Asian Slayer is the fourth episode of the fourth season of River Monsters.
Episode Description[]
Jeremy Wade returns to the rivers of India’s Himalayas to investigate a fresh spate of savage attacks. He thinks he knows the perpetrator’s identity, but his plans to catch the monster hit trouble when he learns it's a sacred animal.
Episode Summary[]
Jeremy Wade's journey into extreme fishing started in India, where he caught large mahseer, and where he later caught a massive Goonch that had been killing bathers. Now, he returns following reports of a new predator, capable of taking pets and small children.
Looking around, he uncovers its identity: the sareng catfish, a streamlined predator with long jaws and sharp teeth. He also finds a problem: the sareng is sacred in India's Hindu religion and harming it is believed to curse you with bad luck.
Almost immediately he encounters problems when the lake where he is fishing is closed and tries his luck in the wilderness of Corbett National Park, sharing the territory with man-eating tigers and wild elephants.
The monsoon comes early and the fish are not biting, forcing him to leave the river. To escape what appears to be the wrath of the gods, he travels to Thailand to a lake inhabited by Sareng, as well as countless other introduced river monsters.
Despite not being a Hindu country, Thailand offers no protection from the gods as Jeremy seemingly catches every fish, especially red-tailed catfish, in the lake but the sareng. Deciding to face his demons instead of running from them, he returns to India to take part in a Hindu blessing, to appease the gods and convince them he means the fish no harm. Returning to the river, Jeremy finds he might have finally met his match.
Trivia[]
- The sareng was caught in an episode of The Lost Reels: Himalayan Giant but not mentioned in this episode.
- The sareng was later caught in the River Monsters finale, but before that episode this was the second river monster to not have been caught, after the Lake Biwa Giant Catfish.
- The sareng was briefly seen in the episode "Mekong Mutilator" with several specimens on a rack in the fish market. Jeremy does not mention it by name, he just takes of look at the fish and then says to the camera that when he asked about the name of the fish the woman selling it just told him the price.