Visit our incredible fishing destination:
ARNHEMLAND BARRAMUNDI NATURE LODGE

These are feeder creeks, a term I coined a few years ago because it aptly describes the process of floodwaters feeding into the main rivers via these channels, and at the same time they carry with them a smorgasbord of barra tucker.

Put another way, if you’re after a feed, you’re not going to go to a hardware, are you?

You’ll go to a supermarket or a restaurant or a fast-food outlet.

Barra during the run-off have similar feeding options, but none is more certain than the mouth of a feeder creek pouring floodplain waters into a falling river.

It’s not rocket science either to be able to detect a working feeder creek: just look for a colour change between the water flowing from the creek and the water in the main river.

Usually the creek water colour will be much darker, and often much clearer, the latter an important factor in the barra being able to see your lure from the furthest distance possible.

Interestingly, with the current monsoon waning, there may well be a small bout of run-off happening over the next week or so.

I know for a fact that the South Alligator River is already producing, but that’s no surprise as it is one of those rivers that often fishes right through the wet season.

Currently, young, small barra are being caught at the top of the South, mainly along colour-change demarcations.

Right down river, at some of the bigger creek mouths, some metre-plus barra have been reported, so there are some good options at the South.

The Adelaide River , always handy for a half-day trip out of Darwin , may well be worth a shot.

According to Got One’s Craig Grosvenor, you don’t even need a boat to catch fish up the Adelaide .

“A trip on Saturday raised a few fish to 79cm on the upper Adelaide River at both Marrakai and Tortilla crossings,” Craig reported.

Apparently, last weekend at Shady Camp barrage was not unlike a battle scene from Brave Heart, but instead of flying arrows there were lead-weighted soft plastics ripping through the air in all directions.

Under that barrage of effort and hardware, there were plenty of fish caught, but most were undersize during daylight hours.

It was a different story at night, with barra to 86cm readily succumbing to Squidgy Slick Rigs.

As with the South Alligator, the lower reaches of the Mary River produced some bigger barra in the metre class.

The Daly River could well be the hot tip this weekend and next week.

There are so many potential feeder creeks heading down the Daly from Brown’s Creek, so there are sure to be a few with barra waiting at the turn-styles.