An Evening Flick at Cahill's Crossing

My partner and I had promised to take a friend to Kakadu for a few nights, including a trip to the wonderful Injalak rock-art site overlooking Gunbalanya in Arnhem Land.  Luckily for me, this meant staying a night near Ubir.  As my girlfriend and friend scampered up the escarpment at Ubir to watch the magnificent sunset, I was glady dumped by the East Alligator River.

The tide was on the rise, and already turgid, salty water surged upstream across the famous barrage.

Unfortunately, having had too many coffees for the drive, the excitement was too much for me, especially seeing a fish landed - just under legal length - upon my arrival.

As is often the case, the small stretch of barrage not under water, from whence anglers cast upstream, was shoulder to shoulder with travelers casting their paddle-tailed shads on wire traces.

I took to navigating the downstream rocks, where I'd often pulled a few fish casting back towards the barrage using Megabass X-Layer stickbaits.  But after all that coffee, and finally getting to have a 'proper' fish for the first time in a few weeks, my concentration was shattered into bubbles and froth.  Every several casts I changed lures, irrespective of whether I had received strikes or not.

This habit of mine is not always detrimental: usually I will count 10 or so casts with a lure, and if no strikes are forthcoming, I'll try a different pattern and tactic.  But when, first cast, a 70cm bucket-mouthed barra bursts through the surface at your first-cast popper, it may be prudent not to change lures next cast, but persist with the technique.  Despite the noise of the current, several upstream anglers heard the loud BOOF of this popper-hungry fish, turning to see me shaking my head in exasperation.

Eventually the pristine natural environment had its right effect and I calmed down and attended to the task of catching fish.  Which got me thinking about fishing and chance.

How can one tell whether the fish one is catching are due to an angler's skill urging the odds in one's favour, or whether a hooked fish is utterly a chance event?

To be honest, even though I know of people who certainly target big barramundi and, with their accumulated skill and experience, actually do catch their target, in my general experience most big barra I see anglers catch in the land-based location I fish seem to me great gifts of chance.

The task of angling technique and nous is to badger chance into one's favour.  Which means the angler who has in part bent chance his or her way must catch fish when fish are not being caught, and when fish are being caught he or she must catch more than other anglers.  Is this not what tournament fishing success finally measures: not the odd success here and there, but regularly catching fish in various conditions and diverse environments?

It would be a lie to state that caught fish are not inscribed into the personality of the angler as an aspect of their skill and expertise, and the bigger, well, the better - the currency of catching big fish, and the bad habit of dismissing small fish, too often is given over to a kind of machismo, much like that particularly male fascination with penis size (by which I mean that study after study has shown that men are more obsessed with some kind of correlation between penis length, fecundity and masculinity than are women, the latter of whom studies show care more about how the male tool is used).  Don't get me wrong: big fish are awesome fun to catch, and each time I go fishing I hope to land a big, shimmering fish!  Every angler dreams of 'the big one'.  But as we all know, fishing is more than just a photo and a brag.  It is about where it takes us, and how it makes us specifically concentrate on shining splinters of nature in that strangely beautiful, watery world wherein these creatures live.  On top of this, every fish is a bonus.  Even if nothing is caught, a day spent casting lures into a forested stream is unarguably better than any day at work!

If we anglers admit that our art is largely a matter of chance, and that angler skill is a means of asking chance's favour in regular bursts, the conflation of big fish with a man's ego can be seen in a different, perhaps even mystical light: as a gift one has worked at rather than a correlation in the world between a wild fish and the purported breadth of one's masculinity.  I can't here help but think about the gigantic, albeit exhausted smile on Steve Starling's face when chance brought to his undeniable angling and fish-playing skill that huge Queenfish last year.  Starlo just loves catching fish, large and small, and that smile of his is the greatest recognition of the gift to experience each fish is.

Back to Cahill's Crossing, and the bending of chance:  it wasn't long before the crowd of upstream anglers, with no more fish forthcoming, left.  Feeling more capable of attentive concentration, I decided to take the now open space and try the technique that had recently been serving me well at Shady Camp. 70mm to 85mm minnow style hardbodies with only a single hook facing upward on the rear, rolled against the current.  It was not long before I received a hit.  Then a few casts later, a little barra of about 50 cm was leaping clear of the water with my megabass X-70 in its corner mouth.

A few casts after and, despite using single hooks, the lure snagged.  The rocks around the Cahill's barrage seem as sharp as oystered rocks, and it is the place I most lose lures.  If it weren't for the crocs. I'd be snorkelling there for all I've lost.  Using single hooks instead of trebles definitely aids the snagless cause.  Yet that X-70, which had reaped me at least 30 fish from the Shady Camp barrage this year, now rests in the East Alligator.

As a replacement I attached my 35lb snap to a beautiful Smith Cherryblood I'd bought in Japan.  This lure had already landed me one nice barra from a land-based position in Darwin Harbour, but it also contained a nostalgia for Japan, so I hadn't tied it on often for fear of losing it.

When fishing downstream, I had tried many different sized lures in order to discern what the barra may be feeding upon.  I couldn't see any baitfish in the water to 'match the hatch', so trial and error combined with experience led me to use what may be called, for barra at least, 'common denominator' lures: lures that matched the average size of mullet I see up North in many places.  Barra, like most predators, wish to expend the least amount of energy for the most food, so will eat what is most available and available in the easiest way.  This is why the idiots whom I have seen wading in places like the Mary River - which has this country's highest concentration of saltwater crocodiles - do not regularly get eaten: there are more fish that, surprisingly, require less effort than stalking a drunk human.  It is a common myth that big barra pursue only big mullet.  It is true in come circumstances, but, in short, larger baitfish swim faster and have survived longer.  This means that a) they are more aware and afraid of predators and b) their speed means that that a predator needs to swim faster to catch them. Barra are lazy fish that like to feed by stealth, gliding calmly up beneath baitfish before boofing them, or ambushing bait from a hide.  These days, I rarely take any Bomber sized lures with me on my freshwater angling adventures.

The Smith Cherrybloods cast remarkably far, have a great action and are realistic with artful design and finish: they really look like fish.  After a few casts, I was soon attached to a better fish that measured just on 68cm.  Several casts later, after a solid fight of around ten minutes with only a little head-shaking and tail-walking, I set the fish grips across the lips of a weighty 76cm barramundi.  Two casts later and the hook of the Cherryblood was set on an even larger fish.  After a few fighting minutes, my 16lb Varivas Seabass PE horribly grated against a submerged rock.  The line fell limp.  15 minutes later I witnessed a fish, estimated between 80cm - 90cm, leap several times across the river in an attempt to throw the still-attached little Cheeryblood from its cavernous mouth.  I was in control of the fish the entire time before the line frayed.  I was using 20lb Toray Solaroam fluorocarbon for my leader material, and had only minimal abrasion with the fish I landed.  This proves that using quality fluoro makes a difference, allowing an angler to get away with thinner leaders with confidence.

I lost one other fish to my PE cutting, likely to the same rock, that felt to be around 70cm.  All this action occured in a frame of 45 minutes, and I was still getting hits on the Megabass Trick Darter I tied on next when my arriving girlfriend gave me the move-on order.

I was using a 2500S High Gear Stella (JDM) matched to a 5 -12lb Shimano World Shaula - Shimano Japan's top of the line two piece rod (2751R-2).  Having recently been playing around with my new Megabass Kirisame on smaller fish, with a few pelagics thrown in, the superior blank quality of the Shimano rod was quite evident - the smallest tap was felt as with the excellent Kirisame blank, but there was more of a subtle feel with that hum one gets from a Loomis GLX blank combined with Megabass' crisp sensitivity.  I would not consider this combo a particularly light barra set-up compared to some of my other combos, but after fighting a few larger fish with ease, I am confident this combo could readily tackle meter plus barra.  Shimano's World Shaula series are certainly built for battling big sportsfish - the 2751R-2 was designed in part for targeting Bonefish with light lures.  I've already hooked a few tough Mahseer on the same combo in Thailand.  If you have the funds - or fanatical fishing idiocy for high-end Japanese gear you can't quite afford but buy nonetheless - this rod is absolute perfection for all land-based barramundi fishing with lures.  It casts unweighted plastics accurately, whilst not feeling under-gunned with a Megabass Vision 110 on the end of the leader.