The River That Wasn’t There Before - Part Three: The Smallest Barra
By Day Three, the fog, the broken prop and the uncertainty of the changed river had not disappeared from our minds, but they were no longer controlling the way we fished.
On our way back to Banyan Farm that afternoon, we decided to stop at a spot known for holding rats: tiny barra. There is a smallest-barramundi category at the Barra Nationals, and while these fish were nowhere near official point scorers, they were perfect for a quick flick and a bit of fun.
Thirty-six centimetres.
Then thirty-three.
Thirty-four.
Twenty-nine.
Twenty-eight.
Thirty-two.
Every fish seemed smaller than the last.
For a little while, the pressure of tides, structure and tournament strategy fell away. We laughed our way through fish that would never trouble the leaderboard, each one somehow more exciting because it was smaller than the one before it.
Rose landed the smallest for our boat, measuring 28 centimetres.
That night at presentations, we listened for the smallest barra award.
Rose missed it by one centimetre.
It did not matter.
That little session, chasing fish most competitors would swim straight past, was one of the most fun we had all week.
As the days passed, we kept adjusting.
During one quiet patch in the middle of the tide, the hits stopped completely. We could keep casting and hope something changed, or we could try something different.
I put it to the crew.
We decided to troll.
Rose does not like trolling. It is one of those fishing methods people either love or hate, and she sits firmly on one side of that argument.
But sometimes you do what you need to do to put points on the board.
Trish had a huge hit.
The fish stayed connected until it was almost beside the boat, then came free.
That one hurt.
Still, the change had given us a chance. We had discussed the options, made the decision together and committed to it.
That became the rhythm of our week.
Try something.
Watch what the river tells you.
Change when it stops working.
Reset when a day is not going your way.
Nobody had every answer, and nobody needed to pretend they did.
The Taj Mahal
Away from the river, both WRFL teams came back together in our Taj Mahal.
The name was generous for a large camp tent filled with six women, fishing equipment and the general chaos of tournament life, but it became our shared space.
We compared notes about the river and talked through what had worked. We shared what we had learned, laughed at the week’s shenanigans and prepared to do it all again the next morning.
We were two competition teams, but we were also part of something bigger.
Donna and Liv both caught scoring barra and removed their tutus. Donna finished 63rd out of 144 anglers with 14 fish.
By the end of the event, WRFL NSW had caught 23 barra.
Our NT crew had caught 17.
Forty barramundi between two all-women WRFL boats in the first year we had entered the Barra Nationals together.
When lines came in on the final day, Rose, Trish and I were together retrieving the boat.
The week had given us plenty to carry home.
We had travelled a river that no longer matched the old tracks.
We had fished through tides that transformed familiar places in a matter of hours.
We had broken a prop in darkness and fog, watched a much more serious incident unfold, reset our plans and kept going.
We had learned where to stand, when to move, who would reach for the net and who would grab the net without needing to be told.
Three women who had arrived without ever having fished together were leaving as a crew.
All six women were already talking about returning.
The Image I Keep
But when I think back to that week, the first image that comes to me is not the flood damage, the fog or the broken prop.
It is Trish on the first morning of competition.
Less than an hour after lines went in.
Her first scoring barramundi safely aboard.
Her hands shaking as the relief hit.
Then the yellow tutu above her head, swinging through the air.
Only a few days earlier, I had collected her from Darwin Airport as a woman I barely knew. She had trusted me enough to step onto my boat and follow me onto a river neither of us fully recognised.
By 9.50 on Day One, she had already proven she belonged there.
That was my proud skipper moment.
Not because I did it for her.
Because I had the privilege of watching her do it herself.
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