FISHING
With Alex Julius                   18 November

It seems every second email I receive reporting on barra fishing somewhere or other makes reference to metre-plus fish.

It could be a report on actual metre-plus barra caught, or ones that size that got away; or it might simply make reference to the absence of any trophy 100cm-plus barra during a particular fishing trip.

I’m not just referring to Top End reports, or even only wild barra fishing; the metre mark also seems to be a watershed capture in the big stocked impoundments of north Queensland.

By the way, before delving more into the metre-barra phenomenon, a new word to describe the beast seems to have crept into the English piscatorial lexicon. There’s no unequivocal correct spelling for it yet, but there appear to be three self-explanatory versions: metery, metrey, meterie.

When you Google either, together with the word barra, they all come up.

However, by far the most-common one, and the version that I prefer and use in our own NAFA and Barra Bass & Bream publications, is metrey.

Prone as it is to legitimise Australian popular vernacular at the earliest opportunity, perhaps the Macquarie Dictionary will pick up on the term metrey sooner than later.

So how did the concept of a metre-long barra, a metrey, become the standard for a great barra catch?

When I first fished for barra back in ’78, a 40 pounder was the magic mark. That’s an 18kg fish, and one that usually measures closer to 120cm than it does to a metre.

Obviously, the metrey concept could not have evolved from any time earlier than when anglers actually started to measure barra.

That was in 1982 with the start of NT Fisheries’s Amateur Barramundi Tagging Program, an initiative proposed by the then fledgling Amateur Fishermen’s Association NT (AFANT). I remember it well as I was the new young AFANT President at the time.

The tagging program was all about gaining valuable information on barramundi movements and growth rates, as well as sewing the seed of catch-and-release fishing for our iconic barra.

Mainly AFANT members were involved in the program, but then it received a boost that could be likened to a footie goal being kicked right from one end of the field to the other.

That boost was the inaugural NT Barra Classic, a sanctioned game fishing tournament which history now shows as being the first tag-and-release fishing competition of any sort in Australia.

The publicity gained by the Barra Classic then and in so many subsequent years ingrained the concept of measuring rather then weighing barra.

However, I’m fairly certain that the metre-plus-barra benchmark was not adopted universally across the recreational barra fishery until well into the ‘90s, or even more recently.

Be that as it may, a whole lot more anglers have been able to claim trophy status by joining the barra metre club than could ever have been achieved if the benchmark had remained at 40 pounds or 18kg.

On that note, as irony would have it, this week I received an email report from Craig Grosvenor headed: Got One Darwin Reports Metrey Mania.

“Just when we thought Corroboree was done and dusted for another year, out comes a stonker,” Craig wrote.

“Scotty Tobias caught a chunky 106cm barramundi somewhere in the billabong and apparently it wasn’t the only good fish caught for the weekend.

“Tom and Naomi Gallagher were amongst the fraternity and they said that trolling small plastics, particularly Rainbow Trout 3" Reidys Rubbers, was the key to landing numbers of fish on the day.

“Damn good reports are returning from The Finniss River where a metrey and more in the 90s were caught by the one crew last week.

“That magic BSDI Barrabait was to blame for such success as no other lure was working like it on the day,” Craig concluded.

Looking forward to the weekend, if you’re after a metrey, Saturday morning’s low tide has metrey written all over it.

It’s an absolute spot-on metrey tide for a shot at the metrey-famous Shoal Bay Rock which over the decades has produced thousands of metreys, especially at Metrey Corner at the south-east end and Metrey Wall at the seaward end.

Finally, for all you metrey achievers, or otherwise aspiring metre club anglers, email with news of your next metrey capture.

Scott Tobias’ metrey – 106cm to be precise – was a remarkable catch from Corroboree Lagoon last weekend.

Brad Woollams with one of his many metreys, this one measuring 112cm and possibly nudging the previous magical 40 pounds or 18kg benchmark.