NT Fishing Report

With Alex Julius                    20 January

If you are a betting person, you’d probably put some money on the minimum number of anglers who will line up on the barrage for a cast into the tidal waters of Shady Camp next Tuesday.

That’s right, if you didn’t know, the closed season on the tidal section of the Mary River will finish at the stroke of twelve on Tuesday morning.

From then until right through the following weekend, the building spring tides are optimum for hooking into some quality barra off the barrage.

Freshwater is tumbling over the barrage and then downstream, and the big tides may well transport both mullet and the predators up the river, following the scent of freshwater all the way from the mouth and up to the barrage.

It’s timely now to go over the special management rules that apply to fishing from the barrage. For starters, within 100 metres of the barrage, bait is not allowed and only lures or flies with one single hook may be used.

There is every reason to expect that some big barra will be hooked off the barrage on the tidal side, and there are plenty of good reasons to let those big ones go. If you catch a big one, get a photo and weigh it in a net if you wish.

Of course, there’ll be an armada of boats heading down the tidal sections of the Mary beginning next Tuesday.

Our highly-professional fishing guide industry will have a strong presence, giving inexperienced anglers the opportunity to tangle with the famed metreys of the Mary.

Private local anglers will also be there in numbers, depending of course on how much rain and storm are about.

Later next week, the creeks along the coast in the vicinity of the Mary River delta twin mouths (that is, Sampan and Tommycutt Creeks) can expect regular high-tide visits by anglers looking for a frenzied big-barra bite.

Probably, most of the early effort will be in vane – with torrential rain still plunging from the sky, the monsoon will need to disperse first, and then floodwaters to slowly drop, before the serious action begins.

As I write this, there is water over the Arnhem Highway in several places, and the Daly River Road is equally wet.

Mind you, there have been a few noteworthy catches to report.

According to Ron Voukolos at Fishing and Outdoor World, the floodplain channels up the South Alligator yielded fish in numbers on fast-retrieved Boof Frogs.

Ron also reported that Carlo “Chonga” Esmaquel was over the moon with his capture of 10 barra fishing from the shore below the ramp at Buffalo Creek on Monday. Carlo slayed them on Silver Fox Slick Rigs.

Fishing guide, Chris Heard, also found saltwater barra in Rheichardt and Blesser’s Creeks near the Dinah Beach boatramp. Chris used DOA prawns, worked ultra-slowly.

It seems Phil Newton has been christened “The Barefoot Bushman” following his unfortunate encounter with a brown snake as reported in this column a couple of weeks ago. The good news is that Phil is back fishing…and catching as usual.

He and mates bagged some nice barra from a creek mouth halfway down the Adelaide River on the weekend.
Craig Grosvenor from Got One sent in a photo of a 118cm barra caught on New Year’s Day by Blair Schmidt.

“It just shouldn’t have happened!” Craig said.
“It was this bloke’s first barra fishing trip ever and he caught it at pretty much the end of the day .
“It took an 80mm Squidgy, and he was using one of my rods with not much more than a big cast of braid on the reel.
“The fish was released and swam off after only a couple of minutes reviving.

“I was spewing really as I was filleting my couple and didn’t have a line in the water.
“Clearly, he was just expertly guided!” Craig told me with a laugh.

I must say that the power, spread and consistency of the rain we’ve been receiving continues to point to an amazing run-off to come.

And the barra are already moving about in those vast flooded areas abutting the big tidal rivers. One fish I neglected to mention above was the recent capture of a 110cm barra from one of the new Daly River culverts.

Now that’s fishing!

Blair Schmidt caught his first-ever barra on New Year’s Day fishing with Craig Grosvenor – a rip snorter 118cm fish.

Mark Roberts’ saltie barra came from Woods Inlet in Darwin Harbour.