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June 20, 2020 16 mins

Guest host Ian Punnett and Jeremy Wade, host of the Discovery channel programs "River Monsters" and "Mysteries of the Deep" explore his lifelong fascination with underwater creatures and shipwrecks, and the legends that have been created about them.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
iHeart Radio, Wade in the Water. I think that I
think that actually should be that the next name for
a Jeremy Wade series on the Discovery Channel. Good evening,
Jeremy Wade. Hello that good evening. How are you? Have
you ever made that connection before you Wade in the Water.

(00:22):
It's like it's like tailor made for you. It is
you know, to what extent the names dictates destiny? Apparently
that's where it actually comes from. You know, Well, I
looked it up and it is. You know a lot
of names come from old occupations like Miller right. Anyway,
Wade was the dweller by the Ford. How about that?

(00:47):
So my ancestors, you know, you know we were linked
with Rivers and so something in my DNA, which is well,
you know, you've been a guest before on Coast to
Coast and unfortunately both times are with me because I'm
such a big fan, and so I keep dragging you
under this show because I just think you're great. I'm
telling you, dude, I love and I love the new series,

(01:09):
but I is so rare for me to ever see
and every so once a while catch one a River
Monsters show that I hadn't seen before, but they're just
always so much fun and they're still running a people
can catch them on Hulu and some of the other
platforms that carry some of the old shows. But you've
been doing this now for how long have you been
looking for mysterious almost legendary creatures in water on TV?

(01:36):
On TV? Well, I mean River Monsters, and it's sort
of spin off that you know that goes back I
think twelve eleven years now. So yeah, there's a lot
of episodes out there, so there are fans who still
haven't seen all the episodes. Yeah, lots of lots of
strange creatures, fish and other other things under the water
all around the world. And it's been great. And nah,

(01:59):
in yeah, Stories of the Deep we stay with some creatures,
but we take things out into other yeah, which I
like a lot too. I just I think that it
is so it just so fit to And here's what
I like about um the show, at least as I'm
looking at it as a as a as a Jeremy
Wade fan. When I'm watching the new show again Mysteries

(02:21):
of the Deepness on Discovery, is that the way it shot,
it looks like you don't have to spend as many
weeks out of the year actually traveling to these locations.
That some of the stuff, it looks like you can do.
Like they're shooting some of the This is a I'm
kind of I remember I work in media, so I
look at these things maybe a little bit differently, but

(02:42):
it looks like some of these were shot maybe hopefully
closer to home, because I used to look and you go,
when does this guy ever have time for a life?
He's in a little boat with the Amazon and that
you know, you got to have time to be dad
or you know, husband or something. Yeah. Well, well liver monsters,
you know, I would be away from home about half

(03:03):
the year something. Yeah, So that you know, that was
very very much of a full time job. With Mysteries
of the Deep, it's a bit more of a virtual journey. Yeah. Also,
we recruited this very wide and diverse team of scientific experts.
Who are you know, who are coming in and giving

(03:23):
their sort of unique insights from their perspectives, So marine archaeologists,
but then you know, people like specialists in tree rings
and underwater acoustics. So they're coming in because you know
that those fields are not not my expertise. And also,
you know, we just got hold of just amazing footage.
So a lot of what we see is stuff that

(03:45):
you know, there's no way I could have shot it,
because it's just somebody who happened to be somewhere and
they've got some footage. And so it's a it's a
totally different type of show. And instead of one episode
just being about one destination, we're all over the place.
There's four or five different stories in each episode. So
something to keep everybody happier. Yeah, that is. That is

(04:07):
Also that's another interesting thing I like about the new
show again we're talking about Mysteries of the Deep on Discovery,
is that you you hit several different stories in the
same hour. But I really look, I mean, anybody who's
a fan of River Monsters knows the cool thing about
River Monsters, and I believe I mentioned this the last
time I had you on, was that you do find

(04:30):
the things that you're going for. A lot of the
shows on Discovery, as much as I enjoy them, in
the end, it's kind of a null hypothesis. They don't
find they don't find what they were looking for. They
start off and it looks great, but in the end
they have you know, a little bit of audio or
something from something that was in the woods, and that's
as good as it gets. You actually find. If you
don't find the real thing that you're looking for, you

(04:53):
find a pretty good version, maybe a slightly smaller version
of that creature that had been you know, terrorizing a
river community. And I I think that the payoff level
on River Monsters was higher than any other show of
its kind on television. Yeah, absolutely, I mean, and we had,
I mean, we did have an amazing field open for

(05:14):
us there because basically freshwater fish just hadn't been featured
on TV before Natural History programs. You know, nobody knew
about a lot of these creatures. And the reason being
is that it's a very simple reason is that a
lot of a lot of rivers and lakes, the water
is murky. You can't see anything. So you can't do

(05:35):
a sort of Jacques Cousteau type program where you just
send somebody down with a camera and you film what's there.
You've got to approach it a different way. So I
was using mostly a fishing line, but then we were
looking into the folklore surrounding these creatures, because again, where
you haven't got the knowledge, you have a very rich folklore.
Lots of fisherman's tails. I mean that always gets people in.

(05:57):
Fishermen are renowned for making things up. So this, you know,
we start with a story. This sounds very, very unlikely,
but you're right at the end we would actually show
something that might be in many cases as big as
I am, or even yeah, it from a river, you
know exactly. That was the amazing thing and I just
so that's what I think, that's what bonded me to

(06:19):
to river monsters, was that, you know, I mean, other
than the fact that that you come off, you know,
to it's sort of the double O seven of freshwater anglers.
You know, got this cool you know, a British vibe
and the whole bit. But you are you are the
real deal and you're not a poser, and you get
in there and you admit But I always like how
you would sometimes talk about how this type of fishing

(06:40):
isn't something that you were used to doing, and so
you would kind of fumble your way through the first
couple of attempts, but by the end of the show,
clearly you were coming up with something because you were
you didn't just have a glimpse of it on a
shadow of some you know, sonar equipment. You were actually
holding that thing up. But let's kind of bite your

(07:02):
head off, man. Yes, And I think you know what
we were trying to do is take the audience with us.
It's a it's a mental puzzle, but it's also it's
a physical challenge. And you know, for every every show
that we planned, I would come along and it would
be a case you know, we we we do need
to show this at the end, and if we it

(07:25):
was a lot of pressure actually, and particularly as time
went on, because you know, we're off filming. We're filming
for about three weeks and we can you know, we're
shooting all the scenery and interviews with people, but if
we don't have the fish or the creature in the end,
we haven't got a program exactly. Real pressure, which you know,
an often that came across an air of desperation creeping
in all the more gripping in a way, but that

(07:50):
also put you with this is very dangerous places. And
I know a little bit about it only because I
lived along the Mississippi, and I know any time that
you're fishing near dams or you're there are certain areas
where you know you can get sucked under really fast
if you're not careful. And I think that was the
other thing about the show is, as far as you know,
quote unquote reality shows go, you showed a lot of

(08:13):
the reality of what it was like just to try
to catch a fish under these extraordinary circumstances. And then
the success rate, which, as you point out, it's so
often replicated maybe slightly if you pardon the pun, slightly
scaled down version of the fish story that was being
told on the banks. It was still like you found

(08:35):
fish that could take off somebody's leg or somebody that
could a fish that could easily take away a small child,
and this was part of what the legend might have
been built on, and you actually found that, and I
just thought, Wow, that's that's a hell of a way
to spend a year. But now I'm glad you're not
having to be on the road that much and we're
still getting great enjoyment out of this this new show.

(08:56):
In Mysteries of the Deep, you kind of bring in
shipwrecks to it too, which is also another thing of mine.
Has that always been something you're interested in? Well, I
mean through through fishing. I got into diving, into scuba diving.
And one of the things that's very interesting to see
when you're when you're under the water is shipwrecks that

(09:18):
there is something very moody and spooky about them. There's
always a story. There's often a mystery how did it
end up down here? And in mysteries of the deep,
you know, there are stories like, you know, why is
this particular shipwreck? So you know normal normally you know
the their their damage. You know, why why is this

(09:39):
particular shipwrecked? Wrecks? So you know, so so perfect looking.
There's also another another story about disappearing shipwrecks. You know,
huge lumps of metal on the bottom of the sea
which were dive sites and then suddenly they're gone. Where
Where Where where they go? Where? Where does that disappear to?
So you know, that's that's one story that we estigate,

(10:00):
which is pretty fascinating. I dived just a personal story
a few years ago. I dive the wreck called the
spiegel Grove off Florida, and that was sunk deliberately to
create an artificial reef. And actually that was in We
featured that in a in a River Monsters episode about Barracuda.

(10:22):
They it was the idea was to sink it so
that it was standing upright, and something went wrong and
it ended up on its side. And it's like, oh, well,
there we go this, you know, this massive transportership which
is on its side. And then you had hurricane season
sweep in one year I think it was I think
it was Sandy. I can't remember anyway, So obviously all diving,

(10:44):
you know, or navigation is off. And then when things
calmed down that the somebody went out to dive the
Spiegel Grove and they're going down, you know, a hundred
feet in the water, and then suddenly they really they're
on They're on the butt, they're on the ship, and
they realized it's the right way up. It's so suddenly
this ship, which had been on its side is now

(11:04):
the right way up. Oh my god. You know that
is that? That is a fairly fascinating story. I mean nothing,
nothing sort of mysterious or supernaturally involved, but I mean something.
It tells you something. I mean, you were talking about
dams and and you know, danger of fishing, you know,
the power of water. You know, it really is something
that you have to respect, and you know, I think
we try and get that across as well. We're talking

(11:27):
with Jeremy Wade, who, as you pointed out at the
beginning of the half hour, the name Wade goes back
to Old English referring to people that that live along
water by the way. Um, you know, for people that
don't know my last name, punnet means a small basket
for holding strawberries. Correct, do you buy your You buy
your strawberries by the punnet in England? Still, indeed we do.

(11:51):
And when when I was a kid, we used to
I used to go fruit picking. And that's that's right,
I mean that is indeed, what it is is that
where it comes from. It's it comes from the Middle French.
Somewhere in Middle French it it referred to the size
of a fist. So I think that's where we get

(12:12):
the measurement from, or the capacity for strawberries of the
size of fist. But they don't know whether um it
meant fist in terms of throwing a fist or just
whether but however that worked. A punnet is about the
size of one's fist and that's why how you buy strawberries.
So I think that's it's the only reason that people
know the name outside of America other than my last name. Yes, yes,

(12:37):
I mean it's definitely it's definitely a word in my
you know, on the fringes of mycoptera. Yeah. Um, so
I love the new series. There was one of the
Old River monsters though, that was also close to me,
which is you did one, all right, I want to
make sure I've got it straight in my head. You
did one in Minnesota where you caught one of the
biggest was it a pike or what was it was?

(12:59):
Like whatever? Because the freshwater cousin of the barracuda is
um at muski muski, that's what it was, right, we
did we did a muskie show where I ended up
in just over the border in Canada. Right. But but
the muskie is that sort of fresh water right version

(13:19):
of the barracuda, which is which is you know, which
can be ridiculously hard to catch. They call it the
fish of ten Yeah, but that's but that's where. But
around Minnesota, just to speak to the legends part, you know,
people would talk about these violent muskies or kids that
would be bitten by a fish who would be standing

(13:40):
in shallow water or people that were bit and they
were like, yeah, right, you know, and but but that's
what you helped really prove once and for all that
some of these things are huge and they've got a
barracuda like bite. Yeah, and they really look the part
as well. I mean, we don't have we don't have
muski here, but we have pike the same as your
your northern pike. And there's always there's always legends about

(14:03):
them attacking people. I mean, the thing that I should
point out is that these incidents when when they when
fish bite people or whatever, they're normally very they're very rare.
It's not normal behavior, but it still is possible. So
you know, they're not everyday events. But we know, we

(14:23):
take these fishermen stories and we show that this isn't complete,
this isn't complete nonsense, this isn't completely made up. But
in no circumstances, you know, you you could be in
danger from something there. And and the other thing is
it's trying to encourage well, first of all, knowledge of
what lives in the water, but also an understanding of

(14:44):
it because sometimes if if somebody is bitten or whatever
by a fish. It's not the fish's faults. It's the
person's fault for actually being in the wrong place at
the wrong time. Maybe the fish was you know, some
fish when they're breeding, they get yeah, they very aggressive.
They don't like anybody coming near their nests or whatever.
And the other thing is returning to the business of

(15:05):
low visibility. Sometimes a fish just makes a mistake. If
you imagine somebody's foot, pale colored in muddy water, waving
around in type, that's going to look like a small
fish to something from predatory. So it grabs a foot
without knowing that that's a foot. So there's normally a
logical explanation which isn't just the fact that this fish

(15:27):
hates humans. It's it's a much more sort of biological
explanation going on. Well, and that the same type of thing.
And it speaks again to water currents and whatever is
the idea of sharks in brackish water or even going
all the way up into fresh water where it's not
even necessarily a mix, but how much further into freshwater

(15:48):
sometimes a shark can swim upriver. Absolutely. This is specifically
bull sharks, which is still find that incredible. The fact
that because most most seafish, if you put im in freshwater,
they die. They just they just can't handle it. You know,
it's the the you know, the cells in their body
would just take on so much water and would explode.

(16:09):
They can't do it. But fish like salmon obviously that
you know, they cross that barrier. They have this amazing
sort of physiological trick. But this one species of sharp
bull sharks they you know, they used to swim a
long way up the Mississippi. They swim into the canals
down in Florida. Yeah, and you know, it's it's it's
it's a handy thing to know if you if you

(16:31):
live in one of those places, you know that they
are you know what might just be under the water.
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