NT Fishing Report

With Alex Julius

The boating incident which happened last Wednesday up a creek in the Tommycutt Creek arm of the Mary River highlights the importance of understanding the dangers that exist when zooming about on our big tidal rivers, particularly during the Run-off.

In case you missed it, John Crews and Casey McEvoy were up the fast-flowing creek and got into trouble when they attempted to make a U-turn in the current.

Apparently, the rushing waters made John, the driver, make a much sharper turn than he had wanted to.

The boat ended up on a log, a hasty reverse was attempted, water poured over the transom, and the next minute the boat was upside down and the bewildered anglers were in the drink.

They climbed up the bank, ready to face a night of mosquito torture and crocodile trepidation.

Meanwhile, my great old mate, that Territory Barra Maestro, Col Cordingley, was sneakily driving up the same creek in search of a hot barra bite.

Suddenly he and his crew spotted a boat floating down and upside down with just the bow sticking out of the water.

After trying a couple of side-arms, Cords found the blokes, caked in mud, and clearly relieved that a boat had turned up so soon.

Not surprisingly, they were even more rapt that it was the great Col Cordingley who has won more Top End barramundi tournaments than the number of barra actually caught by many anglers.

“They had waved at a chopper which definitely saw them but it just kept going,” Cords told me.

So brickbats to the chopper pilot who was buzzing around the area around Wednesday midday last week. Cords picked up the lads, found their boat, secured it and towed it for over four hours down to an old crabber’s pontoon.

There they managed to get it right side up, bailed it out and then towed it out of Tommycutt and along the coast to Sampan Creek.

Ironically, Cords’ plan was to get to the anchored pro-barge of another Territory fishing legend – this time on the commercial scene – the colourful Dominic Fazio.

“We figured that Dominic would have the gear to get the outboard started again,” Cords said.

“Dominic and his crew were great – they gave the boys a new battery to get the bilge pump going, they emptied the sump and put new oil in, and they got the engine going again,” Cords told me. The lads then made it back to the Shady Camp landing and all was well.

As I wrote at the start, it’s important to be aware of the dangers on the water at this time of year. For starters, heading up a fast-flowing creek is easy because you can power and steer with control against the current.

However, when you turn round and head back with the current, it is much more dangerous because you often have to drive faster than the current; otherwise, you won’t be able to control the boat with authority, especially on the bends and as you pass overhanging trees.

A situation to be wary of is motoring up a creek on an incoming tide near the top of the tide. That’s when the current flow will be at its slowest.

However, three or four hours later, when the tide has dropped heaps and sucked a lot of water out of the creek, the current could be raging at more than 20kph!

Nourlangie Creek up the South Alligator River is a classic example. From the bottom of the creeks up to The Fork, there must be at least 30 metres difference in height.

After a big high tide has turned to flow out, combined with the push from the waters exiting the floodplains, getting back downstream safely can be dicey to say the least as the water flow will be roaring downstream. By the way, I hear that The Fork up Nourlangie fished well at the weekend.

For what it’s worth, if I’m up a fast-flowing creek and have to turn round to go down, I find the best way to do this is to take the boat over to one side, then reverse hard (within reason) with full lock pointing to the opposite side of the creek.

Don’t back all the way over as you might hit a submerged object near the opposite bank.

The idea is to let the current push the bow to point downstream as you hold the boat in reverse with the stern pushing against – or at least across – the current. Once the bow is pointing downstream, throw the motor into forward gear, straighten the motor, and get going.

While 100s, perhaps 1000s, of anglers fought it out on our big tidal rivers last weekend, Roger Sinclair (pictured) and Gavin Bedford bagged barra up to 87cm within sight of the Stokes Hill Wharf in Darwin Harbour.

Gavin Bedford with his 72cm barra caught on a chartreuse Tropic Angler.