River Monsters Read Online Free PDF

get into any of the pools along the park’s stretch of the West Ramganga River because of the risk from mugger crocodiles. We would
have to find somewhere else – where the goonch were unprotected and, therefore, much more scarce and wary. The Kali was a nonstarter because it was too dangerous – not only because of
the possible presence of a man-eating specimen but also the strong currents and poor visibility, which, according to the latest intelligence, was down to zero now following rain.
    So we settled on a pool further up the Ramganga, some distance from Corbett Park, where the fish have a degree of protection because of a temple beside the water. But even this doesn’t
deter the really determined poachers. A couple of years before, Vinay had found a huge goonch here that had been killed by electro-fishing, Indian style. This involves hooking cables up to the
power lines that stretch between wooden poles along the valley and then carefully dipping the other ends in the water, thereby also causing the lights to dim in nearby Bhikya Sein. Having removed
the wires, the poacher then scoops the dead and dying fish from the surface. At seven feet, six inches to the fork of the tail, and possibly weighing over three hundred pounds, the monster goonch
would have been impossible to carry; and even cutting it into pieces might not have been worth the effort, as goonch aren’t considered good to eat. (A poacher who sold pieces of goonch saying
it was mahseer was later beaten up for his trouble.) More likely, though, the poachers didn’t see it. Unlike other fish, catfish aren’t weightless in water but rather slightly more
dense, thanks to heavy bones in the head and a small swim bladder. So the corpse would have slowly trundled along the bottom, between the cliff that forms the pool’s left bank and the boulder
beach opposite, to the shallows at the bottom end, where Vinay’s friends found it.
    But I knew monstrous fish were still there. I had hooked one when filming with Gavin but lost it when it sliced my ninety-pound nylon on a rock. In a state of deepening despair, I then fished on
for days and nights without a touch – the pool had gone dead. This often happens with fish, but in this case an overzealous assistant didn’t help the situation. One evening he spotted
two young lads who had come down to the river from somewhere high above in the valley. They were deploying a loop line, a length of cord with monofilament nooses every few inches, along the base of
the cliff. Loop lines are usually strung across flowing shallows, where they can be surprisingly effective. A fish, moving upstream, finds its head inside a noose and panics, tightening the nylon
between its gills and pectoral fins. And the more it struggles the tighter the line holds it. Strung along the cliff base, a few feet under water, the loop line would intercept the small species
that suck algae from the rock, but it is a low-impact method that just provides occasional fish for the fishermen themselves. Granted, the boys’ line could have been a hazard if I had hooked
a fish, but goonch tend to fight on the bottom and their line was at mid-water, so I was prepared to live and let live. But before I knew it, the lads had been sent packing by a fellow who is
normally charming but who, so the story goes, took an iron bar to the last person who crossed him, breaking both his legs.
    The incident left me with a nasty taste in my mouth, but soon after dark, when I heard the explosion of a large predatory fish breaking the surface, my thoughts turned to other things. The sound
of the fish, in the night-time stillness, was immense, like a huge boulder falling into the water. Then it happened again, much closer, and then again. Then we were yelling at one another to get
the hell away from the water and hurling impotent obscenities at the unseen figures high above.
    This was the low point of the entire trip. I consoled myself with the thought that