Extreme Fishing (30 page)

Bananas to one side for a minute, I feel a very distinct and sharp yank on the line.

‘We have an enquiry,’ says Olaf. He continues ominously: ‘It’s time.’

I put on the instruments of torture: an S&M harness from Herr Flick and Helga’s fun cupboard, and immediately the pressure is absolute hell. The reel is on full tension. The rod starts
to bend and keeps bending until I think it will snap. I am straining, gurning, sweating, but Olaf calmly holds me steady from behind.

Suddenly I get the full force of this gigantic fish going through my body like a pickaxe in my spine, tearing my spinal cord. I knew it would be tough but nothing prepared me for this. I’m
jerked forward. Shit. I head for the inky water but manage to wedge my feet on the side of the boat. One more yank from the creature and I’ll topple over. I’m attached – if the
reel goes in, so do I – but Olaf keeps me upright and holds on to the reel. Whatever it is down there I’ve now really pissed it off. Another deckhand joins in the group hug. I’ve
never been so pleased to have two men hugging me from behind before in my life. They’re so close I can feel their conkers brushing against the backs of my thighs, but there’s no time to
be squeamish. I’ve got a shark to wrestle. I’m yanked violently forward again. This seems impossible – I’m suppose to get this fish to the surface but it seems more likely
to pull me down to the depths. My harness and reel are re-connected again. I’ve got to bring this beast up more than 300 feet and I’m already losing my nerve.

The shark yanks again and I feel something explode in my back. I scream. I have a terrible sinking feeling – I know I’ve injured myself badly but I have to continue fighting the
monster. The pain in my back starts shooting down the backs of my legs. Why didn’t I do that TV drama instead? At this point I’d present
Daybreak
. I’d even go on
Strictly
, it’s that bad.

I whine to Olaf, ‘It’s just too heavy – I can’t do anything.’

Olaf says, ‘Try and use a bit of fishing technique. Lift it slowly.’

His advice gets right on my wick: what does he think I’m bloody doing?

‘I’m
trying
to lift it slowly,’ I snarl.

As I finally get into a rhythm I start to get somewhere.

‘Ja, Robson, I like the way you do it.’

I say, ‘Liking your accent at the moment, Olaf; it’s very Germanic.’

My muscles and head feel like they are going to pop, my face burns and I have a big hairy German standing behind me, watching my every move.

Olaf shouts, ‘Faster!’

I dig deep.
Come on!
I get angry with whatever that thing is out there that’s sapping my strength and has prolapsed a disc in my back (as I later find out). One–nil to the big
guy – it’s my turn. Robson’s coming back for more.

Unfortunately my success pisses off the creature more and he swims down, yanking the heart out of my chest. Olaf tells me it’s all OK and puts a big arm around me again – I’m
so not happy now.
Dad, I know you didn’t want me to be an actor, I should have listened to you – this is punishment. Or maybe it’s poetic justice for
Unchained Melody
.
Don’t punish me; it was all Simon Cowell’s idea. We didn’t even make that much money out of it. He took the lot! Feed
him
to the sharks. Actually, he’s quite a strong
guy
, I think to myself,
he could do this
.
I’m not sure who would be the bigger shark though, the sixgill or him? It would be an interesting fight. Perhaps it could be a new
programme format:
The Fishing Factor
? Maybe not.

I mute my inner monologue and try to stop thinking of Cowell in a harness.

‘Are we nearly there yet, Dad?’ I ask Olaf.

‘You have another eighty metres to go,’ he replies. ‘Lift slowly, go fast forward and wind at the same time.’

But just as I’m making progress the pressure on my body starts to tell in a completely unexpected way. I let out a ripper. Well, something had to blow – I’m just pleased it was
my bottom. I apologise to Olaf, who is still holding me from behind – he must have felt the rumble: ‘It appears my belly retired and my bum backfired.’ I need the costume
department and fast. Well, that’s what happens when you’ve been wrestling with a shark for thirty minutes. But the change of cacks will have to wait. Slowly but surely I’m
starting to win.

Suddenly the shark breaks the surface right by the side of the boat. Whoosh! Only swear words can describe my reaction. I instinctively move to the other side of the boat – it’s an
enormous sixgill, just what we were after. Its head is almost a metre wide, its mouth gaping open exposing a set of ragged brutal teeth almost two inches in length. And the eyes, oh, the eyes
– in them is only death. They are two green fluorescent holes that flash menacingly in the torchlight; it really is a true dinosaur of the deep. The creature is about fourteen feet long and a
massive 1,100 pounds. I tell Olaf I want to let it go now. I know it’s an amazing fish and incredible to think he and his relatives have been lurking on the ocean floors for 200 million
years, but it really is time to say goodbye.

When I get back to the hotel I take some painkillers and sleep like the dead.

Noddy

I wake up in searing pain and feel mortified. Not only have I done my back in, I also farted on camera. Oh, the shame of it. As I try to get out of bed, I find I
can’t, and when I move the shooting pains in my legs are now like red-hot pokers.

A month later I have an MRI scan back in the UK, which shows the shark has prolapsed discs in five of my vertebrae. Some of the extreme fishing I have done over the course of the show has put
such an incredible load on my lower back, and my consultant says that if I haven’t engaged my core correctly, even for one moment, damage will have occurred. He says I will need an operation
in the future but for now all I have are painkillers and a vague idea that something’s wrong with my body. Suddenly I’m reminded of Chelsea Charms, the woman with the biggest boobs in
world. She was on
This Morning
with Fern and Philip and I shared a green room with her. Imagine what her back must be like, having to hold up double-Xs every day. She must be in permanent
agony, poor thing.

The man I’m meeting today would like Chelsea Charms a lot, in fact he’s got tattoos of big busty ladies all over his arms. His name is Noddy and not only does Noddy have proper
seafaring tattoos, but he also actually looks like a proper sea fisherman, suitably weathered. Completely desiccated, to be honest. I’m told this fishing Saint can turn a short boat trip into
a fishing extravaganza, so I jump at the chance of spending the day with him. Noddy has been fishing these waters for twenty-six years and is
the
Ascension Island fisherman. He is the only
one who provides a daily catch for the locals to eat. His boat might not be the biggest (it’s not much bigger than a dinghy) but Noddy is the real deal. Today we’re looking for fish
with a market value. With the rods we’re going for tuna and wahoo, and with the hand lines we’ll be fishing for deepwater fish like snapper, jack and our main target: deepwater
bullseye.

But we’ve also got to keep a keen eye on the local boobies. These naughty seabirds are well practised at stealing a fisherman’s catch. Boobies hunt fish by diving into the sea and
chasing their prey underwater – they have facial air sacs under the skin that cushion the impact as they dive-bomb the water from a significant height. ‘Booby’ is possibly derived
from the Spanish slang
bubie
, meaning ‘dunce’, as they are not the cleverest of birds and indeed were often captured and eaten when they landed on the decks of sailing ships,
Captain Bligh and his companions most notably living off them after being set adrift by Fletcher Christian following the mutiny on the
Bounty
.

Only moments after putting out our hand lines there is a tug on the other end of one and I start to pull it up through the water. I pull and pull and pull.

‘How far is this line down?’ I ask.

Noddy tells me 400 feet – I’m going to be here for a while. You could make a cuppa, run a bath and probably have a good night’s kip in the time I’m still yanking this
line up from the depths. I didn’t know I was going to get a full-body workout. It’s taking an eternity but at last it’s exactly what we hoped for: a bullseye. It is the most
amazing fish I’ve seen and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen one in the flesh. Its orange colour is so vibrant it’s like a giant prehistoric goldfish. The bullseye has
massive eyes, which is how we can tell it’s a deepwater fish, as it needs large pupils to let as much light in as possible in order to see anything at all down below.

‘What a great start, Noddy!’ I yell.

He smiles and nods, calmly reeling in another fish at the back of the boat. He hands the rod to me and I take over. Thanks to him I just have to bring it in the last few metres. It’s a
beautiful yellowfin tuna and Noddy tells me it’s twenty-five pounds. The unspoiled ocean is teeming with tuna. Shockingly Noddy will only get £15 for such a beautiful fish. I tell him
that in a British supermarket it would be worth over £150. It seems crazy. The Latin name for yellowfin tuna is
Thunnus albacares
. And if you remember,
Thunnus
derives from the
word meaning ‘to dart away quickly’ and these fellas can accelerate from 0 to 50 m.p.h. in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly fish start coming from all directions, throwing themselves at the boat. I’m back on the hand line trying to bring another fish up from 400 feet – I’m certainly earning
my boat ride. Noddy is at the back of the boat playing his rod like Jimi Hendrix – he is a fishing virtuoso. Noddy’s tuna comes in and there’s a black jack, too. My line is
feeling strangely heavy so I keep hauling it up. At last the reason I’m done in becomes clear: it’s a double whammy of amberjacks.

I’m back on the rod again, tackling another Ascension predator, and it’s pulling like a train. It could be the biggest tuna of the day but it’s going to be a long fight to get
this one up and I’m feeling every bit of it. However, this time I remember to keep my sphincter under control. Paddy and Noddy laugh as I have to put a harness on to keep hold and help me
pull up the large fish. Well, little do they know that I’m actually suffering from serious spinal injuries. It hasn’t gone away and still bloody hurts. I’m here carrying on like a
brave soldier but all the while I’m in terrible pain, you know, especially with a giant tuna yanking me about. I know I’m a weakling compared to those guys but eventually I land the
tuna. It’s a whopper and in just an hour and a quarter we have caught a ridiculous amount of fish. Back on land, they use a crane to bring in the haul. We’ve never needed one of those
before. It’s some catch, including seven beautiful tuna, which would make about £1,000 back home. After every trip Noddy fillets the fish with the help of his friend Paddy. I have a go
but it’s not easy. They are like surgeons and I’m more like a butcher – a bad butcher. The job is to remove the fillets as neatly as possible. Mine are rubbish so I give up.
Sometimes it’s better to let the masters do their work.

I throw the discarded tuna heads down from the pier head to the triggerfish fifty feet below. They turn the water into a frenzied whirlpool as they drag the carcass down and devour it.
It’s such a fantastically healthy ecosystem. Everything is in perfect harmony.

So it’s time to leave. I really hope I can bring my son, Taylor, to Ascension one day and meet up with Colin and his kids. I want to take Taylor free diving and let him
experience Ascension life before it changes. I hope it doesn’t. I’ll keep in touch with Colin on email and Skype. It’s amazing that in such a short space of time I have found a
new friend.

Sadly Noddy passed away in the summer of 2011. He was a very special man and I feel privileged to have met him. I hope he’s catching marlin and massive tuna up there in the sky. I’ll
keep in touch with Noddy in my thoughts and perhaps through a medium, but not the Boston stalker!

As the plane lands at Wideawake Airport, suddenly there’s an almighty bang. Seeing as this is the aircraft we are due to fly back on I take quite an interest. It turns out the
undercarriage has collapsed in on itself! Now I’m not an aeronautical engineering expert or anything, but I believe the undercarriage of a plane is rather important. It turns out I’m
correct. We are delayed for several hours as they try to stick the plane back together again. Oh well. I don’t want to leave anyway.

When I was first asked to join
Extreme Fishing
they said, ‘Robson, would you like to venture the world in search of the ultimate fishing experience?’, and on Ascension I think
I discovered it.

December 2010, At the Ends of the Earth, Series 4

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is exactly like the land described in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
The Lost World
: lush rainforests, virgin waters and smouldering
volcanoes. It’s not hard to imagine a passing stegosaurus tearing the tender leaves off a tree or a leathery pterodactyl gliding over the cerulean bay. It’s home to 800 tribes with
legendary tales of witchdoctors and other folklore. I am excited – this is the start of a strange and thrilling adventure. The journey has been epic and we are all done in. We have travelled
13,000 miles, on five planes, over three days, and now, finally, we are heading by boat to Kimbe, the capital of West New Britain. The island was ‘discovered’ in 1699 by William
Dampier, a celebrated British explorer, and it’s incredible to think that it probably hasn’t changed much since he came here all those years ago. Even though PNG is situated ninety
miles from the north-eastern coast of Australia, there was little contact with the West until after World War II. In 1942 New Britain was invaded by the Japanese, who established it as a key
military base, and the territory was crucial to their proposed invasion of Australia. The plan never came to fruition and the Japanese forces surrendered in 1945, but they left a lot of their kit
behind. Strewn across the rainforests are Japanese fighter planes and other military hardware, abandoned and decaying. It makes the prehistoric landscape seem all the more curious – like a
deserted movie set. Underneath the ocean lie unexploded bombs and torpedoes, above it smoking volcanoes and steaming seas. It is a place full of obscure dangers, ancient secrets and hopefully many
exotic species of fish.