It seems that the wet season is finally over.
Forecasts for next week are bugger all rain.
That means all those heavily-flooded riverS will start falling rapidly and barra should be biting everywhere.
If Magela Creek crossing has opened, a trip down the East Alligator River could be a blinder.
There are plenty of places to fish down the East, including the famous Magela Creek and down further the Little Magela.
Won’t those places produce some quality barra for the thousands of anglers now equipped with forward-facing sonar.
The South Alligator should go off too, both way downstream and well upstream.
The neap tides this weekend should be ideal for upriver on the South.
Surprisingly, the South didn’t fish well just before Easter and right through Easter.
I spoke to several anglers who ventured right down as far as the mouth and beyond, mainly fishing feeder creek mouths and up inside the bigger creeks.
All of them reported tough fishing.
Shady Camp didn’t go crazy but there were enough good barra to keep the night anglers happy, especially with minimal rain.
All the betting is that Shady Camp will go off this weekend and next week with the building tides.
There should be many dozens of metre-plus barra caught.
The Adelaide River copped a hammering over Easter.
On Monday, I drove out on the Arnhem Highway and the carpark at the Adelaide River boat ramp was so full with cars and trailers that some were actually parked on the highway.
I understand it was mayhem up the river with so many boats.
Notwithstanding, the lower Adelaide continued to fish well in the Wiltshire Creeks, and the tides this weekend are ideal.
Down at the Finniss River, restricted upstream access didn’t stop the mouth from fishing well with the ideal conditions.
The Daly River was crowded and is now going into continuous competition phase when the river is taken over by the big competitions.
The Girls Gone Fishin’ competition gets underway today and finishes on Sunday.
This will be followed by the Barra Nationals late next week, and that means many dozens of boats on the Daly all next week checking it out.
The Victoria River below Timber Creek was, ostensibly, inaccessible as the Big Horse Creek boat ramp has been closed.
It seems the ground on the river side of the ramp was undermined and was closed for safety reasons.
Mind you, that didn’t stop many Katherine anglers from launching anyway, and consequently some great fish were caught.
Word is that the ramp will be officially opened by the weekend.
As expected, the Million Dollar Fish Season 9 has been extended in the hope that the big-prize fish is caught.
Season 9 will now run until the end of April.
Surely, with so many places coming on due to falling river levels, one of the more than 80 barra worth a million bucks will be caught.
Let’s hope so.
Steve Harris’ metre-long runoff barra was caught on a visit to Arnhem Land Barramundi Lodge.
Joe Mullen’s 89cm barra came on his recent Arnhem Land trip.
