Why you should visit the Top End (and it’s not what you think)
Avid fisherman are being lured to the Northern Territory to compete in the the annual fishing contest with the ultimate prize pool.
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It sounds pretty simple. Just catch one of 101 barramundi wearing a bit of red plastic and you are a winner. And as if any mad keen angler needed another reason to have a crack at an iconic Northern Territory barramundi.
The Million Dollar Fish, which opened in October and runs through to February, is designed to entice fishermen to the NT in the wet season. While it is hot and the humidity extreme, the rewards are obvious.
For the past three years, the organisers have tagged 101 barramundi and returned them to the water at dozens of recognised hot spots – 100 with tags worth $10,000 each and one fish is wearing a tag worth a cool $1 million to the angler who lands it. Last year, just eight fish sporting the $10,000 tags were caught and so far this year 11 of the $10,000 fish have been landed. Of those 11, two were caught in the waters that gently lap on Darwin’s foreshore.
With that thought in mind, I hopped on board Reel Screamin Barra Charters to try my luck at finding a third winning barra in the nearby mangrove creeks within sight of Darwin’s foreshore restaurant strip.
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Launching at the Dinah Beach boat ramp took a few minutes and once clear of the plethora of moored yachts, skipper Jarrod Godson had his six-metre tinnie ripping across a near-glass calm water at 25 knots.
It took just a few minutes to encounter some wildlife – a four-metre croc slowly swimming west. Jarrod’s earlier warning about dangling a limb over the side to cool down suddenly crystallised.
After five minutes of travel, Jarrod pulled the throttle on the big Yamaha outboard and handed out the tackle. In my case, a neat little G Loomis graphite rod, complete with a Shimano Sedona spinning reel spooled with 6kg braided line – quality gear. We had arrived at the designated spot just as the tide started falling, which is prime barramundi feeding time. As the tide runs out, thousands of small baitfish that had been seeking refuge in the mangroves are forced to run the gauntlet as they head for deeper water.
With senses already finely tuned, the sight of huge swirls among the mangroves as barramundi ambushed their prey was encouraging, as was the “boof’’ sound made as they engulfed a mouthful of air with the baitfish.
While the barra were obviously about, getting them to take a strategically placed lure proved difficult and after an hour of fruitlessly flogging the water to a foam Jarrod decided it was time to move. A 12-year veteran of the chartering game, Jarrod motored up an inlet for 15 minutes before stopping at several likely looking drains that were carrying huge amounts of water off the mangrove plains. As the muddy waters enter the main branch of the inlet, the barra sit in wait to ambush the baitfish.
Stop one proved fishless and we proceeded further along and encountered a crocodile trap – complete with a guest. A three-metre salty had succumbed to the foul-smelling wild pig leg still hanging from the trigger mechanism. The reptile would find a new home at a crocodile farm. Apparently, 300 are trapped in Fannie Bay annually.
We would visit another half a dozen drains over the next two hours as the tide rapidly ebbed, but the mega-dollar barra remained elusive.
Once the tide stopped ebbing, Jarrod called lines in and he turned his tinnie northeast and headed across the bay to another inlet called Woods Point. While we had a couple of takes, the only fish hooked was a barra that would have been at home in most aquariums. It wasn’t our day. As Jarrod said at the boat ramp, “You should have been here yesterday!”
The writer was a guest of Tourism NT
ESCAPE ROUTE
Anglers can register for the Million Dollar Fish Competition at milliondollarfish.com.au.
It’s free to enter. Competition ends on February 28.
For Reel Screamin Barra Charters, ph 0427 474 434 or visit
reelscreaminbarrafishing.com.au.
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