To recap for those who don’t know, the Top End Barra Series (TEBS) is an annual competition held over six weekends at different locations: Shady Camp, Daly River, Bynoe Harbour, Darwin Harbour, Leaders Creek/Adelaide River and Mary River billabongs.
Traditionally, the fourth TEBS round is held on Darwin Harbour, and it nearly always is a challenge for competitors with barra hard to catch.
According to Regis Martin from TEBS, given that Darwin Harbour is just on most anglers’ doorsteps, you’d expect that many fishos would know it as well as they know the backs of their hands.
“Yet, boy oh boy, the fishing this year was hard,” Regis bemoaned.
“Just 26 competitors managed to get one or more scoring barramundi, and only six caught their bag of five fish.
“Weather-wise, the mornings were nice, the middle of the day was windy and the evening came in pleasant.
“With its sheer size, it was hard to find other ‘Tebsies’ on the water for a bit of a chinwag and the goss on where the fish were, who got what, and so on.
“But I did hear of one angler who, at around 5pm on Saturday, managed to be seen by lots of people… maybe a few too many for his liking.
“He was driving his boat back to Dinah Beach boat ramp with his fishing partner and they came to an abrupt stop when they encountered a mud bar and got stuck on it,” Regis explained.
“Another mishap happened to TEBS committee member Mark Grosser.
“Upon arriving at the boat ramp bright and early, and full of optimism for the weekend ahead, he started to install the Minn Kota, and realised the quick-release bracket was nowhere to be seen.
“In what would not have looked out of place in the famous TV show Bush Mechanics, Mark came up with a clever idea and used two screwdrivers and some fishing line to do the job of the quick-release bracket; and it worked all weekend without any trouble,” Regis joked.
In this fourth TEBS round, for the first time, there were three fish of the same size tied for the biggest barra.
Each measured 77cm – great fish for Darwin Harbour – and were caught by Cameron Kahl, Sandie Dean, and Niall Weber.
Always in contention, Peter Cooper came third in the harbour round.
“It was very tough fishing and I moved all weekend between Woods Inlet, West and East Arms, and even tried Middle arm,” Peter said.
Sadly, Peter dropped two fish that were over 80cm, and caught all his fish casting mainly 5” soft plastics; they measured 55cm, 56cm, 56cm, 58cm and 63cm.
Second-placed Evan Dixon fished the flats with 4” paddle-tail soft plastics in West Arm during the day, and caught his full bag along with a dozen undersize barramundi and five threadfin salmon.
His bag comprised 51cm, 54cm, 62cm, 62cm and 63cm barra.
The champion for the round was Luke Conlan who said it was still the dry season which, together with the windy conditions, didn’t help.
“I used small soft plastics to try to mimic the bait I saw on shallow mud bars and around snake drains during the day,” Luke said.
At night, Luke fished zones of man-made light around Fisherman's Wharf.
His winning catch comprised barra measuring 55cm, 58cm, 58cm, 68cm and 75cm.
The next TEBS round will be at Leaders Creek and lower Adelaide River.
Evan Dixon fished Darwin Harbour’s West Arm to come second in round four of the Top End Barra Series.
