South Alligator River

Hi Fisho's,

Just got back from a 3 day stint in the top end. Flew in to Darwin on a red-eye flight and arrived afetr midnight. 3am we pack the car and make the 2 hour drive into Kakadu and subsequently the boat ramp at the South Alligator.

On the weekend there were the year's smallest neaps; tidal variances were only 50mm at stages. The river was supposed to clean up and the fish able to bite freely. I have had a few trips north to trpoical locations that slightly disappointed when you consider the expectation placed on it by eager fisho's intent on catching more fish than at home. As most know though, fishing is rarely like that, fish bite when they bite, whether it's the untouched north or hard fished waters like sydeny harbour.

I had an idea of what i wanted to achieve over the few days i had. I knew we were going to troll for Barra, cast lures at bank-side structure and head offshore for some tastey reef fish. I also wanted to use plastics predominantly against the local techniques and see if my rubber lures could keep pace with the social and cultural norm.

We fished all the likely spots around Little Brook Ck and Mud Island and caught a swag of decent Barra to 82cms, a stack of hard-fighting goldies to 2.5kgs, grunters, queenies, threadfin, blue salmon, a small GT and a juvy balck jew. Not a bad mixed bag of tropical sportfish on the rubber stuff.

Offshore it was a bit tougher. Although the tide was placid I only manageed to hook a small queenie, spanish flag, moonfish, a nice GT that smoked me and a tenacious reef shark. The bait was catching the bulk of the fillets out in the blue.

I guess the key take-outs for the weekend were that our southern techniques using plastics certainly do work north of the border. I basically used bream and flatty retrieves on jerk minnow type lures all weekend and held my own against the hard body brigade. I even managed to convince the locals a spin rod is just as deadly as a baitcaster in the right hands. Mind you i was required to prove it too.

The crocs in the river were noticably absent except for when we stranded ourselves on a sand bank and forced to get out and pull it into deeper water. Suddenly 4 moderately sized crocs appeared out of nowhere for an inquisitive look. Sneaky buggers instinctively know when a cheap meal presents itself.

I can't wait to head back there, run off is my next target. Bring on the rain!