If you’re up to date with the Darwin barra fishing scene, you might be wondering whether you should be targeting a big fish or a Million Dollar Fish, because both are readily available right now. As far as the money barra are concerned, it seems two more were caught in quick succession last week. The first came from Manton Dam and was caught by Michael Bullock on a solo fishing trip to his favourite location. It measured 83cm. “It was the only fish I caught all night,” Michael said. I saw it was legal size and chucked it in the esky; it wasn’t until I got home that I noticed a red tag,” Michael said. Bloody hell, lucky Michael wasn’t in a catch-and-release mood at Manton that night! The second red-tagged barra was always destined for the kitchen: it was caught by Cooinda chef Jack Higgott during a quick fishing outing on Yellow Water lagoon. This time the 10K fish nearly did go back to be “banked” another day. “I normally throw all my fish back, and spotted the tag just in time,” Jack said. Phew… that was lucky. Mind you, this barra was eventually released – onto Chef Jack’s hot plate. He turned it into a crispy-skinned barra with mango and mint salad, and you can watch him doing it by going to this link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vzbZc2qlTzE71lvSyOw0vX3zEitD4HtM GIVEN THAT NO ONE WILL TYPE IN THIS LINK, PERHAPS YOU COULD DO A QR CODE TO IT WITH THE CAPTION: Scan to see Chef Jack cooking up his $10,000 barra. The recipe looks great and I’m thinking that the prized fish might just kick start a new career in television for Chef Jack. Isn’t it marvellous that so far in this season three of MDF 10 tagged barra have come from 10 different locations. It just goes to show that the tagging team made a super effort to get out to lots of popular locations. However, as I alluded to at the start, there are also a lot of big barra on the chew at the moment. Good old Shady Camp has been firing up. Some great fish were caught on the troll there on the neap tides over the weekend. Craig Latimore surely earned top billing with the capture of two horse barra measuring 120cm and 119cm respectively. “Clean water was very hard to find because of all the storm activity,” Craig said. “But during 22 hours of trolling, we managed to stumble across two monsters caught 90 minutes apart. “The 120cm caught first is my new PB, and both were caught on the Reidy's Big Ass B52. “Seeing fish that size launch out of the water repeatedly was simply amazing,” Craig told me. Closer to home, the Rock in Shoal Bay has thrown up some nice barra in the high 90s, and should be worth a look at around the middle of next week. Actually, given that both Shady Camp and the Shoal Bay Rock have produced MDF $10.000 barra so far this season three, you could target big barra and red-tagged barra at the same time at these two iconic locations. …………………………….. It’s good to see that Fisheries Minister Ken Vowles continues to move quickly with the funding of projects under the Government’s $50 million investment in recreational fishing infrastructure. The latest project is a feasibility study to determine if dredging the Nightcliff boat ramp to remove sediment is viable. Projects completed under the $50 million investment so far include: the fantastic Shady Camp boat ramp, CCTV at Dinah Beach boat ramp, the sealing of the Middle Arm boat ramp car park, and the sealing of almost 6km of Corroboree Billabong road. And just last week Mr Vowles announced the latest project: $467,000 for upgrades to the Nhulunbuy boat ramp. “We know recreational fishing is a valuable economic driver – these works are creating local construction jobs and help keep people living in the NT, so investing in infrastructure makes sense,” Mr Vowles said. Keep up the good work Minister – we’re all loving it. PHOTOS: 1. Craig Latimore’s 120cm barra was the first whopper he caught last week at Shady Camp on a Reidy’s Big Ass B52.
2. Craig’s second horse of a barra, measuring 119cm, was caught 90 minutes later.
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