Stalking the elusive Barramundi!

On into the wild we went. Chasing one of the most iconic Australian fish species....The so far elusive Barramundi (Lates calcarifer)


The Tiwi people call Barramundi Arlaminga
I on the other hand, call them the most fickle and hard to catch fish, while being one of the most exciting to catch. 

I have been fishing land based and in the newly acquired boat "Queenie" a few times now and each time I have always kept the bait caster at the ready to flick a multitude of lures at snags, flats, gutters and drains.

All to no avail it would seem until an adventure into a new creek system on Melville Island side of Aspley Straight. Aptly named 3rd creek as it was the third creek on that side. Access to the creek is a bit dicey on low tide and you have to transverse between the island and a sand back that has trees on it, effectively a small island itself. (See below)

the passage to get to 3rd Creek on Melville side

Once into the creek it is obvious that fish live there. Plenty of snags and drains for fish to sit and wait in predatory fashion for small baitfish to cross their paths. This particular trip, we went to the opposite mouth of the creek which becomes landlocked on low tide, to get some live bait. Live bait as I have mentioned before is king for getting fish on the hook up here. Something I haven’t done a lot of except chasing big jewfish back home in NSW.

Bait in the bucket we motored up the second arm of the creek and got into some skinny water only about 4-5 metres from one side of the creek bed to the other. An upcoming snag dead in the middle of the creek saw my boat pilot for the day Justin word me up to get my lure (Trusty B52 Gold Bomber) into the water to trawl past the snag in the case a Barra might be sniffing around.

My lure did its thing in the water as I eagerly hoped the vibration and rattle would attract anything to take its barbed hooks for a ride. What happened next, nearly gave me a heart attacked, I saw my lure splash and felt a weight on my line then nothing. Thinking I had dropped my second Barra (one the week before at the side of the boat) I let my lure drift back to the surface of the water before a quick flick to bring it back under the water. In a matter of a mere second a Barramundi had swallowed the lure and decided to hightail it in the opposite direction to the boat.

Now I am not sure what other anglers have felt when they are about to catch their first ever Barra or if I can do it justice in my description, however I will try. When I realised that the fish was well hooked I focused more on landing it in the net. My rod and reel combo worked perfectly and the net held by Justin was deployed once unsuccessfully, it’s at this point, knees and arms already weak and trembling with anticipation almost game out, however, the fish played the game perfectly and head first into the net.
First Tiwi Barra 


Pure elation and weight lifted off shoulders is what I felt next. I had finally caught my first Tiwi Islands Barra. Something some people don’t get to achieve for a year or 2 up here. Legs jelly I unhooked the sizeable fish and got the brag mat (lie detector) out for the measure. First Tiwi Barra went 69 and then some cm. We accepted that 69cm for a first fish was awesome. 55cm is the legal size here in the NT so I had also bagged my first legal fish. It’s an unspoken rule that most fish over 75cm up here turn into female breeding fish so go back in to fight another day. Not this one, which has since provided sustenance for the 3 of use in Coconut Grove.



We decided to trawl again past the same snag and it produced another legal Barra at 58cm and on the third run snagged a little Cod which went back into the water. A move later in the day saw me take a good little Queen fish on live bait. Since then I have managed another 56cm Barra on a different trip so tally is Brad 3 Tiwi Barra....for now!

So for the time being I am focusing on catching bigger and better fish and releasing some of the big girls back into the water to provide some good angling for the future to come. Happy fishing people, tight lines!






"Education is not the filling of a Pail, it is the lighting of a Fire" - William Butler Yeats

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