Extreme Fishing (18 page)

Ev’ry mornin’ at the mine you could see him arrive

He stood five-foot-nine and weighed two thirty-five

Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip

And everybody knew ya didn’t give no lip to Big Rob.

That was my Dad.

Stingray

One week later and I’m back at the Bang Pakong River in Chachoengsao Province, ready to catch a giant freshwater stingray. I meet stingray expert Que at his wooden
house on stilts at the river’s edge. The river is deep, fast-flowing and the colour of British Rail coffee with a hint of long-life milk. I try on the tackle and kit needed to fish for one of
these prehistoric giants and Que trusses me up like a Christmas turkey.

We set up the rods on the bank outside his house while Que’s mate rows the bait out and drops it in the middle of a brackish river. We use a sardine as live bait. The hook is fastened
under the spine of the fish, which is brutal but it’s the local Thai method. When a fish is hurt it sends out a distress signal that attracts other fish, and today we’re hoping this
little sardine appeals to a stingray.

By 11 a.m. the lines are set. There is only a loose tension on them because giant stingrays don’t eat immediately and will take the bait somewhere to feed later, so we must wait for the
moment they swallow the bait. Come midday there’s 100 per cent humidity and the heat is unbearable. I am on the corner of a makeshift bed, trying to rest, and all the team is asleep except
for Que, who is our watchman. The jungle behind is alive with the buzz of insects, the squawks of monkeys.

‘Fish! Fish! Fish!’ yells Que.

We scramble to our feet. I take the rod and it is quickly apparent that the fish is not going to come to us. We are going to have to go to the fish. We set the rod, put it on full tension and
jump on a boat to float down the river. I put on the harness and take the rod, keeping it on full tension as I try to pull up. It really hurts my bollocks and my back. This fish is 300–400
pounds or even larger, and it’s desperately trying to go to the bottom and bury itself in the mud. I soon realise that, because of the tension on the rod, reel and body, I can’t do it
alone, so Que takes over. The boat is very unstable and we almost capsize. We need a bigger boat! Considering this cartilaginous fish is a relative of the shark family, this seems appropriate. We
jump in a larger model and the fight continues. The rod is bending in Que’s hands, almost back on itself. He sits on the rod and it continues to bend over the edge of the boat. I’ve
never seen anything like it.

Giant freshwater stingrays are bottom feeders and hunt for crabs, snails and clams by detecting their electrical impulses through the mud. They have sophisticated electro receptors called
ampullae of Lorenzini, named after the seventeenth-century Italian scientist who discovered them, which are also found in other rays, sharks and chimaeras (ghost fish). Giant stingrays are such
complex creatures that little is known about them, nor do we know how many still exist, but they are thought to be endangered in Asia and critically endangered here in Thailand. Unfortunately the
Bang Pakong River is known to be polluted, with prawns and other fish stocks dwindling, possibly from industrial pollutants upstream. Many other species are endangered here, including the Irrawaddy
dolphin, owing not only to pollution but also to overfishing, soil erosion, and getting caught in nets. It’s a sad state of affairs, and, with the human population set to rise to 8 billion by
2030, one we need to address before it’s too late.

I’m back in the hot seat and inch by inch I’m gaining some ground. It’s been fifty minutes; landing this fish is like hauling John Prescott out of the water. Que pulls up the
line as I reel in. But even working together the two of us still can’t bring it in. Que’s friend takes over – it’s become a three-man fight in the searing heat. After an
hour and a half the ray nearly takes the boat over and I am screaming in agony – the load is too much. Que helps me. It’s piercing agony. The way a stingray moves in the water
it’s like pulling up a huge plate with water on top: it’s the ultimate amount of drag. Suddenly we see the fishing weight appear out of the coffee, and then a wing, flapping like an
elephant’s ear, breaks the surface. We see her and she truly is like something out of a sci-fi movie. Her wingspan is ten or eleven feet, and her length from head to tail is thirteen or
fourteen feet. We guess she’s around a quarter of a ton but these rays can grow to over a thousand pounds!

On the edge of her tail is a spike. If it comes near us we are in trouble. The spike can measure up to fifteen inches, is shaped like a bayonet and covered in a sheath of toxic mucus that is
capable of piercing bone. A stingray has just killed Steve Irwin, and now Que is telling me to get in the water and hold the fish.

‘Are you insane?’ I yelp.

All the stingray has to do is quickly flick her tail to the side or over her back like a scorpion, the spike deploys and it’s game over. They can kill sharks; they can kill anything.
It’s like a trigger and it’s lightning-quick. I stay back while Que and his friend cover the tail with a blanket, wrapping it round and tying it down tightly. The fish is no longer a
threat.

There’s no way we can get this creature on the boat so I really do have to go in, according to Jamie, whom I now loathe once more. He was lovely after my father’s passing but now
he’s reverted to his old sadistic ways. I get in the water and wade slowly towards this alien life-form. I am petrified. I hold her with Que and his friend, quickly spout a few facts about
this giant to camera, and it’s time to let the awesome creature off the hook. We take the metal out of her mouth and she glides gently away back to her home on the bottom of the Bang
Pakong.

I wish I could tell my Dad about the experience. I phone Uncle Matheson instead.

September 2009, World Tour, Series 3

As I look out over Kilimanjaro for the first time, I think this programme is actually going to work. It might even be a success. As a team we have started to know what we
are doing and it turns out
Extreme Fishing
isn’t really a fishing programme at all; it’s a travelogue that explores different cultures and places, with the common link of
fishing. Fishing is quite literally my passport to the world. (Sir Winston Churchill once said, ‘Polo is a passport to the world.’ Mine is fishing and I don’t need six horses to
do it.) I have turned down several acting jobs to do this series but the locations of Manchester, Rochdale and Cowgate in Newcastle didn’t really come close to the savannahs and exotic
wildlife of Africa, not to mention the record-breaking angling to be had off the east coast. This is the place to catch the big five: blue marlin, black marlin, swordfish, sailfish and striped
marlin. It’s the stuff of dreams and it blows
Waterloo Road
firmly out of the water!

As we come into land at Nairobi Airport, it also dawns on me that I am addicted to the show. It’s like a fix and when I don’t get my hit I feel sad or that something is missing, and
that’s just the days in between episodes. Time passes slowly when I’m back in the UK – tick, tick, tick – like the hand of a faulty clock stuck on the same minute, unable to
budge. But when I’m filming the show I feel so upbeat and occupied in a positive way. If I’m honest I’m a lot healthier because of this gig – fishing has replaced drinking,
which is par for the course in this business. I knew I had a drink problem when I found an olive in my urine sample – thank you, Keith Richards.

From Nairobi we take another plane to Watamu National Maritime Park in the Indian Ocean. The light aircraft is falling apart and I spot a gaping hole in the wing mid-flight! It reminds me of the
good old days of Dan-Air (aka Dan Dare). We survive the rickety African flight and carry on to our hotel. We are staying at Hemingway’s, named after the author, traveller and hunter who spent
many years in Kenya. I didn’t realise that he’d shot and fished for anything that moved. In 1933, inspired by the legendary hunts of President Theodore Roosevelt, Ernest borrowed money
from his wife’s uncle and set off on a three-month safari.

I look at the gigantic stuffed fish adorning the walls of the hotel: there’s a giant black marlin and a beautiful golden dorado. I’m determined to catch both on this trip. The dorado
won’t outsmart me this time, as it did in the Philippines. I still carry the sinking feeling of that loss. Totally my fault, but it won’t happen again. I’ve come here to set the
record straight.

But first things first: I need a haircut, because right now I look like Richard Clayderman. I ask at reception if they have a salon and they tell me they have an expert stylist who comes in. I
make an appointment and continue filming. A few hours later, enter Fatima.

‘Come this way,’ she says, leading me to a room with bright lights and a mirror. I sit down in front of it. Fatima crosses the room with a pair of electric shears, dragging the lead
noisily across the hardwood floor. She plugs the shears in and sets them at grade 3.

‘Hang on! Do you have any scissors?’ I venture.

‘No, I have a comb and shears – it will be fine.’

‘But I just want you to tidy it up,’ I say, putting my hand up to prevent the shears taking me a step closer to Yul Brynner. ‘Just a trim would be great,’ I say
firmly.

‘I am very sad,’ she says, sighing.

‘What?’

‘I just buried my sister. I miss her so much. We put her in the earth at the top of a mountain.’

Inside I am thinking,
OK, that is very sad
– but I still don’t want an emotionally vulnerable woman to come anywhere near my head with a pair of electric shears.

‘You shouldn’t be here, you must be traumatised,’ I say, looking at her in the mirror.

‘No, I’m fine.’

The tears are streaming down her face as she brings the shears down on my head. She gets to work like a champion sheepshearer and it’s over in a matter of seconds.

I walk outside and find the crew. They take one look at me and their faces fall. I have gone from Clayderman to Charles Bronson within fifteen minutes and now everything we have shot before the
‘attack’ is unusable because of continuity.

‘What the hell happened?’ asks Alistair.

‘Let’s just say she wasn’t in the mood for a trim. I think I got off lightly.’

Alistair shakes his head sadly: ‘How can you manage to fuck up a haircut, Robson?’

Thankfully I’d brought my trusty Nanogen in my Mary Poppins make-up bag. It’s a scalp filler that makes you look like you have twice as much hair. Think David Guest but more subtle.
And yes, I carry a make-up bag. Actors and presenters have all manner of tricks to avoid looking shiny, sallow or dog-rough on camera.

If you are an Alpha male, feel free to skip this paragraph but for the gays and ladies here’re my top beauty tips: I apply a Clinique green cream, which covers up any redness or sunburn,
and it’s great if you suffer from rosacea or are a raging alcoholic. Then I apply a primer, which evens the skin tone. Next I lighten under the eyelids and use concealer as necessary. I then
apply powder. I add a little eyeliner on the lower lashes because when you are filming in hot, bright countries there is high contrast, so features need to be accentuated. I also use MAC mascara
for the top lashes, and on my lips I use Zam-Buk, a green ointment that protects and highlights them. I only wear make-up when I am filming, not every day – honest. And just so you know, even
butch men like Matt Dawson, Bruce Parry and Ray Mears all wear make-up on TV.

Anyway, we crack on with filming. It’s a hot day but we are all relishing being outside after the shocking weather back home in the UK. However, none of us has applied enough sunscreen so
our faces, heads, necks, arms and ears are all scorched by the midday sun. A few hours later we look like
Viz
magazine’s ‘Brits Abroad’. Peter is singed the worst and that
evening I suggest he try my Green Cream to cover his badly burned face.

‘I am not putting any of your poofy muck on my face!’

‘It’s not poofy muck, it’s Clinique!’

He suffers like a man; I suffer like an actor.

El Dorado

The next morning I tear the curtains open. I am red-hot with sunburn but the prospect of catching a golden dorado this morning is like lidocaine.

We walk down to the harbour to meet Callum, a strapping Kenyan fisherman and my guide for today. We board his gleaming white sports fishing boat and set off a mile out to sea, to a place known
locally as Sailfish Alley. The sun is hot and it’s a beautiful day to go fishing. On the way we come across a sperm whale carcass floating on the surface, about forty feet in length. As we
get closer the aroma is abhorrent. It is an oily, sweet, rotten stench of death. Callum thinks the whale has either died of natural causes or been hit by a boat, which sadly happens all too often.
Every year thousands of whales lose their lives to container ships, like flies on a car windscreen. It’s a tragedy that will hopefully one day be preventable through technology. We slowly
pass the carcass. It moves strangely in the water, its tail swishing from side to side. At first I think it’s gas escaping but then I see a dorsal fin, in fact several of them –
800-pound tiger sharks are taking bites out of the whale like Brie. They are incredible-looking fish, with stripes like the eponymous big cat and just as vicious. I shudder. There are only two
types of people who are not scared of sharks: psychopaths and dead people.

After just twenty minutes’ motoring across the waves we reach our destination, Sailfish Alley. It’s a huge drop-off and natural feeding channel for pelagic, billfish and other
species that have a penchant for bait fish. We rig our skip bait, large bonitos, relations of the mackerel family, and trawl the live bait behind the boat. It’s not something I’m used
to fly-fishing in Northumberland, but it’s the way they do it here in Kenya. Almost immediately I get a take. I set the rod and pull the line in tight. It’s not a dorado, as the fish
doesn’t become airborne within twenty seconds, but whatever it is nimbly jumps off the hook. I reel in the bait; half of it is missing. Something has cut through the fish like a serrated
knife through butter.