Alex's Column 11 April 2025

The vagaries of scheduling barra fishing competitions in the Runoff can often result in less than favourable conditions, sometimes even a requirement for a venue change.

This was the dilemma that faced organisers of Round 2 of the Top End Barra Series.

Held the weekend before last down the Daly River, the arrival of an unexpected late monsoon, which belted the Daly River region with torrential falls, immediately led to a fast-rising river.

Plans were afoot to move the TEBS comp to the upper Adelaide River but, in the end, there was no need.

The Daly rose to over 8m by the first day of competition, but conditions were fine for fishing, with not as much rain as might have been expected.

According to Morris Pizutto, TEBS Chairman: “The story around the traps was similar – the fishing came on around the top of the tide when the water slowed enough to get some clarity.

“A lot of people reported big fish on the sounder at these times, but the main problem at the bottom of the river was that there was too much flow coming off the floodplains.

“The size of fish this round was very respectable with fish over 70cm making up the bulk of scoring captures and five meterys caught,” Morris reported.

“Most anglers got on the water wondering how hard the conditions would be with a high river and all the creeks flowing backwards as far as the S-bends.

“The general consensus was that fishing would only be worth it from the S-bends down, and that’s where the fish forgot to read the script.”

This year saw the introduction of two new categories for the six TEBS rounds: Old School and New School, with the latter referring primarily to the use of forward-facing-sonar.

This came about because it got to the stage that at least all of the first 10 positions in each TEBS round were secured by anglers equipped with forward-facing-sonar.

Michael Smith and Jeff ‘Smokey’ Dawson fished the Old School category, staying upstream to avoid storms downriver.

The pair concentrated on Brown’s Creek, bagging out with good fish up to 85cm. Michael won the Old School category with 865 points, with Jeff close behind on 830 points.

According to Michael: “Another storm hit on Saturday morning at 8.00 am so, for the next hour and a half, we parked up and waited in Browns.

“Once the storm passed, the creek came alive, like a clay-shooting range, with eight hours of barra madness.

“The Zerek Pryas and fizzers were doing the damage and we boated 15 barras for day one, with the biggest an 85cm fish for Smokey.”

Third place in the Old School category went to Tore Rudduck.

Lachlan Markey caught a 103cm barra, which helped him win the New School and Open categories with 1645 points.

Lachlan concentrated around Alligator Head, using forward-facing-sonar.

He said: “The windows were short, basically limited to the top of the run-in tide when the river flow slackened and the big fish turned up.”

“Accurate casting was the key, with lures needing to be worked very close to the big fish to get a response.

“In between tides, it was a matter of rafting up and having a few cold ones,” Lachie said.

Tristan Christie fished further downriver and came second with 1605 points.

“Tristan landed a cracking 110cm fish which was the biggest fish for the weekend,” Morris reported.

“He now has a win and a second placing from the last two rounds, which puts him in a strong position for the overall Open Category winner at the end of the six rounds.

“Peter Cooper rounds out third place with 1290 points,” Morris said.

“Coops started the Saturday with his outboard on his 4.2m tinny playing up, which set his plans back early on day one as he was planning to make the tide at the mouth for the start of the comp.

“Instead, he was still floating around Elizabeth Creek on Saturday morning contemplating his tactics.

“In the end he bit the bullet and headed to the mouth to put together a very respectable score with only a very narrow window of fishing on the top of the tide,” Morris explained.

Apparently, Peter hooked and lost a very big fish which swam through the mangroves and spooled him.

“The big girl knew where home was,” he lamented.

TEBS Round 3 will be at Bynoe Harbour on the 26-27 July.

Lachlan Markey won the New School and Open category of the Top End Barra Series Round 2 down the Daly River with the help of this 103cm barra.

Michael Smith fished upstream to win the TEBS Old School category.

Tristan Christie’s 110cm barra was the biggest of the Daly River round.