Well it had to happen sooner or later.
We’ve been pretty lucky with our wet seasons over the last few years but right now there is genuine cause for concern.
La Ninãs and warm Pacific Ocean currents notwithstanding, there is absolutely nothing resembling a wet season happening in the Top End at the moment.
In fact, we should probably be counting our lucky raindrops that “clayton’s” Cyclone Grant speared a rain depression into the heart of big river country accessed by Darwin anglers.
At least that filled up the river catchments for the Alligator, the Mary, the Adelaide and the Daly Rivers.
So we have a bit of breathing space, I reckon, before the Wet needs to get firing again.
Speaking to Graeme King from our Bureau of Metreology, that’s not about to happen in the next few days.
I’m told the best we can hope for is another monsoonal burst in the second half of January.
In the meantime, a few hundred boats hit the rivers last weekend and there were some great catches reported.
Craig Grosvenor of Craig’s Tackle Warehouse told me the barra went ballistic down the Daly.
“One group caught 80 barra,” he said.
Yes, the Daly River was certainly the standout; I’ve had many reports of great fishing, mainly down around Elizabeth Creek but as far up as Diesel’s and as far down as Waterfall Creek.
There were a couple of metreys landed, but the quality in general was right up there with plenty of fish in the high 70s and 80s.
No one could accuse Shane Compain of not getting around – one week he’s sight-fishing metre barra at the mouth of the South Alligator and the next he’s double-hooking thrashing Daly River barra in a run-off frenzy.
Shane manages Top End Tackle World at Coolalinga.
Together with Bryce Neil and Jess Bovis, his boat caught dozens of barra at various creek mouths.
Shane told me he was hunting a bigger barra using a 150 Xstrada hard-body and, while nothing was interested in his lure, Bryce and Jess were getting fish after fish using small Squidgy Slick Rigs.
“I couldn’t stand it any longer,” he said, “so I switched to Squidgies too and started catching ‘em.”
“Natural colours seemed to work the best, in both 65s and 80s,” the champion angler confided.
“The trick was to slow roll them along the grass edges, same as always with the first run-off.”
With the water dropping quickly upriver, Shane reckons both Charlie’s Creek and No Fish Creek will be the next to go off.
Mind you, it wasn’t only the Daly that was firing; a couple of Kakadu rangers snuck into the East Alligator River and caught a swag of good barra.
The Magela Crossing has dropped to below .3m and the East could still be fishing well this weekend.
However, you can forget about the top of the South until we get more rain.
It’s dropped more than a metre in the last fortnight.
Old mate Peter Wilson from Kakadu Lodge reckons before Christmas the South was great and Wednesday last week it was dead.
“The surprising thing is that there is a heap of bait about; there’s lots of water activity,” Peter told me.
Peter also warned that he saw the biggest crocodile he’d ever seen up inside Nourlangie Creek on the South.
“It was easily longer than 5.5 metres and more than a metre wide, and it wasn’t too worried about my small boat,” Peter said.
Christian Sutter from Aurora Kakadu reckons that, while the top of the South has gone quiet, some good fish are being caught right down the river, and both jewies and snapper are biting like mad around Field Island.
Matty West from Fishing and Outdoor World reckoned the best local spot is the Mandorah Jetty.
“The kids have been buying Marabou Jigs and catching the ferry to Mandorah, fishing for queenies and GTs,” Matty told me.
“They caught 18 queenies in one day.”
CORRECTION: My apologies for last week’s photo captions. Seems the gremlins got in and mixed up the names; ie “Clint Jebbink” was actually Wayne Francis with the big red emperor and, of course, “Wayne Francis” was actually Clint Jebbink with the terrific mangrove jack.

PHOTOS;

1.    Bryce Neil and Shane Compain with a solid pair of “billabong escapees” caught slow-rolling small Squidgy Slick Rigs during a frenzied Daly River run-off session.

2.    Shane Compain’s silver 80cm barra must have wandered up from the salt water to check out the run-off smorgasbord on the Daly.

3.    Not to be outdone, Jess Bovis caught her share of Daly River barra on the little Slick Rigs.