Quite literally, the big fish is here. British actor, singer, and TV host of the adventure programme, “Extreme Fishing”, Robson Green is angling in Kerala waters for real situations while fishing. The programme, produced by Channel 5, showcases extreme fishing conditions across the world is about fish and the people who live by it.
The final catch of fish tales makes for gripping action. In it, you will find Robson fishing in a cave in Sri Lanka, where the noise of a million bats and their horrendous smell makes for an extreme condition. “Most of the methods are outside my comfort zone. But the residents live by that,” says Robson explaining that ‘extreme’ can be by virtue of location, method or lifestyle.
Chinese nets
In Kochi, he joins the fishermen to pull the centuries-old, Chinese fishing nets, “a beautiful piece of engineering”, and is excited at the fact that they are there from the times “when Richard II was on the English throne”.
“Extreme Fishing” comprises 12 episodes that traverse the waters off Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, Brazil, parts of Africa, Japan, Papua New Guinea and Canada. After Sri Lanka, Robson moves from Kochi to Alappuzha where he will hunt for the ‘helicopter catfish’. “It is a very aggressive fish and is known to attack. The lore of the fish is that a child was found in its stomach, when cut open.” Along with fishing, Robson will try his hand at Kalaripayattu and savour a typical Kerala meal.
In the Maldives, sports fishing with hi-tech speed boats and the latest fishing equipment will be part of the adventure, before moving on to the most primitive methods of catching fish in Africa. Here, Robson is looking forward to joining the tribes in their rhythmic song and dance after the day’s catch is done.
“What is distinctive in Africa is that the methods there are very simple and fishing is for survival,” he says, giving an example that Africans use their watch as bait to catch crustaceans, octopus and squids! Japan offers commercial fishing and can be very extreme in terms of volume and methods. Robson offers no comment on styles, methods, tools, means or end results but purely presents the drama and the lore, the excitement and the lifestyle of those who live in the Blue Zone.
And what is the Blue Zone? “The coastal areas where people live by the fish, where life expectancy is very high, thanks to a fish-rich diet,” says the champion of such a lifestyle.
“Extreme Fishing” is the third series, two of which are already on air in Europe. So, Robson has had his share of close encounters with fish. He caught a giant sting ray weighing all of 600 pounds! With frogs on his head and scorpions in his room, a croc appearing very suddenly next to him in Australia, Robson has had it all, nearly all.
For someone who got hooked to fishing, after having caught one on the first day of his casual outing, at the age of seven, fishing is not an escape but a means to reconnect, to “get back to many things”.
His production house, Coastal Productions is finishing a documentary, “Robson Green’s Wild Swimming Adventure”.
Robson’s story has “surreal” moments, he says. When his sensational song, “Unchained Melody” topped the U.K. charts and sold nearly two million copies, he recounts: “I was singing on stage, and in the audience were Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Bon Jovi, Tina Turner and Elton John. It felt surreal.”
With “Extreme Fishing”, Robson returns to the real world, having fallen hook, line and sinker for the fish.
