Extreme Fishing (4 page)

Steve Starbuck is unimpressed: ‘It’s a bit small.’

‘Small? It’s one of the biggest bloody fish I’ve ever caught!’ We heave her onto the boat. Her Latin name is
Thunnus albacares
,
albacares
meaning
‘white meat’. This powerful torpedo-shaped creature is capable of bursts of speeds over 40 m.p.h. I think, as with many creatures we harvest, that we take tuna for granted because it
comes in tins and has become a staple food in our diet. But I believe we should revere and honour this truly magnificent creature. Sadly, like her cousin the bluefin, she is increasingly becoming
overfished due to the ‘purse-seining’ methods of many commercial vessels. They use sophisticated technology to locate entire shoals and scoop them up in one net that can hold as much as
2,000 tonnes of fish. Unfortunately they tend to scoop up turtles and dolphins, too, which is why, where possible, you should always opt for dolphin-friendly or line-caught tuna.

But today we aren’t going desecrate this beautiful tuna with cheap oil, brine or vegetable broth, which they use to preserve tinned tuna in the States; we’re going to sushi it!
It’s an amazing feeling eating tuna a couple of minutes after dispatching the fish. It gives your taste buds a unique flavour that can only be described as clean. And you don’t describe
fish as clean-tasting very often, do you? The tuna is healthy, fresh and bloody good for you, and today I’m eating it at the finest restaurant in the Pacific: Jesse’s boat. In Costa
Rica they have a saying, ‘La Pura Vida’, which strictly means ‘pure life’ but translates loosely as ‘It doesn’t get any better than this’ – and now I
know what they mean . . .

Room 25, Santa Cruz

The hotel doesn’t look that bad from the outside, but the ordinary exterior hides the horror that lies within. I mean, I’ve heard of hotels with cockroaches,
I’ve even complained about mosquitoes in a hotel, but I’ve never come across a hotel that has a problem with crabs. Not one or two but thousands of the buggers.

At the beginning of the rainy season the tajalines, or land crabs, come up from their underground homes in droves and travel to the coast to lay their eggs. And they don’t let
anything
get in their way – not even six-storey hotels. I try to sweep them out of my room but they are everywhere: in my bed, my bathroom, my drawers (honest!) and my shower. I banish
most to the verandah and try to get some kip but all I can hear is them scratching with their tiny little claws at the door: ‘Let me in. Let me in.’ An army of Cathys at the French
windows: ‘It’s me . . . I’ve come home. I’m so cold, let me in at your window . . .’

I put a pillow over my head to muffle Kate Bush and that’s when I come cheek to cheek with cold exoskeleton. I scream and the night turns murderous as I embark upon a killing spree. I
stove the crabs’ heads in with my trusty priest – not a local Catholic Father, but the wooden tool I use for knocking fish on the head. And now crustacea, too. Die!!!

I return to bed,
fruits de mer
splattered across the room, put my empty wash bag over ‘me night fishing tackle’ and try to get some shut-eye. In the morning I close the door
on room 25 and leg it from the scene of the crime. It’s a room I won’t forget in a hurry.

Director Ross Harper asks me to do a PTC about my crab hell. As I explain why there are so many of them, I pick one up for a more visual effect. Yes, it’s definitely more visual: the
blighter nips my little finger, and as I pull my hand away its arm comes off. Oops. There’s an inhalation of breath from the crew and a squeal from me as I realise its nipper is still
pinching my finger. The cameraman pulls the detached arm off. I tell viewers it will grow back, and indeed it will. I mention nothing of the crab pâté in room 25.

Upala

As you can imagine, after the night I’d experienced, I am feeling pretty rotten. Plus there was no hot water either, so morale is low. We get in the minibus around 4
a.m. and travel several hours by road to meet a man called Alex Arias, the president of El Club Nacional de Pesca de Costa Rica. The club is a big deal and I need to impress the main man. However,
I am not impressed by what Alex proposes I do. He wants me to float down the hot, muddy, crocodile-infested Río Pizote – without a boat. And, what’s more, while being swept down
the river in only my shorts and a life-jacket, I have to fish for the toothy first cousin of the piranha, the machaca. This is madness. I need to speak to my agent – except I haven’t
got one.

I turn accusingly to the director and ask why he hasn’t let me in on this secret before now. Ross says, ‘Because otherwise you’d never have agreed to it.’ Fair enough.
He’s right – but angry emails are going to be written later.

The thought of having a limb removed by a reptile, or my nadgers munched off by a machaca, doesn’t half focus the mind. Alex, a dark and handsome smooth-talking bar steward, smiles and
says, ‘Don’t worry, Robson, it’ll be fine – but if you see a sign saying “Welcome to Nicaragua”, then you’ve gone too far.’

‘Great,’ I say, grinning, beginning to draft my incandescent email to Hamish.

‘But seriously,’ says Alex, ‘if you get to the border you need to turn around and swim upstream very fast – the guards are bored so they might “shoot you up”.
Understand? Apart from that, this method of fishing is perfectly safe.’

I look down at the river from the bridge. It’s in full flood and swimming upstream would be impossible. A river like this in the UK would be declared unfishable – and besides,
it’s swimming-pool temperature, so I imagine the fish are half-cooked already. Alex says, ‘Shall we jump off the bridge, Robson?’

‘No, Alex, let’s not. Let’s leave that to Daniel Craig.’

We are using spinning rods with little lures to attract the machaca, which takes me back to when I was a lad messing about on the River Coquet in Northumberland with Matheson.
When I was about twelve or thirteen, we would spin for trout using Mepps that spun through the water like shiny two-pence pieces. A fly-fishing purist like my uncle wasn’t really keen on
spinning but it was a guaranteed way of catching a fish or several – either that or using worms – and then you were definitely going to go home with something to cook for supper. Fish
tend to swallow worms so using lures reduces the risk of damaging the fish, as the hook will usually catch the side of the mouth. This is the best method for catching and releasing a fish, whether
you need to do so because of quota, size or because it’s a female carrying eggs.

Alex and I put on our life jackets and wade into crocodile alley with our rods. The water soon sweeps us away. Surprisingly the machaca, considering they are members of the violent-crime piranha
family who specialise in ‘waste management’, are vegetarian, save the occasional insect. They love to gorge on the wild figs of the
Ficus tonduzii
, known locally as the Chilamate
tree, which grows along the riverbanks, its branches overhanging the water. As well as figs, the fish also eat various flowers, palm fruits and wild plums. I’ve never heard of a fish like it.
Rumour has it they also love a cup of lemon and ginger tea after a hard day at yoga and are rather partial to tie-dyed T-shirts.

We cast our lines out as we travel downstream, trotting a piece of bait along the riverbed. It’s similar to the ‘drop minnow’ method I use to catch trout on the Coquet, which
is, as we say up north, ‘deadly’, basically because the bait is carried by the fast water into the mouths of the trout waiting in ambush. Thankfully, back home, we do it from the
relative comfort of the riverbank, not in the drink.

Alex gets a bite but struggles to reel it in because we’re in such deep water. It’s a machaca but it quickly flies off the hook. We retreat to the bank and watch as fruit drops off a
tree into the water and a hungry machaca snaps it up. Bam! It takes it and is gone. I’m not only really keen to win one of these fighting fish for dinner but I’m also hell-bent on
joining Alex’s club.

We walk up the riverbank and find a spot to wade in and see if we have better luck fishing on our feet. It’s late morning and as I stare at the water I have a flashback to the tajalines
crab massacre in room 25. I imagine the chambermaid’s scream. My rod is yanked forward: I’ve got a bite. I set the rod up and let it run. Then, very slowly, I reel in the fish, which is
fighting like a featherweight champion. I get it to the bank and pick it up. It’s tiny, no more than a pound, but I turn to camera and proudly say, ‘Look: my first ever
cuchaka.’

‘Machaca,’ interjects Alex.

‘Fuck! Machaca.’

‘Machaca,’ he repeats.

‘Machaca,’ I say, reddening with embarrassment. I pop the fish back in the water and he swims off. According to club rules any fish under a pound has to be put back in the river. The
club is like the British fishing bodies, there to safeguard the health of the river and the fish, as well as to promote the sport. Alex also hooks one and it’s a good size, so we’re
keeping it for our dinner. I carefully hold the vicious fish while delivering a piece to camera.

‘Look at that: beautiful Costa Rican machaca – and what’s great is, I can’t believe how many fish are here. What it tells us all is that this is a very, very healthy
river. This fella is for dinner. Well done, matey,’ I say to Alex. ‘Whoa!’

Suddenly the fish makes a bid for freedom, plops into the river and is gone. I am mortified.

‘I’ve just lost your fish – oh, fuck! Oh, shit, I’ve just lost the fish!’

Alex looks at me like I’m a right member – but definitely not of his exclusive fishing club. I apologise profusely.

‘It’s OK, buddy,’ he says.

‘I’d be knocking me out if I were you.’

‘Next time!’ he laughs. ‘You’re paying for lunch anyway!’

‘Because I’ve lost the fucking fish!’

Off camera it was even worse. I also managed to stand on Alex’s best and most cherished rod just after I lost the ‘cuchaka’. So stunned was I at dropping the fish that I
stumbled backwards like a startled wildebeest and laid waste to his rod as if it were no more than a twig. I’ll never forget the look on his face or my own toe-curling anguish. However, in
spite of the mishaps, Alex still made me an honorary member of his prestigious fishing club. Dunno when I’ll use it, mind!

Maleku Tribe

The next day we take a five-hour drive north, deep into rainforest. We are heading for the village of Impala to meet one of the last indigenous tribes of the region, the
Maleku. The Maleku people still speak their own language and are fiercely protective of their traditions. They’ve been living here for over 1,200 years, so if anyone knows about jungle river
fishing it’s them. I greet Ulysses and two of his fellow Maleku tribesmen, 600 of whom still live on the reserve.

‘Capi, capi,’ they say, tapping me on the shoulder twice. I return their welcome: ‘Capi, capi.’

Ulysses tells me I won’t be fishing today as they are taking me on an armadillo hunt.

‘OK,’ I say, looking at Ross.

He shrugs and we decide to go with the flow. Well, the extreme part of it fits in with the show, at least! As we hack our way through the rainforest I am reminded of Tony Last in Evelyn
Waugh’s
A Handful of Dust
, who disappears in a South American rainforest and is held captive by a man who forces him to read the entire works of Charles Dickens. I wonder what would be
the modern equivalent of such literary torture? Perhaps the complete works of Jilly Cooper, Jeffrey Archer or even Katie Price.

My heart misses a beat when Ulysses’ machete swings dangerously close to my knee as we slowly but surely pick our way through the thick undergrowth. The rainforest is the Maleku
tribe’s supermarket, building supplier and pharmacy. After an hour we stop for a breather near an unremarkable-looking bush. The Maleku medicine man, a dead ringer for Frank Zappa, cuts a
leaf off and motions that he wants me to try it. I look around at the director and assistant. They’re both nodding, saying, ‘Try it, Robson.’
Why don’t they bloody try
it?
I think to myself.

I put the leaf in my mouth and chew. It’s vile and bitter. I spit it out. Suddenly I can’t feel my tongue or throat – my whole mouth is numb! I try to speak but I sound like
I’ve had a smack in the mouth, a root canal and then another smack in the mouth. I start choking to bring my throat back to life. Frank Zappa tells me the sensation will subside and
I’ll be back to normal in half an hour. Great. Meantime I’m thuppothed to prethent a thhow. He goes on to tell me the tribe uses the leaf for numbing the mouth in order to extract
teeth. In fact, many of the pills and potions we have in the West are synthesised from these natural rainforest plants. It’s fascinating. I chew gum manically to get some kind of feeling
back, and slowly it starts to return. I realise I wouldn’t last five minutes on my own in the rainforest.

After three or four hours of trudging through the unbearably humid rainforest, the Maleku locate an armadillo burrow and start digging the creature out. It takes a very long time and I come to
the conclusion that they must
really
like armadillo. One of the tribesmen disappears down the hole, three others holding him by the ankles; he fumbles about and then shouts something back.
He is hauled up, victorious – clutching an armadillo. I tell them they really should invest in a Jack Russell.

Instructed by the tribesmen, I knock the strange-looking creature on the head and return to camp with our supper. It’s boiled up by the village ladies and served with soggy bananas. The
Maleku believe eating armadillo is good if you have asthma and it is apparently also a rich source of iron. I wonder if it helps panic attacks. My new friends all watch me take a mouthful.

‘It tastes like pork,’ I say.

They lean in closer wanting to know my verdict. I tell them, ‘I prefer fish.’ They laugh.

Man, I am looking forward to a good night’s sleep. I’m dead on my feet but what an amazing day it’s been. I am shown my hut in the camp . . . and I immediately wish I could be
back in room 25
with
the crabs. It’s a bleeding mud hut with a crappy wooden door that doesn’t fit, and to top it off I’m sharing it with Ross Harper and George Hughes, the
assistant producer.