Extreme Fishing (32 page)

One person claps.

‘Thank you. I’m still available for panto.’

My job is to interview the contestants, who are wearing a variety of costumes this evening. I come up with a great Miss Billfish question: ‘If you were a fish, what kind of fish would you
be?’

‘I’d be a marlin so I could travel the world, as I’ve heard they migrate a lot,’ says one shy young woman.

One lass says: ‘I don’t want to be a fish. Why are you asking me that question?’

Question two: ‘Do you like working with children?’

‘Yes, because I’ve got a lot to offer and I am a kind and giving person.’

‘Do
you
like working with children?’ I ask another hopeful.

‘No,’ she says flatly. Come on, that’s beauty queen basics – you have to love kids and want world peace.

Question three: ‘Who’s your favourite actor? By the way, I’m an actor.’

‘Tom Cruise. Never heard of you.’

I ask a girl in blue. ‘Heath Ledger,’ she says.

‘Oh boy, do I have some bad news for you.’ She hasn’t got a clue he’s just died.

‘He’s so talented and handsome.’

‘Not any more, he’s not.’

‘What?’

I tell her. She puts her hands to her face. I have turned into Larry David from
Curb Your Enthusiasm
; my humour is becoming as dark as the atmosphere. I really don’t want to be
here.

The fashion parade begins, to the soundtrack of the dodgiest 1970s soft-porno music. It’s all a bit surreal. The women are judged on their interviews, personality and their outfits, and
the other judges are taking it very seriously. There is a female Aussie tourist guide, a young guy who fancies all of them, and some pervy old guy. I give them all maximum points for each
category.

One model has a Naomi Campbell-style fall as she hits the catwalk. She gets back up and bravely continues. A dog jumps up at her and barks and kids run round in deranged circles. The next two
models walk down the runway wearing only very small bikinis. Suddenly the generator fuses and the lights go out. About ten minutes later the problem is fixed and the parade continues. How much
longer can this go on?

Finally the girls line up and the announcement is made: ‘And the winner is . . .’ – cue drum roll – ‘Miss Billfish, winning by a nose, the girl in blue.’ I
put a ribbon over her and a tiara on her head. She is very chuffed.

We escape back to the hotel, sharpish. It’s after midnight. I’m about to put my light out when there’s a knock at my door. It’s Jamie. He’s had his bag stolen.

‘With all my money, cards and my bloody passport, Robson.’

We call the police.

The day before, Jamie had gone to do a quick recce in Kimbe. He’d heard there was something called ‘condom fishing’ so he had driven to a pharmacy to see if
they stocked prophylactics (it’s an unlikely story but absolutely true!). He jumped out of the van, leaving his bag on the front seat. The pharmacy did indeed stock an array of condoms and
the owners were happy for us to film in their shop. Having organised this set-up, he jumped back in the van and joined us at breakfast. Only now has it dawned on him that his bag had been nicked
out of the van, which he admits he didn’t lock. I shake my head disappointedly.

‘Basics, my sadistic friend, basics.’

The police arrive at the hotel. They are the picture definition of ‘dodgy’ but couldn’t be more helpful. They think they know exactly who has his bag.

‘Leave it with us and we’ll get your bag back,’ they say.

Jamie calls IWC in Glasgow. He is very concerned about the next shoot in New Caledonia. Without his passport he won’t be allowed in. Helen says if he goes back to the UK within the next
two days they can issue him a new passport straight away and he can be back in time for the New Caledonia shoot, but it’s a logistical nightmare. Jamie is stressed. It’s nice to watch.
Usually I’m the one sweating.

Eggs and Fish

Meanwhile we have a show to make, and this morning I am going hunting for eggs and hand lining with the Tolai tribe. We head by boat across the Rabaul Caldera, straight
for the ACTIVE volcano, Mount Tavurvur. The lava has turned into metallic grey rocks of pumice. Every tree is a scorched post and the volcanic heat turns the waves to steam as they lap against the
black shore. We navigate through a channel in thirty- to forty-degree heat. Local man Robot and three friends are waiting to greet me. They are dressed in sarongs and bare-chested like my dad,
which, given what we’re about to do today, feels particularly apt. I’m going to be mining. But not for minerals under the earth: for megapode eggs buried deep in the ash.

The native bird, which looks like a rooster-sized moorhen with massive feet, uses the heat of the volcanic ash to incubate its eggs, and apparently they’re very tasty. Robot and his guys
are going to help me find them. It’s really not that hard – you just start digging where the footprints stop! I start burrowing and soon am grey with ash. Dad would be proud of my newly
discovered mining capabilities.
It’s in the genes
, I think, as I dig like a champion. He used to say: ‘You graft? Your skin wouldn’t bloody graft!’

Bloody hell, these birds certainly bury their eggs deep. I’ve been slogging away for two hours and I have ash in my eyes, ears, mouth and nose, but about four feet down I’m getting
close. The air is hot and dry and so is the ash. I start to shovel and part the grey slag with my hands. I reach down into the hole and find an egg. It’s like a large duck egg. I find
another. I am triumphant but Jamie and Craig now want more footage on a different side of the ACTIVE volcano and I want to go before it starts to spew molten lava at us. Robot takes me to another
spot and we start digging. The ash is acrid in my eyes and Jamie, all clean and Lynx-fresh, is sadistically enjoying my transformation into an ashen spectre of my former self. I dig for another
four hours
, finding half a dozen more eggs. Finally Jamie’s happy he’s got the footage he needs.

I pass the eggs to Robot and his team who will sell them for the equivalent of about 40p each; with all the eggs I’ve helped them find, they should make about four quid. They give me five
to take for dinner. I thank them, hurriedly leaving the dry, dusty, ACTIVE volcano, and head by boat to a beautiful island paradise, home to the Tolai tribe. As I arrive, kids are diving off a tree
into the turquoise-blue waters and playing tag on the sand. On the shore I am greeted by tribal leader Kevung, who reminds me of Nelson Mandela. He beams a wide smile. I shake hands with two other
guys wearing very random T-shirts.

‘Are there some big fish out there? What kind of big ones?’ I ask.

‘Breams,’ replies one of them.

‘Big bream? They’re very tasty fish. Do they go well with eggs?’

‘No,’ he says bluntly.

‘Oh, right.’

He gazes out to sea. I read his thoughts: ‘Who is this guy? Who the hell eats fish and eggs?’
Note to self, Robson, next time just bring a nice Chardonnay
.

We go out in canoes with an outrigger on one side, a bit like the bancas in the Philippines. I’m sharing with Kevung. Out here the water gets very deep, very quickly. Even in these tiny
handmade canoes, we’ll be fishing depths of more than 500 feet and using a hand line will be a test of endurance. Luckily I’ve brought my trusty chamois gloves. I’m not stupid.
Besides, Kevung wears a glove too so I’m just copying the locals.

We send down weighted hooks with squid as bait. Anything more than ten pounds in size at this depth will take hours. And bingo! I’ve got a fish. I start pulling up the line, which I
predict will take about fifteen minutes. The line winds against a carved-out tree branch.

‘Pull,’ says Kevung. ‘Pull. Pull. Pull. Pull,’ he says, getting me into a rhythm like a fishing coxswain.

The fish is fighting and my arms are aching. I start dreaming about electric reels. I’m usually not a fan of them. What’s the point? Hard work is all part of it but now I’m
beginning to think they are one of the best inventions of the modern age, along with penicillin and the Pill.

‘Pull it faster,’ says Kevung.

‘I am pulling it fast. I can’t pull it any faster, Kevung.’

My arms are a blur with motion.

Kevung gets a fish, and across the way so has George, but mine’s nearly at the surface. It’s a four-pound mandara, or perch, but the line gets caught around the side rigger of the
boat and becomes taut. The fish flicks its tail and is off.

‘Shit!’

I am so upset. That fish has just taken me fifteen minutes to pull up and now I’ve lost it.

All the guys pull up lovely fish. They wind in the line with ease. Kevung is about twenty years older than me but he is so strong he pulls the line up like a man taking it easy on a Sunday
afternoon. These guys don’t have any fancy boats or equipment; they are using what nature gave them. The only expense is the nylon line and a hook. And I’ve just lost one. Later, when
we arrive back on shore, I give them one of mine and they are so grateful. Out here, it makes a difference. I think about Riccard’s lure, still in the tree. Maybe I could tell them about that
one, too. Poor Riccard – I need to give him one of my lures. Luckily I’m seeing him tomorrow and I might be directing myself, because it looks like Jamie will have to fly back to London
after all.

George pulls up a six-pound mandara and he paddles over for me to inspect it. It will make a great meal for the villagers. I congratulate him and pass it back but I didn’t travel 13,000
miles to hold another man’s fish; I need to catch one of my own and I’m staying out here all night if necessary – and Jamie says it is necessary. Me eating eggs on camera with the
Tolai tribe won’t really cut it with the producers back in the UK.
Extreme Egg Hunting With Robson Green
might not get another series.

I drop the line and hope the fish are hungry. I wait. Nothing. I am impatient. I want a fish. I can’t face the villagers without catching anything. I’m in.
Please, please stay on,
otherwise it’s boiled eggs and soldiers for me and I don’t want that. Come on. Use your core, Robson. Straight back . . .

‘Oh . . . I’m fucked.’

Kevung laughs. He tries to improve my technique but I am in a rhythm.
Nearly there, come on. Oh, for fuck’s sake, where’s the bloody fish?
I keep pulling and pulling.
It’s never-ending. And finally I pull up the smallest fish ever. It must be no more that a pound and I haven’t got a clue what it is. It’s definitely not the bream I was dreaming
of. I’ve lost more weight pulling in this blinking fish than I’ll gain from eating it. Kevung informs me that it’s a loueer – it’s a sweet little thing with bright
yellow markings. I knock it on the head. He’s my contribution to the feast tonight, as well as the megapode eggs, of course.

Between us we have caught three large mandara, two decent-sized bream and my loueer, which, placed next to the other fish, looks like a rotten banana. That night we eat with the tribe, cooking
the fish and megapode eggs over an open fire. I tell the children how I found the eggs, digging in the ash. They don’t understand a word I’m saying but are transfixed by my mimes. The
megapode eggs are delicious, all yolk and no white but do you know what, George was right: eggs and fish really don’t go well together.

Giant Goldfish

Early the next morning Jamie calls the police to see if they have made any progress, and they have. They turn up at the hotel holding his bag. They’ve got the
culprits. Jamie is so relieved – we all are. Everything is there save the cash. He kisses his burgundy passport and shakes the hands of the policemen. He has just narrowly avoided six days of
the most arduous travelling imaginable.

The police tell us the story of how they got his bag back. They battered down the door of the suspects, who made a run for it, so they shot them in the legs and went after another guy with a
machete. Jamie and I look at one another out of the corner of our eyes. What? Did we just hear right? The senior officer invites Jamie to go with them to the hospital to see that justice has been
done. In fact, we can all go. Strangely we unanimously decide to give that particular treat a miss. Jamie shakes their hands again and they are on their way. All I can say is don’t nick
anything in PNG because they don’t mess around like they do in Britain, where you’d get three meals a day, a telly and an endless supply of narcotics.

After a spot of snorkelling we drive back to Kimbe in West New Britain. Riccard’s taking me out on his big boat. We are reef fishing about 600 feet down, and in answer to
my prayers we are using electric reels! Riccard takes us to spot where he has caught unknown monsters.

‘There are some big things down there that we haven’t managed to pull up. I’ve had this reel here smoking sometimes,’ he says in a light Aussie drawl.
‘There’s actual smoke coming out of it because it’s going backwards and you know they straighten these big hooks.’

We send the squid hooks down and no sooner have they hit the bottom than both reels go off. They whine like distant sirens. Suddenly mine stops: the fish is off. I take the other rod port side:
600, 590, 580, 570 . . . kick gears click on. With forty feet to go the alarm sounds to alert you to the fact that the fish is near to the surface and it’s time to reel in by hand. As I start
winding, the rod bends acutely. I wind with all my might and what comes into view is astonishing. It’s a giant goldfish! Like something Gulliver would have won at the fair. I am so astonished
that all I can manage on camera is a load of ‘wows’ and platitudes.

It’s called a ruby snapper and the Latin name is
Etelis carbunculus
, which means ‘ancient stone’ – hence ruby. It is a vibrant orange with a shimmer of gold and
massive black eyes, because it’s dark down there in the benthic zone where it resides. Wow! It’s a forty-five-pound goldfish! All I can say is we’re going to need a bigger bowl. I
mean, imagine flushing this one down the loo when it’s dead. But we’re not going to do that today, we’re going to eat it.

The goldfish has whetted my appetite. What else is down there? What about one of the monsters Riccard was speaking about? One of the lines beeps. The electric reels perform their magic.