump out of the back of the boat
And grab him and pick him up on the bank.
He shut up after that.
If a man bigger and heavier than i am
Can be pulled into these waters so easily,
I need to think carefully about my approach.
I also hear a confirmed report
Of a young man dying after tangling with a king salmon.
In washington state,
Harry coa was spearfishing
While his brothers watched from the bank.
When he speared a large king salmon,
The fish took off with such force,
He was wrenched into the icy river.
According to reports,
His battered body was recovered along with the remains
Of the 65-Pound monster fish that pulled him to his death.
But could the king salmon
Be behind some of the disappearances here in alaska?
This is not a fish i'm familiar with,
So i'm not entirely sure what to expect.
The largest salmon breed in the copper river tributaries.
To reach a place where i'm likely to find one
Requires a dangerous voyage
Through 17 miles of uninhabited wilderness.
I'm feeling out of my element in these icy, turbulent rapids.
But the mighty king salmon
Has the power to swim against this whitewater
On its 200-Mile run from the sea
To its breeding grounds upstream.
The thing about this water, when you look at it up close,
It's quite cloudy, quite milky.
You can't really see into it.
And that's because it comes off a glacier.
It's carrying very fine sediments.
It's also — it's cold. It's very cold.
So this is where the salmon are.
They are totally equipped for this kind of water.
The salmon can manage these extreme conditions.
But if i was dragged into these waters,
I'd either drown or be dead from hypothermia in minutes.
The fish rest in pockets of calm water
On their way upstream,
So that's where i'll try to intercept them.
Salmon stop feeding when they leave the sea to spawn.
So to hook one of these monsters,
The locals tell me, i have to use an unusual bait.
Those are actually king salmon eggs.
Now, salmon don't normally feed in freshwater,
But if you drag this across their face,
They will go for it.
One theory behind that, nobody knows for sure,
Is that maybe they recognize the eggs,
But they will be from another individual.
So it's the — it's the salmon trying to, uh,
Put the competition out of business.
Um, final detail. I'm using
A 100-Pound-Breaking-Strain braided line.
The drag here, i've got it screwed up almost as
Far as it will go.
And, um, that's all i can do to pull that line off the spool.
I can feel it cutting into my fingers.
But you need it this tight because, uh,
If the fish get up any momentum in this current,
They're gonna take a lot of stopping.
If i do hook a king salmon, i must remember it's not safe
To step any further into this river.
A fisherman's determination to never let go of the rod
Can be overwhelming.
But if i get pulled into this icy current so far from help,
I could end up as another deadly statistic.
My drag is set to maximum.
My feet are firmly planted.
I'm ready to test the power of this mighty fish for myself.
Ah.
Don't know if that was anything or not.
Most other fish, other than salmon,
You wouldn't tend to just stay in one spot,
Casting, casting repeatedly.
But the thing about salmon is there might be some holding up
Here, but others are gonna be working their way upriver.
So i'm varying the approach a little bit
But waiting for the fish to come to me.
Somewhere, hidden in this churning current,
The king salmon are on the move.
Suddenly, something grabs the bait.
Fish!
I've come to alaska to find out
If some kind of monster fish is behind mysterious cases
Of fishermen vanishing without trace.
My first suspect is the biggest fish of the river,
The king salmon.
They have been known to drag fishermen into the water.
And i'm hoping to put this fish's legendary power
To the test.
Fish!
One of these bruisers is now on the end of my line.
Big fish in heavy current.
Amazing how much strength it's got.
It's quite close, i think.
It's quite close.
Here it comes.
Yep.
There we go. There we go.
Oh, there's still a lot of strength in that fish.
Wow. And that's a male.
Fantastic.
There we go. Whew.
Okay. Here we go.
So this is a male king salmon.
The males transform as they head upriver.
Their jaw distorts and develops sharp canines,
Ready for gruesome battles in the spawning grounds.
It swam over 160 miles to be here.
Hasn't fed the entire way.
It's been just running on body fat,
So it's been losing weight as it gets up here.
I'm just amazed that it has so much energy.
This 35-Pounder put up an arm-Wrenching fight.
But fish twice this size have been caught here.
I wonder if the king salmon could, indeed, be
Behind some of the unexplained disappearances
In this part of alaska.
There you go.
There was a moment there where i was actually struggling
To keep my balance on these boulders.
The strength of that fish took me a little bit by surprise.
Be very easy to end up in this fast water.
And fast water doesn't need to be very deep to overpower you.
You know, knee deep or so, it could knock you over.
I can imagine a scenario where just that desire
To go too much out into the current could spell trouble.
The loss of a lone fisherman in this way is very believable.
But in the recent case where the upturned boat was found,
Two people were fishing together.
What about the second person?
Well, you see instances all the time where somebody
Goes to help a person who's already in trouble.
They both end up in trouble.
So, yeah.
Two people, quite possibly.
But something still doesn't add up.
In this case, the victims' boat and life jackets
Were discovered.
So, why were their bodies never found?
The water here is just too shallow
For two people to completely disappear.
Even a scavenging grizzly would have left some evidence behind.
In this case,
I don't think they were fishing upriver at all.
Their boat was found where the river meets the sea.
If this fatal accident didn't happen in freshwater,
I must turn my attention to the coast.
Did these fishermen encounter something large and powerful
At the river mouth?
I need to find out
What predators patrol the shoreline.
In this very remote stretch of coast,
There are few people around to ask.
But my investigation takes an unexpected turn
When i track down boone hodgin,
The manager of a small fishing lodge
On one of the inlets.
Hello.
I'm looking into an incident of some people
Who went missing in this area.
Just wondered if you knew anything
About any disappearances in this inlet.
Uh, yeah.
Uh, actually, we get quite a few disappearances each year.
But it's something that only the locals hear about.
We're so remote that it doesn't actually reach beyond this area.
Now, this year, we've had about five already.
And, uh, there's a lot of mystery
To how these people disappear.
Sometimes, people will be on a trip
Just like on a day like this, and they never come back.
What he tells me appears to confirm my suspicions.
Fishermen are vanishing even in calm water.
And these deaths are not even making the newspapers.
It appears the cases i've read about
Are just the tip of the iceberg.
Boone recounts one story of a chilling disappearance.
Donald graham left cordova to fish alone.
And, later that day,
His boat was spotted spinning in circles.
The engine was running,
But no one was at the wheel.
It's another case where a fisherman just vanishes.
Do you have large animals, potentially dangerous,
That could be a factor here out on the water?
Yeah. You know, we've — we've got sharks in the area
Just right down the beach from us.
Sharks actually in the inlet here?
Yes. You're saying that,
If i take a boat out here,
You can pretty well guarantee that i'll see a shark?
100%. And they're really big.
These cold northern waters
Are not the usual shark hunting grounds.
But it seems this coast is visited by a relative
Of the great white.
Salmon sharks can grow as big as the fearsome bull shark.
And there are unconfirmed reports
Of them reaching over 14 feet.
I'm on the water for less than 10 minutes
When dorsal fins start circling close to our boat.
That is unmistakably a shark fin.
This is very interesting. Once you see one shark here,
You just start seeing them everywhere.
They're actually quite discreet.
You just see a few inches of fin cutting the surface.
The thing that we don't know —
Is that just the tip of the iceberg?
Are there many more down below?
But definitely, just from the ones that i can see,
If you were to fall in the water here,
You would not be very far from a shark.
Very few people fish for these sharks.
So, unlike the highly prized king salmon, this is not a fish
That people here will risk their lives trying to catch.
Fishermen are not being pulled in trying to land one.
But what if a person fell in or capsized in these waters?
Would these large predators then attack?
Sharks are normally cold-Blooded,
Slow and sluggish in icy waters.
But salmon sharks are very different.
These killers are warm-Blooded.
They have a clever heat-Exchange system
That effectively traps heat in the fine blood vessels
In the shark's core,
Thereby preventing heat loss to the surrounding water.
This ensures that their muscles, eyes and brain
Are powered by blood up to 70 degrees warmer
Than the water around them.
So, even in icy temperatures,
These predators move fast and hit hard.
They have the teeth and the power.
But what i need to find out
Is whether they also have the disposition to attack.
These sharks are not known man-Eaters.
But in these remote waters,
Few people choose to swim.
The sharks rarely encounter humans.
To find out if salmon sharks would attack people,
I now realize that i'm going to have to put my rod aside
And test their aggression the only way i know.
It looks like there's no alternative
To using myself as bait.
In icy alaskan waters, i'm looking for a fish
That could be behind the mysterious disappearances
Of local fishermen.
And i've just found a 10-Foot suspect.
There have been no reports of salmon sharks attacking people,
But that's not surprising.
Swimming is hardly popular
In their cold, remote hunting grounds.
But what if someone falls in?
With no witnesses to the many fatal accidents,
I have to test the gruesome possibility
That shark attacks
Are the reason few bodies are ever found.
Little is known about salmon shark behavior.
Shark scientist scot anderson is in prince william sound,
Studying how they hunt.
These salmon sharks are up here to feed on salmon.
And they're very aggressive when they're feeding.
They get it right on their nose,
And they just will chase it right down.
And, you know, they go for other things
That are in the water when they get excited.
They see jellyfish, and they look at them.
And, uh, we've had them bite our hydrophone or a camera.
These large-Eyed predators launch their attacks from below,
Catapulting themselves out of the water to seize their prey.
It's the same mode of attack
As their close relative, the great white.
Great whites are known to mistake humans for food.
Is the same true for salmon sharks?
The scenario of somebody in the water,
Struggling... What might happen?
I don't think there would be a big problem,
But there's always the chance that they could be
Territorial in a way that we don't understand.
And somebody might give the wrong cues,
And — and one may try to bite a person at that time.
So there's a potential that they could try to bite a person.
But nobody knows.
If these sharks are hunting near a fishing boat,
What happens if someone falls into a feeding frenzy?
To find out, i need to take a calculated gamble.
And scot has agreed to come with me.
We head towards a location very close to land,
Where scot thinks we'll find plenty of sharks.
Before i get into the water,
I'm anxious to get a feel for the shark's behavior
Below the surface.
So i send down a remotely operated underwater camera
Which sends a live feed back to the boat.
Big jellyfish.
Oh.
There's a shark right through the screen.
Right. Where's that gone?
Yeah. There it is. There it is. It's circling.
Circling.
Is it my imagination, or is that actually quite inquisitive?
That's inquisitive. That's coming —
That is inquisitive.
I'm beginning to wonder whether getting into the water
Is the best idea.
That looked like it was definitely investigating.
The sharks are clearly very curious.
Now, to test their behavior in their most aggressive state,
We need to get them into their feeding mode
By putting bait in the water.
We are seeing if we can get the sharks interested in —
In herring.
We're not using hooks, though. We're just clipping them on.
If these sharks go for the bait,
This will set us up to replicate the scenario
I'm interested in testing —
What happens if a fisherman falls overboard
When a pack of sharks is hunting next to the boat?
I'll just pull it. Yeah.
Let it sink a little,
And then slowly wind it. Good, good.
He's coming for it.
Yeah. There he is. Coming up.
He's following it.
My goal is not to catch a shark
But to switch on their hunting mode.
I think what i'll do in a second is actually give you the rod.
And if you can keep them interested...
All right. I'll go and suit up.
Okay. Good deal. All right.
What we're gonna do now is get in with them.
It does sound potentially rather a crazy idea,
But it's the only way
We're gonna gauge how they react to people
When they're actually in that feeding mode.
Scot says i should be okay with only a dry suit
And a snorkel.
I hope he's right.
The answer right after this.
Along the alaskan coast,
Fishermen are vanishing without a trace.
I want to know if salmon sharks,
Close relatives of the great white,
Would ever attack someone who fell into the icy water.
I've teamed up with shark scientist scot anderson
To attempt the ultimate test.
I will jump into a shark feeding frenzy
To see how they react.
I'm going in without any protective equipment —
Just a dry suit and a snorkel.
But i'm staying close to the boat
In case they appear ready to attack.
Now that i'm in the water,
I feel incredibly vulnerable.
More and more sharks emerge from the gloom,
Chasing the bait with spectacular agility and speed.
That shark took that herring right in front of my face.
Saw its mouth open.
And then, it just turned away.
They're feeding but not on me so far.
Then, the sharks close in,
And i'm surrounded.
They're striking at herrings only a few feet away.
They appear to home in on anything small and silver,
Just like the fish they target.
One shark carefully skirts around me
To attack one of our shiny underwater cameras.
Very, very close feeding action there.
One took the herring right in front of my face.
It was coming towards me, but i
Think it was totally focused on that herring.
I was there as a sort of an obstacle.
It was an unnerving experience.
But what's important is that i emerged unscathed.
These fish are definitely in feeding mode.
No doubt about that.
But they're not going for people.
That's — that is shark mythology.
The reality about these ones is they're focused on — on fish.
When shark attacks do happen,
It's very often a case of mistaken identity.
Here, these large-Eyed visual predators
Could easily tell me apart from their target prey,
And they avoided any contact.
As soon as you hear the word, "shark,"
It's the normal human tendency to cast them as the villain.
But having tested
This assumption as thoroughly as i possibly could,
I am forced to the conclusion
That these sharks here pose no threat to people.
So, where does that leave us?
Maybe there's something else down there.
My search for dangerous alaskan fish
Has led me from the rivers to the nearby coastal waters.
I wonder, if a shark isn't to blame,
Is there another fish big enough to drag
Or knock someone out of his boat?
Back in town, i head to the docks.
If there are other monstrous fish offshore,
Someone here is bound to have run into them.
I ask around and find fisherman chris knowles,
Who has an almost unbelievable story.
Hey, chris. Hello. Nice to meet you.
We were out for the day fishing, my buddy and i,
In a small raft.
And this 200-Pound fish comes up to the surface.
And my buddy, steve, lunged at it with a harpoon.
And i went to throw the hook into its lip.
And a weight came
And threw my arm down into the mouth of that fish.
It just bit down and clamped my arm.
And the 200 pounds immediately pulled me over the side.
I reached over the other side of the dinghy,
And it starts lifting up like this.
And all i can do
Is just to hold on and keep my head above water.
I'm like, "steve, help."
And steve pulls as hard as he can.
The harpoon finally comes out.
He falls back,
And he's flailing in the boat.
And i've got a halibut here that's just gnawing on my arm.
So this is a halibut that's got hold of your arm.
And — and it's — and it's about 200 pounds, you say.
Well, it's the biggest fish we have in alaska,
Next to the salmon sharks.
And a big halibut, pound for pound,
They can do a lot of damage when they get on the boat.
That tail gets slapped, and they start can curling up.
They can break deck gear, break legs, break bones.
When this was happening, what was the worst-Case scenario
That was in your mind?
The worst
I'm goin' down with this halibut.
I had that image in my mind.
The hook's in me, and i'm goin' down.
I was yellin' and cussin' like i never did before.
And, uh, spent the next three days
Nursing injuries and cuts all over my hand.
The hand was completely cut up.
Lots of blood.
I'm surprised to hear
That chris hooked this fish very close to shore.
The halibut is an unexpected contender.
But it is a powerful predator.
It looks like i've got another dangerous battle ahead of me.
No, no, no, no, no, no!
In southern alaska, i'm looking for a fish
That's big enough to take down a human.
And i've just found the most unexpected contender.
Chris knowles was fishing close to shore
When a monster-Sized halibut
That he was trying to bring into the boat
Nearly dragged him overboard.
Cut the line. Our...
These giant fish are usually shot in the water...
Fish right now. We've got the harpoons...
Or killed as soon as they're on deck.
Handling a live one is asking for trouble.
It was a small dinghy. And, um...
Chris was fortunate to escape with his life.
But he knows of another fisherman who wasn't so lucky.
Joseph cash hooked a halibut weighing more than 150 pounds.
When he hauled it onto the deck,
The thrashing beast struck him with such force
That it broke one of his legs
And ruptured his femoral artery.
Fearful of falling overboard,
The injured fisherman roped himself to the winch.
But by the time he was discovered,
He'd bled to death.
Chris' stories get me thinking.
Halibut have been caught along this coastline for centuries.
But if this fish really
Poses such a deadly threat to fishermen in small boats,
How were they caught before modern vessels were used?
To find out, i arrange to meet commercial fisherman
And native alaskan dune lankard.
Halibut fishing is really dangerous.
It's really hard work.
And so, traditionally,
Fishermen would really have to design their gear, uh,
To catch smaller fish.
In the old days, our canoes were,
You know, at best, maybe 20 feet.
And if you landed a big halibut,
It could flip that boat over or wrap you up in the line.
Anything can happen.
Dune shows me a traditional hook,
And its unusual construction is revealing.
So this is designed specifically to avoid the bigger halibut,
Partly because how dangerous they can be
If you're in a small boat. Right.
Depending on the size of your hook and the space
Between the hook and this bridge right here,
We determine what size of fish
Could actually get their mouth around that hook.
So, basically, a fish with a big mouth, a big, thick jaw,
Just physically won't get it past that gap.
So it won't get impaled on the point.
Right. I have to say,
I don't think i've ever seen a hook
Before that's actually designed to avoid hooking big fish.
I mean, it's — it is very ingenious.
Sure. But if you went out there
Without knowing all these things,
And if you landed a big halibut,
In some cases, uh, they could be fatal.
When i arrived here,
I was unsure where to look for a possible killer.
Though halibut are marine predators,
They do come right in shore, literally to the river mouths.
So anyone fishing here
Runs the risk of encountering one of these monsters.
The largest pacific halibut ever caught
Was just under 500 pounds.
That's nearly three times what i weigh.
And they're voracious predators.
Salmon, squid, seagulls
And even seals have been found in their stomachs.
If you're in a small boat
And you hook one of these giant flatfish,
It's possibly not the halibut
That's going to end up as dinner.
Now, with this new suspect on my radar,
I want to find out for myself
How strong this beast really is.
There's a known halibut spot that we're going to.
And what i'm trying to do
Is to prepare myself mentally for catching this fish.
The other thing that's on my mind is that big ones —
People around here, they don't try and get them in the boats
Intact, and then return them.
If they bring them in the boat, they're gonna kill them.
They're either gonna shoot them in the water,
They're gonna club them, they're gonna harpoon them, gaff them.
I don't want to do any of that.
But that is introducing a whole new layer of challenge —
How to get a close look at a big fish
Without injuring it or me.
Um, it's not really something
That anybody's particularly tried to do before.
Fishermen here just don't tangle
With large, live halibut.
But i want to get a good look at this creature
And then put it back alive.
This region around here looks a little bit like jurassic park.
Amazing fishing spot.
Very hard to believe that there could be halibut here.
This isn't very deep.
I was gonna say, "i can't wait to get a line in the water."
But, uh, what i've heard
About some of these fish, it's one of those moments
Where you're slightly hesitant about the process, as well.
I'm using a large, plastic jig on 100-Pound braided line
And dropping it onto the seabed just 30 feet below.
The sea floor is the halibut's domain,
And i'm hoping to tempt a monster onto my line.
Yeah. It's, uh...
It doesn't take long.
Here. Should i bring that in?
That's something already.
There it is. There it is. There it is.
Ah. Running at the surface.
I'm gonna let it just go, tire itself out.
Off it goes again. Off it goes again.
Now, that's — oh
So whatever that was, uh, has escaped.
It felt like it was a good-Sized fish.
I reset and hope i haven't let the big one slip away.
There's the knock. There's the knock.
Yeah.
It seems these waters
Are swarming with these bottom-Dwelling predators.
Doing good. Is off.
Off, off, off, off, off, off, off.
The second it hits the bait, the fish
Takes off with a turn of speed that catches me off guard.
That turned into quite a powerful dive.
I'm getting a very disconcerting and characteristic knocking
On the, uh, the rod.
The way these fish swim, it's sort of up and down.
There's up and down movement.
Bringing this fish in is going to be an almighty struggle.
I can see it. I can see it.
This is a sizable fish.
I'm in the remote wilderness of southern alaska,
Where fishermen have gone missing without a trace.
And what may be the most dangerous fish in these waters
Is on the end of my line.
Yeah.
Big halibut are usually killed as soon as they're caught
Because no one wants to risk handling a live one.
But that's exactly what i want to do now.
It's quite a good size.
You gonna go for the nets? Yeah
I want to get this fish on board
Without injuring it or us.
Now?
Not that end. That end.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Can you get in and just kind of lug the left hand side up?
Someone take the rod, please.
All right.
And down we go.
Ah.
Right.
It — it seems calm now.
Shall we go for it? Okay. Good.
It's really clean. Yep.
Dorsal fin's there. Good.
Okay. This is a big halibut. This is 120-Odd pounds.
Heavy to lift. Heavy to bring in.
And having seen this thing thrash on the surface,
I can absolutely believe those stories
Of when they kick off their boat, damaging people.
We tend to think of flatfish as just food for us.
But this is absolutely way up the food chain.
This is a predator. And if in —
You're in any doubt of that,
Just look at the size of the mouth and the teeth there.
It will just engulf and then clamp down.
Its large tail and powerful musculature
Give it explosive acceleration.
It is, undeniably, a very odd-Looking beast.
A sight hunter with two eyes on one side of its face
Is something i've never encountered in freshwater.
Though this one seems to have calmed down
After coming into the boat, i don't want to push my luck.
Okay.
When i came to alaska, i wanted to find out
If there is anything under the water
That could be responsible for some of these cases
Of unexplained human disappearances.
And the answer is an unequivocal yes.
There is a very large and powerful fish
Living around the river mouths and inlets
Of this remote coastline.
Yeah.
In a fight with one of these,
It would be perfectly possible for an unlucky fisherman
To be dragged down and lost in the cold coastal waters.
At least one fisherman
Is known to have been killed by a huge halibut.
And they have long been treated with respect
By native alaskans.
In these hostile waters,
Storms and boating accidents do take many lives.
But hooking one of these monsters
Could also be surprisingly deadly.
And, in fact, having heard all that i have about this fish,
I actually consider myself very lucky
To have walked away from my encounter unscathed.