NT Fishing Report
With Alex Julius 13 May 2010
It may not have been the “fishiest” Barra Nationals in the 15-year history of this great Top End tournament, but I’d be surprised if there has ever been as many big barra caught over the course of five days.
It started right from the first day when Bryce Neal bagged a fish of a lifetime that measured 117cm and earned his Top End Tackle team a whopping 757 points.
There were several other barra over 90cm caught on the first day, but Gaye Silva in Team Lowrance absolutely brained it with two in the 90s and another one just a tad under.
It was obvious by the end of the second day that the Top End Tackle team was onto something, catching more big barra.
Our own Light Horse team of Tony Hare, Brad Woollams and myself found a good fish on that second day.
Based on an article by Leeann Payne in the last NAFA magazine, we tied on big Bombers and trolled down the middle of the river at about 7 kph, which is much faster than normal barra-trolling speed.
We did this against the big incoming tide with our lures a long way back, and I actually had my rod in the rod holder – as if trolling for mackerel – when suddenly it doubled over with a crashing strike.
“I’m on!” I yelled as I wrenched the rod out of the holder, whilst simultaneously a missile of a barra launched skywards at the end of my line.
It was in open water, but you never know on the Daly if there’s a snag hidden down below, even in the middle of the river.
I always prefer to get close and even over the top of a good barra so that the line points downwards and not across, thereby minimising the chance of the fish swimming around a hidden snag.
We tried to do that, but this barra had other ideas, jumping, thrashing and repeatedly ripping out the thin line provided for the tournament. It was a thick, heavy fish, beautifully netted by Brad, and measured 96 cm.
Well, do you reckon we thought we had the winning technique then?
Come day three, with a smaller tide as the neaps closed in, we headed for our “spot” on the incoming, and came across the Top End Tackle boys frantically battling a terrific barra.
Sadly, it cut the line on a bank-side snag, and the yells of despair and frustration from their boat said it all.
“How big?” I asked.
“Easy 110,” one of them replied.
It seemed they’d also read the NAFA article, as they immediately began trolling down the guts at faster-than-normal pace and obviously with big shallow divers that we later learnt were also Bombers, green ones in fact.
We too began trolling that area, but blow me down if they didn’t hook another whopper within 30 seconds! They landed that one which measured 101 cm.
Other boats were noticing the activity by then – with an armada of 61 boats in the Nationals, it’s pretty hard to get a spot on your own.
One boat called “Scoop” trolled through and hooked a metre-plus barra straight away, landing it with the usual celebration.
Then the Top End Tackle team caught two more in the high 90s, tallying three amazing fish in less than half an hour.
You can imagine how we felt.
We knew we were doing everything right but our lures just were not going past fish.
Finally Brad hooked a beauty which gave him no chance and wiped him out on the snags.
Later he hooked another one that jumped and revealed itself at longer than a metre, but luck was not with us as his fish found a snag too.
That afternoon, this time on the outgoing tide, Top End Tackle caught another metre barra.
Basically, after three days, the tournament was over.
At nearly 3000 points, Shane Compain, Terry Ryan and Bryce Neal had an unassailable lead, and eventually won Champion Team by about 900 points, while Terry just pipped his team mate Bryce for the Champion Angler trophy.
Runner-up Champion Local Team were Peter Politis, Bert Woodward and Eddie Carroll in Team Polar Bears.
Team Humminbird’s Bob Littler, Roderick Walmsley and Tony Smith won Runner-up Champion Visiting Team.
The Classic Warlocks of John Millyard, Justin Jones and Trevor Robb won Runner-up Champion Mixed Team.
I hadn’t fished a XXXX Gold Barra Nationals in a few years and I was incredibly impressed with how far it’s developed.
For entertainment at night, they had James Blundell and Vince Serenti.
The amenities and food at the Banyan Farm venue was sensational and the organisation by the Palmerston Game Fishing Club was smick.
Tony Hare and Brad Woollams with Team Light Horse’s 96 cm barra that took a big green Bomber trolled down the guts at high speed during the Barra Nationals.
The Got One Team’s Craig Grosvenor’s experiment with trolled big Renosky soft plastics paid off with this terrific 103 cm barra.