Land-based Kimberley barra fishing usually comes with two givens — there will be more rats than you can keep up with, and at some point somebody will look down and find a crocodile too close for comfort. The Boofin Barras crew's latest video had both.
Four anglers fished a flooded crossing in the East Kimberley where the rising salt-water tide was pushing back into freshwater country: Lyndon, Jocky Quoit, the channel host and his young son. The aim, stated up front, was simply to count.
"We're fishing this flood plain. We've got Lyndon over here, Jocky Quoit, and we've got me and my son, take on the barramundi," the host says. "Plenty plenty of fish in there. So we'll have a count, see how many barra we catch today."
The first crossing went off almost on the first cast. Within the first hour, the four anglers had hooked or landed at least 11 fish — most of them rats taking poppers in dirty water. The host, busy filming and watching his boy, was the only one yet to score by mid-morning. "I think you're on about two barra already, hey, Jock? Three? I think Lyndon's on about one or two. I'm yet to catch one yet."
The first wider story of the trip wasn't about barra. It was about a four-metre saltwater crocodile that, the host says, almost took Lyndon during a previous wet at a crossing now washed away.
"Lyndon sang out, said, 'Turn the light on,'" he recalled. "I turned the light on, and there was a four-metre crocodile behind Lyndon. When I turned the light on, the croc was actually moving faster… If that crocodile would have got hold of him, he would have been gone for sure."
The second crossing was where the day became something more than a count. As the salt-water tide pushed up across the flood plain, Lyndon hooked and landed the catch of the day on his preferred jelly lure — a chunky 91-centimetre saltwater barra from a small corner the crew immediately named Lyndon's Point.
The weigh-in was a familiar piece of theatre, with each angler calling a bigger number than the next. "I'll go 103. 90 or 98. I reckon 99 or around there… 91. That's a nice barra," the host said as the tape settled the argument.
The point kept producing through the afternoon. The host added an 88-centimetre fish from the same corner. Jocky, working a popper with hooks that had been bent the trip before, missed at least 10 strikes — and refused to fix the problem. "Straighten hooks from the last time, he said. I'm not changing hooks now. Too much fun."
The only fish kept for the table was a salt-water barra that swallowed the jig too deeply to be released safely.
"It's been a real good day. Haven't hit the metre mark, but it doesn't matter. Pretty happy with today," he said.
The takeaway for anyone planning their own East Kimberley land-based dry-season run: this year's flood-plain has shifted again, with one crossing washed out completely, and the host believes another fortnight of dry will line up some genuinely large fish on the same flooded country.
"It's all about timing," he said. "That's the first time I've out here this year, so we'll get the timing right in the next couple of weeks and I reckon we'll pull a few big ones out."