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River.Monsters.S03E03
Transcript
00:00Animal Planet. Surprisingly human.
00:16My name is Jeremy Wade, biologist and extreme fisherman.
00:22I've hunted down freshwater monsters all over the world.
00:26Investigated macabre human deaths and savage attacks.
00:34It's not often that I come across a fish I've not heard of before,
00:38especially when it could be among the largest freshwater fish I have ever tackled.
00:43I am heading to the remote north-east corner of Argentina
00:47to catch a monster that somehow got under my radar.
00:50There it is, there it is, there it is, there it is, there it is!
00:53A creature responsible for horrific injuries.
00:56It will dissolve the flesh.
01:02Even death.
01:03Recently I heard rumours of a giant freshwater fish that, if true, would be a brand new species to me.
01:09One that I never knew existed in a country that I know little about.
01:16I'm in Argentina. I'm on my way to the ParanĂ¡ River.
01:20It's the second biggest river system in South America after the Amazon.
01:22I know other rivers in South America very well and the creatures that live in them, but this river is very little known in the outside world and it's also new territory for me.
01:32And, most important, this river harbours a killer.
01:33A little while ago I heard about a child who died as a result of encountering something in the water.
01:38A twelve-year-old girl was playing close to her village on one of the rivers of the river.
01:41A twelve-year-old girl was playing close to her village on one of the rivers of the river.
01:45And, most important, I heard about a child who died as a result of encountering something in the water.
01:48A twelve-year-old girl was playing close to her village on one of the remote islands set in this huge river.
01:55She had entered the water countless times before, but this time it would be different.
02:01And, most important, this river harbours a killer.
02:04A little while ago I heard about a child who died as a result of encountering something in the water.
02:09A twelve-year-old girl was playing close to her village on one of the remote islands set in this huge river.
02:13She had entered the water countless times before, but this time it would be different.
02:18This time there was something waiting in the shallows only yards from the bank.
02:25The attack was brief, but ferocious.
02:33She stood no chance against such weaponry.
02:38She died soon after in her mother's arms.
02:43Killed by a fresh water monster.
02:48The evidence from the death points to one suspect.
02:56Shallow water, piercing barb, and speed of attack all suggest a stingray.
03:02But this is fresh water, and I wasn't aware that there were stingrays in this river.
03:06The ParanĂ¡ River rises in southern Brazil, and travels through Paraguay into Argentina, before emptying into the Atlantic, 3,000 miles from its source.
03:23The outback town of Bella Vista lies on the banks of this great river, 500 miles from the sea.
03:33Before the arrival of the Spanish, this corner of Argentina was the land of the GuaranĂ­ people.
03:40It is now the home of gauchos, farmers and fishermen.
03:46It still has the air of a frontier town here.
03:49This is where I am basing myself on my quest for a Leviathan.
03:52I meet up with some fishermen to find out more about the death of the girl, and the creature that I am pitting myself against.
04:09And I discover a lot more than I expected.
04:11They tell me about a small boy who was playing in the river only a short distance from his mother when he was attacked.
04:32There was a commotion in the water, then silence.
04:35And the boy's lifeless body floated in the shallows, right where he had been playing.
04:49What they are describing is a ray, but not one I have ever come across.
04:56They call it Chucho do Rio, or River Dog.
05:00I have caught giant rays before in Thailand, a massive creature with a tail like a bullwhip.
05:10But what they are describing here sounds very different.
05:14And unlike that estuarine monster, the Chucho do Rio has made its home 500 miles from the sea.
05:23And what really makes this monster different is that it has killed.
05:27But how? What makes this animal uniquely dangerous?
05:33I visit the regional hospital to meet Dr. Gomez, a surgeon who knows all about stingray wounds.
05:41Mm-hmm.
05:43When it enters...
05:45Mm-hmm.
05:47Wow, okay.
05:48It's not a clean cut. You've got these serrations on the spike.
05:52So what happens, it makes a mess when it goes in, and then it also rips the flesh when it comes out.
05:58The two children most likely died because the barb punctured an artery or vital organ, and they quickly bled to death.
06:06But that is not the only cause of death from this massive stingray.
06:11Dr. Gomez draws the barb with its backward-facing serrations and venom.
06:15Dr. Gomez, and in the desgarros, and in the pieces of meat, there are the gelatin and venom.
06:21So the mucus that's on the spine, it doesn't just contain bacteria. There is actually a venom there.
06:28Resulting in deep putrid wounds laced with toxins.
06:32The entire outer skin produces a necrotic venom, which becomes more concentrated around the tail and along the barb, meaning it is literally cloaked in a venom that destroys tissue.
06:52I head out, knowing that I'm on the trail of a creature with such a fearsome reputation that the local fishermen refuse to fish for them.
07:02Jose, my boatman, is an accomplished fisherman. He has the all-important local knowledge that I always depend on.
07:23His help will be essential if I am to navigate this labyrinth and find the hidden monster.
07:32This river is a very, very big river. I was really quite taken aback by the size of it.
07:37But, as always, you've got features. This is a little channel.
07:41And what we've got, we've got a real push of current out here.
07:45But then that current sort of eddies round. There's a nice slack on that side there.
07:49And it's exactly the kind of place where any kind of fish would hang out and then the predators are going to hang out feeding on them.
07:55Rays are members of the shark family, but have flattened bodies and wing-like fins.
08:04As yet, I've not been able to find out any accurate data about the size of the Chucha de RĂ­o, but the fishermen here tell me they grow very big.
08:12I want to know how big.
08:19Stingrays patrol the river bottom, predating on small fish and invertebrates, which they locate using sensors that detect the prey's minute electrical field.
08:29My gear is too heavy to cast, so I have to adapt.
08:40For bait, I'm using armoured catfish, which I float out underneath the bottle and I release by pulling sharply on the line.
08:50Jose has a hand line attached to the bottle, which he retrieves after the bait has dropped.
08:55Perfecto.
09:01I've not got very much lead on.
09:03It's quite a surge of current here, but the whole thing that I was trying to do was to use the current to take it down and then pull it off just in the slack beside the current.
09:11And that's exactly what will happen to a food item.
09:13If you're having to use loads of lead to keep it down, then it's not the kind of place where food is going to settle.
09:17But I've got a nice sort of slack bow in the line, which tells me that that bait is in a good place.
09:27This is the same rod that I took to South Africa, where I caught two 500-pound bull sharks.
09:40In Thailand, I felt the full force of the ray's strength.
09:44It's spinning the boat. It's taking the boat down.
09:46But also the disappointment of losing what, to this day, could be the biggest fish I have ever had on my line.
09:56I am not going to let the same thing happen again.
10:02So, armed with what I learnt out there, I prepare to catch myself a monster.
10:07Oh, here we go, here we go, here we go, here we go, here we go, that's...
10:18Something's really after that there, something's really after.
10:22There's a disturbance at the surface, and then nothing.
10:31Hmm, I may or may not have a bait left.
10:37I'll say he thinks that could have been a small ray, maybe having trouble getting the bait in its mouth.
10:51Here we go, here we go, here we go.
10:55Something's on that, something's on that.
11:07I'm on the ParanĂ¡ River in Argentina, fishing for what I suspect is a giant stingray, known locally as Chucho de Rio, or River Dog.
11:24A species that is completely new to me, and one that is said to have killed two children.
11:29That's actually fairly unusual. When I attempted to set the hook there, there was nothing there, but I left the bait in position, and literally within a minute or so, something was back at it.
11:47So it suggests there's lots of fish down there.
11:53So I'll just check that I've got the bait.
12:02Ah.
12:04There we go.
12:05So the bait has actually gone. Something actually pulled that off.
12:11Whatever is down there seems to be on to me.
12:15It's gone very quiet.
12:18I'm forced to try another location.
12:20Yeah, well, that bait lasted about a minute, something like that.
12:38It started off as a vicious tapping, and then off it went.
12:42One after another, my baits are stolen.
12:44Yeah, well, that's not going to catch anything. Not like that, it isn't, anyway.
12:52Something down there is outsmarting me, removing the bait even before I can get it to the bottom.
13:04You know, always there's this conflict between, do I just stick it out, carrying on doing what I'm doing, or do I change something?
13:10And you have to sort of reach a happy medium with that.
13:15You have to sort of give something a good go, but be prepared to change if, you know, it looks like you're doing something wrong.
13:21Something on there, I think.
13:27Oh, it's a piranha. It's a piranha.
13:30Wow.
13:32Right, what's happened there?
13:34Is that the bait's been chopped in half, and then I've foul hooked piranha in the back.
13:40I think that's fairly clear. This is what's been taking my bait and, you know, talk about caught red-handed. There's the evidence.
13:46Chunky, chunky, chunky piranha.
13:49I've not actually caught this kind of piranha before. They call it palometta here.
13:53Well, it's very similar to red-bellied piranhas in the Amazon. It's got that orangey throat and it's got that orangey throat.
13:59And I've actually caught this kind of piranha before. They call it palometta here.
14:02Well, it's very similar to red-bellied piranhas in the Amazon. It's got that orangey throat area. Very, very solid muscular head.
14:19It's a very serious piranha, that.
14:24There are killers of all sizes patrolling this river.
14:28But it is said that the people who live along its banks fear stingrays more than any other.
14:50It's a great viewpoint here. Whenever possible, I like to look down on the river. You really can just see so much more.
14:56And what's really apparent here is what looks like the opposite bank when you're down at water level.
15:02Actually, that's just an island. There's loads of islands here.
15:08What's also interesting here, I can see there's a couple of houses dotted around and I think it's very important I go and talk to those people.
15:15These are the people who can tell me not just where to go and try to catch fish, but they might have heard as well about these incidents that I've heard about.
15:23These people live a nomadic existence. During the wet season, their ranches are submerged under water.
15:37They spend months cut off from the outside world.
15:40At a ranch on an island, I talk with a group of gauchos, who explain the dangers of living in such isolation, alongside one of the river's most feared predators.
15:53I just asked, you know, do you know, do you know anybody who's ever been wounded by one? Yes, yes, you know, but not just people, but also cows and horses too.
16:14He said, you know, they have known horses to die as a result of a blood vessel being punctured.
16:35But also they've had other horses die from infection.
16:50He says, it's almost as if the horses are crying because the pain is so bad.
17:03The first place I've stopped, yes, there are rays here and not just people, but also large animals have actually been killed by these rays.
17:11I'm after a creature that can kill a horse, yet is virtually unknown to the outside world.
17:26Rays have a finely tuned sensory system, which they use to locate prey.
17:31But these sensors could also detect my thick line and hook.
17:36So by changing to finer gear, I hope to fool the ray into taking my bait.
17:41I'm going to scale down.
17:43And that's just a bit finer.
17:49Still very strong, 175 pound braking strain that.
17:52This is the main line here.
17:59It's not going to create a lot of drag when it moves through the water.
18:01The current's not going to pick it up.
18:03I'm actually quite pleased with that set up.
18:12I give it one more go, in the hope that as evening falls, the piranhas will stop feeding.
18:17Nothing, nothing.
18:32That's very odd.
18:39Zzzzz, stop.
18:44Piranhas are still hanging.
18:46Piranhas are still active, by the look of it.
18:50Cursed by piranhas.
18:56It is vital to understand the behaviour of the other fish in the river besides your quarry,
19:01in order to avoid the other species, like the omnipresent piranha.
19:07To remove these sight hunters from the equation, I begin fishing at night.
19:16I set my line, now confident it is past piranha feeding time.
19:22Nothing.
19:30So much for that plan.
19:32Another one bites the dust.
19:33But I feel as though the noose is tightening.
19:43I am closing in.
19:47So I further fine tune my approach.
19:49I discard the bottle and begin casting, dropping the bait quickly to the river bottom, reducing the amount of time it's hanging around in mid-water.
19:57Now, will I finally be rid of the curse of the piranhas?
20:05You ever see that?
20:07It feels like a piranha, but it's too big for a piranha, I think.
20:19Stingray venom had a role in ancient medicine.
20:23Find out what it was, right after this.
20:25Ancient Greeks used ground stingray barbs as an anaesthetic for tooth extraction.
20:56I'm deep in the heart of Argentina, hunting for a giant stingray.
21:01Something has just taken a whole fish bait and it's coming towards the boat.
21:05Look at that.
21:06So much for piranhas not feeding at night.
21:21These Parana River piranhas are among the largest and most ferocious I have ever come across.
21:27And it's so big, I can't really get my hand around it.
21:31I've encountered piranhas before and know that in the right conditions they are capable of attacking and devouring the largest prey in seconds.
21:42I don't think I'd particularly want to fall in here.
21:45Piranhas, big piranhas, but also active at night.
21:49It shows just how hungry everything is in here.
21:52I fish for hours.
21:54That's really kicking.
21:56I think that's a, is that a piranha?
21:59Only to pull in one piranha after another, each as big as the last.
22:04That could be time to call it, call it a night if these guys are active.
22:11But it's hard to give up when I know the monster stingray must be down there.
22:21I wonder what this is.
22:22Oh, look at that!
22:32So this is a surubi, this is a predatory catfish.
22:35This is a small one.
22:36These things grow,
22:38whoops,
22:40they grow over a hundred pounds.
22:41So, you know, five or six foot long.
22:44But I mean, the thing about this fish for me is, you know, it's a catfish, but it's a very athletic, streamlined catfish.
22:51It's a catfish that hunts actively.
22:53So it's got quite spiky fins.
22:55There's so to be careful.
22:56That's just dug its spine right in the back of my hand.
23:08That went right, oh my God.
23:09I've handled these fish actually, like, loads of times before. This is the first time I've been stabbed by one of these. It kicked.
23:17And it just, that was its pectoral spine going in the back of my hand.
23:21Although painful, these catfish spines do not have a venom.
23:25What this is making me think about is, I'm going to have to try and deal with a stingray at night.
23:29And, you know, just a moment's loss of concentration with a small catfish.
23:33And that's the result.
23:38In the Amazon, stingrays are known as wish-you-were-dead fish because of the agonizing pain following a stab from the barb.
23:48Even though stingray meat is good to eat and a large ray could feed many people, fishermen here refuse to hunt them.
23:55The next morning, I meet fellow fisherman, Donald Pereira, who hooked one accidentally.
24:05A momentary lack of concentration, and he felt the full force of a stingray's barb.
24:10So, he was actually fishing for one at the time. So, he wasn't walking in the water. He actually had one on the line.
24:23From the, fishing from the bank. And then when he pulled it in, he lifted it up and said that he just whipped its tail around.
24:29I don't, don't, don't for it. Ah.
24:33Ah.
24:34AquĂ­.
24:35AhĂ­.
24:36Y tardĂ³ como seis, siete años para cicatrizar.
24:39Seis, siete años.
24:40Para cicatrizar.
24:42Mm-hmm.
24:43This happened 30 years ago, and there's still a very obvious scar there.
24:46And he's telling me, and I've, I've sort of, I didn't believe it at first. I, I wanted to hear it again.
24:51Six or seven years to heal.
24:54It was separating for that amount of time.
24:58You know, from just one moment of being stabbed, six, seven years of a nasty wound taking all that time to heal.
25:12Necrosis can lead to gangrene.
25:16The death of one cell quickly cascades, spreading to the surrounding cells, killing everything around it.
25:24Following envenomation, the victim suffers severe pain, vomiting, paralysis, tremors, even heart failure.
25:34And if not treated, death.
25:39As I head back to my boat, I come across a macabre sight.
25:43My first encounter with the Chucho de RĂ­o.
25:47But this is not the way I was hoping to see it.
25:52Hola.
25:54What are you, John?
25:55Monstro mio.
25:56The lad in the boat just said, what a monstrous animal.
26:00It is very much like an alien. It doesn't look like any normal fish.
26:03I am in Argentina, 500 miles up the ParanĂ¡ River, when I get my first proof that the river monster I've been searching for really does exist.
26:26But this isn't how I imagined I'd first see it.
26:42The guts have been taken out. No tail. The tail's been hacked off on this.
26:51And this is actually a fish that I didn't know existed until I came here.
26:54I've known for ages that you get stingrays in fresh water.
26:57But this particular species, we're talking about, you know, a very short time that I've known this existed.
27:03And here is the evidence in the flesh.
27:06I mean, there's no doubt about it. This is a very, very creepy looking fish.
27:11You've got these fine denticles all over the body, like miniature teeth.
27:16Some of them are more enlarged.
27:18As we get to the tail, look at that.
27:19That's starting to get some really serious, sharp, lumpy denticles there.
27:24You know, that's quite apart from the spine you've got on the back, which is just like this sort of dirty, serrated blade.
27:30So, I mean, this animal, it's not just the tail. This is just like a very lethally armed animal.
27:43This stingray is much bulkier than the one I caught in Thailand, which was flatter, more slight.
27:49It's a good 48-inch wingspan.
27:52The power of this massive body is transmitted to the tail.
27:56Just measuring the size of the tail as well as the size of the animal, four inches across.
28:00So that's quite a serious club-like weapon, never mind the big spike in the end.
28:05One tipped with tissue-destroying venom.
28:08Now to find out the true weight of the Chucho de RĂ­o.
28:20It's registering just over 200 pounds there, and of course it's missing the tail, and it's missing all the guts, and it's been out in the sun dehydrating and bleeding.
28:28So it's something like 225 when this was alive, you know, I think we can be fairly safe about that.
28:37A genuine river monster.
28:40But if the stories are true, then there are even bigger fighters out there.
28:45That is what I'm after, to see for myself the weaponry and the behaviour that makes this creature a killer.
28:51This body of water is vast.
28:57I've been here now for nearly two weeks, and Jose and I have scoured the area without any results.
29:04So I can't restrict myself to fishing just at night.
29:08I have to get a bait in the water as often as I can.
29:11The river's got a very different character to it today.
29:15There's this wind blowing upstream, and what that does, it's creating these standing waves here about three foot high.
29:25It actually turns it into quite an intimidating place.
29:32And there is so much competition for food, especially from the ever-present piranhas feeding 24-7.
29:39I just cast the bait out, and there was instantly something on the bait.
29:46But it just felt like piranhas, it was like...
29:50Like that kind of thing, whereas what I actually want is something that just goes...
29:53Feels like a piranha.
30:10But the Paranagh River is full of surprises.
30:13Oh, it's a different kind of catfish.
30:16This looks like a new species for me, although it's very similar to one I've caught in the Amazon.
30:21Yeah.
30:23There you go. That's a different fish.
30:25And again, it's just another fish that is going to, you know, polish off my bait.
30:31You know, it really is a problem, actually, just having a bait down there that's going to survive long enough for the stingray,
30:39which is very much the top predator.
30:41We'll come along and find it.
30:42Big strikes often come when you least expect them.
30:57So I have to stay prepared for when my rod bends double with the weight of a 250-pound monster.
31:02There we go.
31:03That's a fish. That's a fish one.
31:04This is by far the biggest fish yet to take my bait.
31:08It's coming close. Here it is.
31:09There it is. There it is. There it is.
31:10That's the stingray.
31:11At last, my first glimpse of a live chucho de rio. But hooking it is one thing. The most dangerous part is yet to come.
31:24That's the business end there. Let's see if I can get a look at that.
31:25It's coming close. Here it is. There it is.
31:26Here it is. There it is.
31:27There it is.
31:28That's the stingray.
31:29At last, my first glimpse of a live chucho de rio. But hooking it is one thing. The most dangerous part is yet to come.
31:38That's the business end there. Let's see if I can get a look at that.
31:41It's coming close. Here it is. There it is.
31:54Finally, a chucho de rio, the creature I've been told has killed two children and injured countless others.
32:04It's off the bottom, but there's trees down here.
32:08Although this is only a juvenile, it is still armed with a deadly barb and tissue-destroying venom.
32:14That's a long way off yet, but...
32:18I don't want to bring this into the boat, so I ask Jose to head for the nearest beach.
32:24Jose, come on. Tranquilo.
32:29I put on knife-proof Kevlar gloves to protect me against the barb.
32:33And just pull it up.
32:35As soon as it's out of the water, its tail is aiming for me.
32:46I notice that this ray is a heavier build than other rays I've caught.
32:50And the tail much shorter, more like a dagger than a whip.
33:01I'm going to see if I can get a look at that.
33:08The ray's tail is coated with toxic venom.
33:11Just going to see if I can get any mucus off here.
33:17General fish slime.
33:19That's just sort of slime, that's mucus.
33:21But living in there, you've got a cocktail of bacteria.
33:24I'm actually thinking about what those cowboys were saying.
33:27They've had horses die from fatal bleeding, but also from the infection when they've stepped on a ray.
33:33When they've stepped on a ray.
33:37Oh!
33:41That's actually one heavy beast.
33:43And that's the...
33:44I'm just feeling the weight of this animal now.
33:46And this is a small one.
33:47I'm just thinking a weapon like that with four, five, maybe 600 pounds behind it.
33:52You know, it's like somebody coming at you with a medieval mace in a way.
33:56It's like a club with a nail in it.
33:58Anyway, let's get it back.
34:02Easing it into slightly deeper water.
34:05No, I'm just looking at the pattern of this and just, you know, it does just completely disappear into the background.
34:09It really does bring home how dangerous potentially these things are when you just see how they're just almost invisible in the water.
34:27That was actually a small one.
34:28What I want to see now is a big one of those.
34:30But if I do get one, I think I'm really gonna have my hands full.
34:39I've been trawling this river now for 10 days straight.
34:42And I'm beginning to think that the only giant ray I'm going to see is the one hanging on the riverbank.
34:51So I'm fishing all the hours I can to maximise my chances.
35:01Look at that.
35:02Dorado.
35:03José and I fish all over the river.
35:13This is a Mandu Bay catfish.
35:18Mystery of bait.
35:20It's another night with no stingrays.
35:25They're proving elusive.
35:26I've caught everything except what I came for.
35:36Now I try something that I wouldn't normally do.
35:39I've got a second rod out.
35:41A lot of people in the town are giving me advice what I need to be doing.
35:45And one of the things that keeps crumping up is you haven't got enough lines in the water.
35:49I don't totally hold with that.
35:51I don't necessarily believe that two rods gives you double the chance,
35:55but it all comes down to just one bait being in the right place.
36:04Even though I've given in to using two rods,
36:07only one is really strong enough to land a monster.
36:10If the lighter rod happens to hook a fish, I could be outgunned.
36:32That's a good fish. That's a good-sized fish.
36:34This feels like a ray.
36:43Just my luck, the fish took the bait on the lighter outfit,
36:46which isn't really up to the job.
36:50This is bigger than the last one for sure.
36:55In Thailand, a giant ray snapped a rod that wasn't right for the job.
36:59Something I really don't want to happen again.
37:01On the limit of what this gear can hold, really.
37:10Yeah, that's moving, that's moving.
37:13Plus, it looks like the river bottom is littered with dead trees.
37:17One snag and this fish is gone.
37:19I'm off a very snaggy island at the moment.
37:24If we can just slowly, slowly go down in the current,
37:30then we're clear of that and we're...
37:33we're then adjacent to a beach.
37:36And also the current slack there,
37:38we can just very slowly coax it into shallow slack water.
37:41Because the ray took the bait on the weaker rod, I have limited pulling power.
37:56So I'm in for the long haul.
37:57It's now been on well over an hour.
38:06At last, I've got past the piranhas, catfish and dorado.
38:10But the creature on the end of my line might be twice my size,
38:14and it isn't going to give itself up easily.
38:16Two hours and ten minutes now.
38:21This is becoming a war of attrition.
38:25Which will crack first?
38:27The ray, the rod or me?
38:30Oh, yes.
38:32Yes.
38:33After eleven gruelling days of fishing,
38:47I've hooked what could be the biggest, totally fresh water river monster
38:51I've ever had on my line.
38:53It feels like it has come unstuck from the bottom a couple of times.
38:56But it's...
38:58Most of the time it's just a dead weight.
39:00Every now and again, there's a slight movement, it rises.
39:02And then it sort of sticks down again.
39:07Rays stick themselves to the bottom.
39:10Prying them off is like pulling the plug out of the river.
39:13This just feels like a dead weight, a dead weight.
39:15That could be in a tree, it could be in a tree.
39:18It's using all its bulk and the flow of the river to defeat me.
39:22What I'm going to do, I'm just going to take the boat upstream a little bit.
39:26And I'm just going to apply some pressure just from the other side,
39:28because if it is in a snag possibly.
39:31If I can just get a different angle on it.
39:34Jose has to manoeuvre very precisely in the strong current.
39:39That's a tail hitting the line, tail hitting the line.
39:43With a fish like this, I'm not in control.
39:46All I can do is react.
39:55Three hours.
39:58This is my longest battle ever.
40:01Beating even the South African bull shark that took two hours and 45 minutes.
40:05My back and arms are now burning.
40:09That is fish, I think. That is fish. That is fish. That is fish. That is fish. That is fish moving.
40:14It's back. My manoeuvre worked.
40:17So a bit of tactics there. Nothing was happening. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
40:20And I think it might have just hooked the line around a branch.
40:23So we just changed the angle of the pool slightly.
40:26Look at that. There it goes. There it goes. There it goes. That's good. That's good.
40:29I want to get it to the beach where I can handle it safely.
40:35But that means coaxing it 200 yards further downstream.
40:39We've got it literally just 10, 15 feet from the bank.
40:43As the creature tires, I have it exactly where I want it.
40:50There it is. There it is. There it is. There it is. There it is.
40:52Finally, after perhaps the most punishing battle I have ever had, I land one of the biggest, strongest and most alien freshwater fish I've ever seen.
41:05The thing I really want to do with this one, though, is get a closer to the tail. I mean, obviously not too close.
41:10And to think this is a fish that until recently I didn't even know existed.
41:15The Chucho de Rio is unlike any other ray I've come across.
41:21OK. 50... nearly 53 inches.
41:25Which would make it easily 250 pounds.
41:29But what really makes this species stand out is that it is a killer.
41:33With a weapon as brutal as a medieval mace, like a club fortified with rusty nails, which it drives in with its massive bulk.
41:40I might have to just kneel on top of the animal.
41:43Er...
41:45OK.
41:51That's what I wanted to look at.
41:53Er...
41:55The dead animal I saw had its tail chopped off. This one has its sting intact.
41:59It's got two stings on there.
42:00And also, by the look of it, you know, this can come a long way on either side.
42:05It's also very flexible.
42:06So I wouldn't want to get anywhere near this.
42:10Time to put this back in the water.
42:12Erm...
42:13My arms are just aching so much.
42:14I've been fishing solid for 11 days.
42:16If this feels anything like I do, it's very tired.
42:20What I'm about to do now is actually very significant because this is a fish...
42:23And I always like to return fish alive.
42:25But this is a fish where, you know, the locals don't give it any quarter.
42:30This stingray has evolved to survive in totally fresh water.
42:39In fact, it is now thought to be incapable of living in the sea.
42:44Just bent over it here, I'm just not seeing the shape of the fish at all.
42:47I've just got this, this huge, broad back with this amazing pattern on it.
42:52As fish go, it's going to be one of the strangest fish there is.
42:55And in a river as well, you know, the size of this thing.
42:58I've been fishing the world's rivers now for four decades.
43:05But landing a monster like this makes me wonder what else is out there still to discover.
43:16Want to know how to catch a river monster of your own?
43:19I'll show you how at animalplanet.com slash rivermonsters.