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ARNHEMLAND BARRAMUNDI NATURE LODGE

What really bugs me and plenty of other Darwin anglers – and certainly the AFANT committee – is that, while all this hoo-ha is going on about a seemingly-low-impact river course realignment 1000 km away at the McArthur River, the closest river to Darwin – the Adelaide River – and the next one to the east – the Mary River – are literally riddled with manmade earthen barrages.

These barrages block off completely major creeks and tributaries that feed into those two immensely-important barramundi-fishing rivers.

It was back in the mid-80s that the then soil conservation people in Government determined that saltwater intrusion on the Mary River system was destroying vast areas of paperbark forest and wetlands.

They were right, and the band-aid approach taken, which continues to this day, was to build earthen walls to stop the tidal flow extending into the wetlands.

Of course, at the time no one bothered to examine what impact this would have on the aquatic environment.

It’s no secret that, in the Top End, the annual wet season flooding, and its interaction with the tidal saltwater stretches of the big rivers, are dynamic and there are a myriad of aquatic species whose whole lifecycle has evolved to be dependent on this interaction.

But something had to be done about the devastation to the wetlands, and in more recent years spillways were added to theses barrages to take into account the importance of fish being able to move from fresh to salt and from salt to fresh.

But there was also a tragic spin-off to the legitimate building of barrages for environmental reasons: a new concept of barrage began to be embraced on pastoral properties on both the Adelaide and Mary River systems.

These barrages appeared and completely blocked off natural waterways where there was, and never has been, evidence of saltwater intrusion.

They were built for the sole reason of retaining freshwater to create ponded pastures to increase the amount of feed available for cattle stock later in the dry season, and therefore the number of cattle head that could be held on a given area of land.

In fact, in many places, natural grasses were replaced with para grass which itself originated from north Africa.

I’m not sure if they’re still doing it but, at one stage, our own government agronomists were advising pastoralists to block off waterways and create ponded pastures.

The upshot has been devastating to the barramundi lifecycle on both the Adelaide and Mary Rivers.

Huge fish kills continue to take place every year when barramundi swim across the flooded plains, then fall back into the channels as the waters recede.

As access to the main rivers and the sea through these channels are blocked by manmade barrages, the barra are trapped nearly all die late in the dry season as the ponds dry up.

I could go on and on about the pitiful mismanagement and the sheer craziness of what we are allowing to happen to this icon of both Territory lifestyle and the tourist industry.

It’s just that I find it bizarre that some people in government and environmental representative groups are so opposed to a major Territory mining project that, after detailed analysis, will have no detrimental impact on the McArthur River and its aquatic inhabitants, and have simply ignored the environmental vandalism that has taken place on other major river systems closer to Darwin.

The McArthur River project will yield $330 million annually spread right across the Northern Territory economy.

What price a few head of cattle compared to our greatest cash crop of all: the Northern Territory ’s barramundi?

 

 

It’s all looking good for the start of the annual Aurora Kakakdu Klash beginning today at the South Alligator River .

A whole bunch of metre-plus barra were caught in the South over the last week.

One crew fishing the bottom end of the South reported losing an 130 cm-plus barra at Brook Creek, and the biggest I heard landed went more than 120 cm.

With both the Katherine River and the Daly River running almost to the tops of their banks, there is every reason to anticipate some bumper run-off action in the weeks ahead.

Shady Camp is not producing to anywhere near the extent myou would expect at current flood levels, although the occasional big barra is getting caught.

It’s a different story with jewfish which are biting like mad out from the river mouth, mainly on pilchards.

Middle Arm in Darwin Harbour produced barra to 65 cm and small goldies.