If you’re after a big barra this weekend, there are a myriad of options.
The tides are in their neap phase, with Sunday actually being a three-tide day, so there are plenty of locations where water clarity will be at a premium.
For starters, you could do worse than plan a foray to one of the many great spots in the Shoal Bay system.
There’ve been plenty of reports of quality barra, including from the famous Shoal Bay Rock.
The Howard River itself has some terrific holes that can be fished with lures or live bait for barra in both numbers and size.
At the mouth of the Howard is the Little Howard, another great spot to fish on the falling tide.
Then there’s Tree Point Inlet further north which is a terrific creek system with some real barra-busting holes, some long enough to be trolled.
Closer to Darwin, there’s King Creek which anglers in the know target at high tide around the mouth.
Ever-popular Buffalo Creek is a convenient place to fish for those living in Darwin’s northern suburbs.
Let’s dwell on Buffalo for all those keen Darwin anglers who don’t own a boat.
For starters, word around the traps is that there were a couple of barra over a metre caught off the shore at Buffalo Creek recently.
Sometimes barra actually go ballistic on the first of the incoming tide at Buffalo Creek.
It’s usually a noisy affair as the barra “boof” the mullet until the tide rises over the sandbar at the mouth.
Often at this steamy, build-up time of year, there is great fishing available at this handy northern suburbs mangrove waterway.
More importantly, the statistics speak for themselves; as long as I can remember, there hasn’t been a build-up go past without a sprinkling of big barra caught from the banks of Buffalo Creek which is renowned for the size of the barra it produces from October to December every year.
Fish well over 20kg have not been uncommon and the opportunity is there for anyone to go and have a shot.
Night fishing is definitely the most productive.
That’s because the big mullet that metre-plus barra love to eat are much more easily ambushed under the cover of darkness.
You can fish anywhere along the sand, but there’s a bit of a walking track from the boat ramp up through the scrub to a rock-bar which is a magnet to barra holding up at night.
Big poppers work but you’ll need to jerk them so they make enticing “bloops” across the surface.
Most fish, however, seem to be caught on slow-retrieved, shallow-diving big minnows.
You can choose between 16A and 17A Bombers, shallow Classic 120s, and Reidy’s B52s in all sizes including Big Ass.
Of course, if you want to make absolutely sure something eats your bait, take a cast-net with you and round up some live mullet, the bigger the better.
You can keep them alive in a large bucket with one of those nifty little 12 volt aerators that blow bubbles through the water.
Remember too that a $million fish was caught recently in Buffalo Creek.
Also on the list of places to try for a good barra or two is Leaders Creek.
Get there early and fish the run-in tide, mainly trying along the eastern bank for the first kilometre up from the mouth.
No doubt, there’ll be many anglers trying their luck inside the Adelaide River mouth this weekend.
It’s produced some terrific fishing for anglers using forward-facing sonar, but it’s also been erratic.
I suppose you just have to be there to find out if the fish are there too.
Further afield, I’ve had great reports of good barra being caught on the last neap tides down the mouth of the South Alligator River.
On the inland scene, there appears to be some regulars catching barra at Corroboree Billabong.
They fish from about mid-afternoon to after dark and generally find a few legal barra with the odd good one mixed in.
It’s not huge but Sian Cassidy-Waddell was rapt with her barra from Four Mile Hole.
John Keirs got amongst the barra in the Top End Barra Series Billabong Round.
