Alex's Column 2 May 2025

There’ve been mixed reports over the last week.

Down the Daly River, competitors in the Barra Nationals have definitely been experiencing ups and downs.

At least there has been more breathing space on the river.

The Nationals finishes tomorrow, and hot on its heals will be the Barra Classic and Barra Classic Masters.

Although the Classic itself has been going for over 40 years, the Barra Classic Masters only began last year.

Both are hosted by the Darwin Game Fishing Club down the Daly River with the Banyan Farm Tourist Park as Base Camp.

To compete in the Masters, you must be 60 years or older, so that cuts out a lot of the “young guns” who seem to catch big fish after big fish using forward-facing sonar.

The Masters only goes for three days with much-more-friendly fishing times than the rigorous Barra Classic which has five days of competition.

If you’d like to fish a Daly River competition, and the Classic and Nationals are not your cup of tea, you could try the Old School Barra Catch Up.

Held on 24-28 May, this is its second year.

Conceived by Darryn Bromley, this competition is meant to be super laid back, with no strict rules and definitely no high-tech sounders.

There are still a couple of spots left; if you’re interested, phone Darryn on 0418 111 914.

Options this weekend other than the busy Daly include the South Alligator River which still has a lot of water flowing down off the floodplains.

Because of its all-weather bitumen access, the South Alligator is a great runoff river because you can begin fishing it almost as soon as it starts raining, let alone when the wet season is over, as seems to be the case now.

There are dozens of great feeder creeks in the South Alligator, but Nourlangie Creek must surely be the most famous in the whole of the Top End.

At the upper extremity of Nourlangie, there is a series of dry season billabongs which are steeped in barra-fishing history.

Even during major wet season flooding, you can’t get to them from the tidal section of Nourlangie via the South Alligator.

But the fish can get to you which is one of the reasons for this being such a great feeder creek.

The mouth of Nourlangie is only 9km up from the boat ramp.

When it’s pumping hard, it sends an acre of clear, dark water out into the main river.

At times, it’s a Mecca for barra, and there are so many ways, both inside and out, to target them.

Simply spot-locking along the colour change and covering 360 degrees with your casting – or anchoring the bow to the bank, and flicking across the colour change – are simple yet proven tactics.

Trolling the opposite bank, or below the creek mouth on the same bank, have yielded some enormous barra.

Of course, forward-facing sonar comes right into play drifting around the mouth of Nourlangie Creek.

However, up inside, there are smaller feeder creeks which all take a turn to yield.

There is also the famous Nourlangie Rock-bar just a few hundred metres inside its mouth.

Trolling on and around this feature is always a good option, particularly around the bottom of the tide.

In fact, when you’re on the South Alligator, no matter what the time of day, and whether it’s a spring or a neap tide, fishing in and around the Nourlangie Creek mouth right on the turn of the low might well result in catching that barra of a lifetime.

Further up the South, there are a number of feeder creeks that can fish well too at this time of year.

The go is to work areas right up the top below where the banks are broken by floodwater.

In between the feeder creeks up the top are a handful of submerged rock-bars which can be trolled or cast to.

Leichardt’s Rock-bar – not surprisingly, just below Leichcardt’s Creek – is the biggest.

You can also head downstream from the ramp.

The targets are some of those bigger feeder creeks in the South, but certainly Six-pack Creek is worth a shot thanks to the late wet season.

It’s the last of three creeks along a kilometre stretch on the right side going down about 20km.

Even further down, iconic creeks worth fishing at the mouth and up inside include: One Tree, The Rookery and Brook.

I haven’t heard what’s been happening at the East Alligator River, but Magela Crossing has dropped below 0.8m and cars are driving through.

It might be a sneaky option this weekend.

This is not a bad first-barra catch – Bear Cameron Boland caught this 110cm beauty in the Adelaide River.

David Green and Rocky Edwards enjoy a pre-tournament practice on the Daly River.