Fish Story
Sam Aurelius Milam III
A
while back, I watched a river monster documentary on Animal Planet.
I don't usually watch Animal Planet. I expect that it probably
has too much propaganda in support of the animal rescue gestapo, to many
commercials that use the term pet parent, and too many teary-eyed
exhortations to save the poor little puppies. However, it was the
best thing that I could find at the time. I was too tired to keep
working and I had about an hour 'til supper. It was either watch
the documentary or show up early for supper and risk having to help.
So, I watched the documentary.
According
to his narration, the hero's objective was to track down the facts of a
rumor that he'd heard. He'd heard that, in some remote village deep
in the wilderness of Bolivia, a man had fallen into a river and had been
partially devoured by a river monster before being heroically pulled, dead,
from its very jaws. It was the stuff of legends. I was on tenterhooks.
Reportedly,
the only way for our hero to get to the remote village was to ride an airplane
into Brazil and then rent a car to drive from there to the river, in the
isolated, northern reaches of inner Bolivia. At the river, he hired
a river guide who, it was claimed, was the only man available who was brave
enough to attempt the perilous journey.
There
followed a considerable amount of footage showing our hero sitting stoically
in the bow of a long, skinny canoe that was powered by a little outboard
motor. He stared grimly ahead, anticipating the many dangers that
lurked around every bend. The canoe surged on. The river seemed
endless. The rainy season started. The footage was taken from
about 20 or 30 feet abreast of the canoe, from another boat. That
boat and the camera must have been running themselves, since our hero and
his guide were, supposedly, the only two people who'd dared to attempt
the trip.
Our
hero made many stops along the way, and caught many fish. Sometimes,
he even fished through an entire night. Most of the fish that he
caught were about the size of the palm of his hand. One was about
the size of his little finger but he didn't actually catch that one.
It jumped into his hand. There was a migration under way at the time
and swarms of the little critters were leaping up the rapids. There
was a still-shot of one huge fish, presumably taken during some previous
expedition, that was being supported in the water by two men. It
seemed to be about the size of a cow.
It
was a long and epic journey, lasting many days. It was fraught with
danger, although the only actual injury that I saw our hero sustain was
when he got one of his fish hooks caught in his thumb. Somebody,
presumably his courageous river guide, removed it with some pliers.
That suggested considerable manual dexterity, since the guide must also
have been filming the action, being the only other person (besides our
hero) who'd been brave enough to undertake the journey. I expect
that our hero's cursing and screaming, during the extraction, must have
been edited during the final cut. The only comment that appeared
in the documentary was something like, wow that hurt, after the extraction
was completed.
According
to my little globe of the world, our hero was following the river in a
direction that, pretty much, seems to lead up into the Andes. I don't
know why, but he commented about continuing further downstream. Maybe
it's a Southern Hemisphere usage, or just another mystery among many.
Whatever the case, the villages along the river got ever more rustic as
he continued. Eventually, most of the little huts in which the people
lived didn't even need windows. You could see well enough between
the slats. After much travail, our hero eventually reached his intended
destination, far within the remote interior of northern Bolivia.
It must have been the tourist season. I can't think of any other
explanation for the large number of healthy-looking visitors who were lounging
around and wearing jeans and bright sport shirts. The next thing
that I noticed was that the settlement had a ferry crossing to the highway
on the other side of the river.
What!?!?
He could have driven there in a couple of days, instead of struggling up
the river for days on end, through the drenching rainy season, in an open
boat? Neither the producers nor any of his viewers noticed that?
Well,
what do you expect from people who believe that dog's rights are more important
than people's rights? If the people who watch Animal Planet
are at all representative of the general population (I sure hope not),
then that might explain why the government gets away with so many fish
stories. By the way, he never did find the river monster.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
November 2015 |
Frontiersman,0c/o
4984 Peach Mountain Drive, Gainesville, Georgia 30507
http://frontiersman.org.uk/ |
Page
3 |
|