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An Elizabeth River barra. Picture: DAVE MAGNER

Matt Flynn's Northern Territory
fishing report: January 4, 2004

Also available in the Darwin Sunday
newspaper, Sunday Territorian

Barramundi-starved fishermen have been braving high river levels and heavy rain ... and catching fish.

Encouragingly, even the tired old Adelaide River has produced, despite the water being over the banks above Goat Island last week.

The South Alligator River has also fished well, with three fish over 1m reported.

Fishing will improve when river levels fall as there are still many places inundated with water.

Top End Fishing Supplies Steve Compain said rough weather had kept his charter boats in Darwin most days, but he had enjoyed fishing the Adelaide River last week.

"Above Goat Island there was too much water but we fished a couple of run-offs below Goat Island and caught a 63cm and 65cm barra, and a friend caught a 68cm and some a little over 55cm.

"We pulled out of the water at 1.30pm and it was raining hard but boats were still being launched.

"One of these boat crews told us later that at about 5pm the fish were boofing everywhere at the mouth of Beatrice Creek.

"I was amazed so many people were fishing in the heavy rain.

"Another bloke there the day before us caught four barra.

"The river is high but there are some good colour changes and the fish are silver.

"It looks really promising and people are keen, and we are actually starting to sell lures again."

Neil Croft at Katherine Rod and Rifle said he went for a drive down to the Roper River along the Roper Highway, hoping for some culvert action.

"We fished the culverts along the road as the locals had been catching a few barra and some nice black bream,'' he said.

"We caught no barra though, but some big fish were caught down at Roper Bar over Xmas.

"In town the Katherine River was at 12.5m on Friday and too high for fishing.

"The Victoria River is fairly high as well.

"It's still raining hard here today (Friday) as there are still big storms around even though the weather map shows shrinking cloud cover."

Shoal Bay Boat Hire's Mark Ward said he and Tony Kaissis caught a 122cm queenfish at The Rock last week.

"We were happy with that - we made it into numas," he said.

"There was a bloke at The Rock throwing lures at the time and we gave him our leftover bait and he caught an 18kg jewfish.

"Two big barramundi - 104cm and 105cm - were caught last week. The anglers said they were from Scrubby Creek but we can only believe what they tell us.

"They were using live mullet.

"We have a crocodile out here that took our dog at the boat ramp - the dog had been for here for two years so he felt a little bit too safe in the water.

"But people should still take care."

Leaders Creek Fishing Base's Chris Edwards went out on Tuesday and caught jewfish to 13kg.

"The smallest jewfish was 10.5kg, plus we got a good snapper of 2.5kg. Another boat landed five good jewfish,'' he said.

"Then it started raining and it hasn't stopped since, but the road is holding up, with a few extra potholes.

"There have been some small barra in the creek but no big ones.

"The creek is running fairy dirty. The rain has been heavy.

"One guy brought a shark into his boat and it chewed his bilge pump wire and it was raining so hard into the boat he had to come home."

Peter Wilson at Aurora Kakadu said there had been three barramundi more than a metre long caught in the top half of the South Alligator River.

"One was caught with a popper but I have no information about the others,'' he said.

"There have been quite a few fish caught.

"There have been 10 to 15 boats at the boat ramp each day during the Xmas-New Year period.

"There has been storms out here."

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