He’s a biology teacher turned angling adventurer and travel writer. He’s survived a plane crash, a bad bout of malaria and even been arrested as a spy. Jeremy Wade has travelled the world on the trail of legendary River Monsters for more than 30 years and this week he arrives in Kent, with his show, River Monsters Face-to-Face. David Jones reports.

It’s a long way from the pretty Kent village of Chilham to the depths of the Amazon jungle but seat-of-the-pants angler Jeremy Wade made the journey and achieved international fame on the way.

He’s been to some of the most remote places on earth and caught some of the rarest species, from giant fish with teeth like daggers to river sharks.

In his new seven-part series, his quests include the search for a mutant fish in the nuclear wastelands of Ukraine’s Chernobyl, an underwater vampire and perhaps, the most famous freshwater monster ever – Nessie. Of course, Jeremy didn’t catch it, or we might have read about it by now, but later in Norway he did land a creature he thinks lies behind the myth of the Loch Ness Monster.

Angling has been in Jeremy’s blood since he was a boy, fishing in the Suffolk Stour, although it was a slow start.

“I think someone bought me a fishing rod for Christmas one year,” says Jeremy.

“I stood on the river bank in the pouring rain and thought ‘this is a waste of time. Why do people do this?’”

As a teenager, he was back into angling again and, at 16, was the youngest member of the British Carp Study Group.

Fast forward to 1980. Jeremy was in his 20s with a degree in zoology from Bristol University and living in Chilham, near Canterbury.

He gained a post graduate teaching certificate at Christ Church College, Canterbury, and took up a biology teaching post at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Faversham, with a later spell teaching in the Medway Towns.

It was about this time he became disenchanted with angling in this country.

“The waters were getting overcrowded and I was becoming aware there was a whole world out there, waiting to be explored. At this point in my life, I became ill and lost a lot of weight.

“I began to wonder if there was a way of combining what I enjoyed with making a living and began to write a few articles.”

Before the TV show River Monsters became a worldwide success, he had many jobs, from local newspaper reporter in Gloucestershire to senior copywriter with an advertising agency, art tutor and public relations consultant.

Says Jeremy: “Many of the things I have done feed into what I am doing now. They taught me how to get people’s attention.”

In his late 20s, Jeremy would go on one fishing trip a year to an exotic location. A TV producer saw a newspaper article about one of his trips and eventually a five-part fishing series was sold to Animal Planet UK.

The rest is history.

So what next for Jeremy, now 57?

He reckons the series in its current format has a couple of years to run and then it will be time to give it a new look, or to find something different. Meanwhile, there are more exotic species to be caught and remote locations to be visited.

And, despite the monsters he catches, Jeremy, who now lives in the West Country, still retains an affection for coarse fishing.

He says: “One evening last year I went fishing with my nephews. It was great to re-connect with my roots. It didn’t feel tame at all.”

The 13-date River Monsters Face-to-Face tour is the first time Jeremy has taken a full-blown show on the road.

His first show is in Leatherhead, Surrey, this weekend, and he’s at the Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury, on Tuesday, March 11. Tickets £16, concessions £12. Call 01227 769075 or visit www.rivermonsters.tv