Fierce competition as fishos line up monsters and prizes

By all accounts, last weekend’s Alligator Fishing Club Challenge was a resounding success.

Fierce competition as fishos line up monsters and prizes

By all accounts, last weekend’s Alligator Fishing Club Challenge was a resounding success.

Held over two days in Kakadu each October, this family event attracted 134 competitors who fished in 51 boats.

Alligator Fishing Club president Cameron Briscoe said: “Basically, the angler who catches the biggest barra wins the competition; that person is the overall Champion Angler.

“The winner this year was Ted Pedersen who caught an 86cm barra down at the mouth of the South Alligator,” Cameron said.

Elmarie Welman with one of many saratoga caught at the Alligator Fishing Club comp.

Brooke Best with her barra from the Alligator competition.

In this competition, there are several categories catering for species, gender and age.

There are also four main species – barramundi, saratoga, golden snapper and jewfish.

The Overall Champion Male Angler is the bloke with the greatest total length of these four main species.

This year, it was Liam Kilcullen who amassed a big score of 752cm.

Overall Champion Female Angler was Tammy McIntosh with 562cm and Kane Lees was the Junior Champion with 641cm.

Judging by those total lengths, there must have been plenty of quality fish caught over the two days.

Interestingly, competitors not only came from Jabiru, Darwin and Katherine, but also from Queensland, NSW and South Australia.

Apparently it was quite rough down the mouth of the South Alligator on the first day.

Cameron told me the waves were 2.5m high at one stage, and his low-sided Skeeter boat took four over the bow.

“It felt like we took 1000 litres on board, so thankfully the self-draining hull worked,” he said.

I haven’t reported on the Daly River for a while, mainly because few people venture down the Daly this time of year.

However, one person who has been putting in plenty of time on this beautiful river is top fishing guide, Stuey Brisbane of Daly River Barra Resort.

Stuey reckons he hasn’t seen another boat on the river for at least two weeks.

“I’ve guided quite a few days in that time, and there are plenty of barra to be caught,” Stuey told me. “The best fishing has been from the neaps coming on to the springs, fishing the green water.

“Most fish are in the 60s but there’s the odd 70cm or even 80cm barra to be caught.

“But the sharks are a pest.

“I lost 10 to 15 baits in one day on sharks,” he said.

Stuey also reported the arrival of huge numbers of mullet up the river.

“There’s mullet everywhere, and the sharks are smashing them.

“But I can’t find big fish on the sounder, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the bull sharks are chasing them away.”

Even though there a lot of sharks, Stuey reckons he’s only losing one barra in every 10 to them.

“The mullet schools are just crazy.

“I’m hitting more than a dozen big ones every time I head down the river,” Stuey told me.

Apparently, there is clear water all the way down to Alligator Head during the neap tides, and motley-clear water down to the S-bend on the big spring tides.

Some of the best fishing has been trolling just below the small rock-bar, a couple of bends up from the main rock-bar.