Shoal Bay Barra

We packed the boat at night to go on an epic day’s adventure to Shoal Bay. At 7.30 we left to go fishing; it was one of the best rides over to our destination. The water was crystal clear and there was not a single wave in the ocean.

As soon as we arrived at the river mouth, Charlie got out the cast net and started throwing big mullet. Half hour later, the engine turned off and we broke down. The tide was ripping, and we were floating towards a big bank. As we hit the bank, we went out on the sandbar in confusion to investigate the problem. We thought the battery was flat because the motor wouldn’t trim, but we were super lucky. On the other side of the river there was a deep whole and hundreds of barra boofing the surface. Now we didn’t care about the motor, we didn’t even bother using the sat phone because we were about to catch tons of barra.

Straight away we set our sandbar poles up, rigged up our lines and tossed the live bait into the action. Even through we each had two rods, we had too many fish to deal with because the barra were off their heads. Every minute we hooked up to a barra; they were all going off at the same time.

A big highlight of the trip was the second barra we caught. After we slit its throat, we put it on the bank to throw in the Esky later. Without warning, a big eagle came in like lighting, grabbed the fish and took it back to the trees.

Another memorable moment of the adventure was my two barra hook-up at the same time. While one rod was in my leg winding in with my right arm, the other was in my left hand using my teeth to wind. After hard work of winding them in, I landed both. Surprisingly, one of them was the biggest fish of the trip, 80cm and the other one was undersize.

After the day’s fishing, the tide rushed in and we finally called Dad to rescue us. Make sure if you have a boat go to Shoal Bay because it’s so close to Darwin and you’ll have some amazing adventures there.

HERE'S SOME PHOTOS OF THE TRIP! Scroll down.