Alex's Column 10 April 2026

Going on some terrific reports I’ve been getting, we are now well and truly into the Runoff.

In terms of locations, leading the charge are Shady Camp and the lower South Alligator River.

During the recent big tides we experienced, there’s been some epic barra fishing at Shady Camp, primarily down at the mouth of the Mary River and at the various coastal creeks either side.

Not surprisingly, fishing tour operators have enjoyed the most success, putting their clients onto lots of barra in the 90s , and quite a few metreys as well.

The Mary River is the only Top End river that actually forms a delta at its mouth.

There are two tributaries to this delta and the main one, which is also by far the biggest one, is Sampan Creek.

The tidal section of Sampan basically starts at Shady Camp and runs about 30km all the way down before entering the sea at Chambers Bay through the eastern mouth of the Mary delta.

The other tributary, Tommycut Creek, is much smaller and begins via winding channels coming off Sampan Creek, as well as through shared floodplains.

Up to 20 years ago, you could get to Tommycut through a long, narrow cutting about a third of the way down Sampan Creek.

For a long time now, that route has been completely overgrown and the only way to access Tommycut by boat is to exit Sampan Creek and head west for about 8km along the coast of Chambers Bay.

When the tide is low, you have to go wide because it’s all shallow water for a couple of kilometres out to sea, and you need to take sea conditions into account.

With the neap tides this weekend, the coastal creeks won’t fish as well as they did on the big tides, but both Sampan and Tommycut mouths could really fire up thanks to good water clarity.

You can fish around the mouth of either Sampan or Tommycut casting vibes, soft plastics and hard-bodies at corners, gutters and structure.

Nowadays, anglers with forward-facing sonar, and who know how to use it, target free-swimming barra moving into out of these systems.

This techno-based fishing style seems to produce bigger barra than more conventional barra-fishing methods.

However, the big barra are also caught trolling along the edges of the mudflats starting just inside the respective mouths and for more than a kilometre out to sea.

Your depth sounder is an essential tool to make sure you are working the right depth which, from my experience, is 2-4m.

Neap tides like these are the best because of increased water clarity which is critical, but fishing at the mouth can be slow on a falling tide.

You can either fast troll with big fluoro green Bombers or slowly jig troll using Classic 120s or Reidy’s The Judge lures, and be aware that the best trolling is when the tide turns to come into the mouth, and begins to gain some momentum.

In a perfect scenario, this is when barra, including some seriously-big fish, move into the mouth with the tide.

Just try to not run into boats using forward-facing sonar with the anglers aboard peering at their sounder screens.

Once the incoming tide has settled, and any bite that took place is over, a good tactic is to start trolling upriver, following the current lines.

Hopefully you will overtake barra on the move and you can then work them, and keep following them.

If you decided to fish Tommycut Creek, keep an eye out for storms for the run home – get out of there and back to the safety of Sampan if it’s looking dicey.

If the tide is high on the run home, you can cut in close to the shore.

The other hotspot has been the lower South Alligator River.

According to Kakadu rangers, there were 91 cars and trailers in the car park on Easter Friday.

Old mate Andy Ralph from Kakadu reckons that was somewhat of a record.

“Fishing was brilliant before Easter but, as the bigger tides kicked in, bait was less visible and the barra went off the bite,” Andy reported.

“The rangers reckon not much was caught upriver on the South over Easter,” Andy told me.

Catherine Ralph fished with her boyfriend Josh Cooper and used Lowrance Active Target Live to target and catch this magnificent 118cm barra on the lower South Alligator.