Russian Killer

Russian Killer is the fifth episode of the fourth season of River Monsters.

Episode Description[]

Angler Jeremy Wade heads to Russia’s remote Amur River, where the mysterious deaths of three men appear to be linked to a reclusive freshwater giant. The prime suspect is a predator that can top a ton and exceed 18 feet in length.

Episode Summary[]

Chasing reports of three fishermen disappearing without a trace, Jeremy Wade ventures to the far east of Russia to investigate the Amur River. There, he interviews some of the locals. When asked if there are any big fish in the water, the locals are strangely quiet. Believing that they are keeping some sort of secret, he talks to a local biologist, who tells him of an encounter with the kaluga: a predatory freshwater sturgeon species known to grow up to 18 feet long. The kaluga is the world's second largest freshwater fish. Armed with an enormous mouth, this fish could easily drag people in the water when hooked. But before he can try and catch one, he's told that fishing for kaluga is strictly outlawed. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a sudden surge of fishing nearly wiped them out, as they produce delicious caviar. Despite the fact that Russian authorities regularly patrol the river in speedboats to pursue those illegally hunting the elusive surviving sturgeons, people keep poaching them and telling no one, explaining the locals' secretive behaviour regarding big fish. Journeying with a team of biologists who can legally catch the fish for research, Jeremy sets out to catch what may be the last of these monstrous fish. Although Jeremy is unable to find an adult Kaluga, just before the trip ends he catches a very young juvenile, the best hope for the species' survival.

Animals Featured[]

Kaluga Sturgeon
Soldatov Catfish

Locations Featured[]

Russia
- Amur River

Incidents[]

Three men go on a fishing trip, something that two of them have done before, while one was inexperienced, it being the first time he was on the water. They don't come back however, and their boat is found floating with no one inside of it. Two of the men are found a year later, the other is never found.
Two people are fishing with nets on a small canoe, when they hook a giant fish. They cannot pull it in and the fish is so large that it pulls them into the water. The people are never found, and it is for sure that they drowned.
A man is longline fishing but hooks onto a giant Kaluga Sturgeon. He gets tangled in the line and pulled into the water by the fish, and he dies. This is similar to a case investigated in the episode Congo Killer.

Reception[]

Average episode, approximately 8/10 stars.

Trivia[]

The only episode to take place in Russia.
The second episode to feature a Sturgeon as the culprit, the first being Alaskan Horror.
At the time of the episode being filmed, the Soldatov Catfish, a fish that was a candidate for being the culprit, had no definite size, although now it is shown that they can grow up to 13 feet long and 880 lbs.
During this episode, fans can see the preserved head of Wade's Goliath Tiger Fish from Demon Fish while Wade is in his study.

Gallery[]

TBA

Russian Killer

Contents