Fishing, Feathers, Feasts and Fabulous Family at Daly River

Daly River famous for its Barramundi tournament was one place Josh really wanted visit. Tim and Joy were in the last week of their locum at Wadeye and Daly River was about 1/2 way for us to meet. We'd booked in at Mango Farm for a powered site and cabin. A couple of days before we were to arrive Nick rang to confirm the booking and check prices. However somehow the owner took great offense to this hanging up on Nick and then proceeded to make an abusive phone call to Joy. A very bizarre experience. Luckily we were able to book in to Perry's on Daly River which turned out to be the perfect spot for us all to stay.

As we drove in to Perry's, with a golf course on one side and caravan park with coconut palms & mango trees on the other side we were greeted by Frank. Frank was care taking while the owners were away, and gave us a run down of the caravan park, river and places to explore, clearly he knew the lay of the land, and we later discovered he'd been coming here for many many years, and had the photos with the huge barramundi to prove it. The laid back atmosphere of the park was felt immediately. Tim & Joy had arrived a bit earlier and settled into their cabin, and were waiting to watch the "set up" show of our van and tent.

From the moment Zach got out of the car he kept calling Joy "Jill," despite repeated corrections he still insisted on saying Jill. By the end of the weekend Zach had confused not only himself but Abbey too. Poor Joy.

Eager to catch a barramundi, Josh had all the lines rigged up ready to head down to the pontoon. Frank had warned us to stay on the pontoon and not dangle our legs in the water as there are both salt and fresh water crocs in the river. It didn't take long to spot a "freshie" sunning itself on the opposite bank. Although we had fun fishing together there were no fish caught that afternoon. We'd been told of a big billabong nearby which had plenty of barramundi in it as well as great bird life. When we got there it was heading towards dusk. Nick and Tim decided to go for a walk to the otherside of the billabong. They'd been gone a little while when I was looking through Joy's binoculars and saw a big salt water croc on the other side, unable to contact the boys we had to hope they didn't get that far round. Within minutes Nick and Tim returned, hindered by the dense bush stopping them from reaching the other side.

That evening while Nick prepared a roaring fire, Tim & Joy prepared a beautiful grilled lamb backstrap and ratatouille dinner, which everyone thought was delicious, topped off with baked apples cooked over the fire for dessert. How decadent.

With the kids tucked up in bed, the four adults enjoyed sitting around the fire, drinking a glass of red, and discussing life, politics, kids and religion.

Early the following morning Matt, Joy and Tim drove over to the billabong to check out the bird life, Matt enjoying some one on one attention from his Aunt and Uncle. Later that morning we visited the community Naiyu. A small community with an airstrip, medical centre, school and general store. After a quick stop at the general store for ice creams we headed down to the river crossing to again try our luck fishing...... Still no luck. Where oh where are these barramundi????On the way back Matt and Zach made Tim stop the car to look for birds in a small billabong area. Luckily Tim & Joy quite like bird watching too and were happy to oblige, spotting numerous types of birds together.

So it was back down to the pontoons for the afternoon to sit and fish. It wasn't long before Joy had something on her line, but it promptly took off with the hook and was gone. This happened a few more times, and Josh
spotted what he thought was a shark fin. A light bulb switched on in my head - perhaps it was bullnose sharks taking the bait and hook and if so, I remembered Shilohs advice about using wire trace.

Tim & I set off to find Frank and buy some wire trace, bait and a few hooks and sinkers (since we'd lost a few). Frank even gave us a couple of containers of frozen mango cheeks. By the time we had for back to the pontoon and rigged up the fishing lines, Frank had wandered down to graciously show us a thing or two about catching shark.

With a hand line he cast the line then shoved a stick in the ground, and threw the reel over it. "now we wait" he said "it'll only take a few minutes, the shark will take the bait and run with the line. You need to remember not to reel it in straight away, let the shark take it and really get a good bite of the bait, then just pull the line in". Sure enough, by the time Frank had finished explaining his technique, a shark had taken the bait. " Just leave it" Frank calmly stated at the line was spinning off the reel, & Nicks instinct was to grab it. About a minute or so later the line had stopped and Nick was allowed to pull the line in, and on the end of it was a thrashing bull shark. With the gaff hook in his hand Frank hit the shark over the head to stun it. (Frank's pearl of wisdom was "if you catch a shark hit it over the head to stun it but if you catch an eel hit it down the end of its tail to stun it.") Although not the biggest bull shark Nick was excited none the less to have caught his very first shark.

Joy and I took the shark up to the cleaning area (a makeshift bench with a sink and hose, and hessian bags nearby) and battled with the flies
and circling whistling kites to attempt filleting it with a fairly blunt fishing knife . We learnt later that the hessian bags were to hide your fish from the birds of prey. With 2 large fillets cut from the shark, Joy and I were starting to clean
up when I heard Matt yelling "Mum Mum". Matt had just caught himself a shark too!!!! And boy was he pleased with himself. By the time we'd filleted
Matt's shark we had quite a pile of waste. I couldn't see any bins anywhere and I knew we couldn't throw them into the river as it would attract the crocs. Luckily someone else arrived to fillet a nice sized barramundi (better not tell Josh that though), so I asked him. The guy said "just throw it on the ground and the whistling kites will devour them, they'll be nothing left within a couple of minutes.
Unfortunately I didn't get a photo because it really was a feeding frenzy, with not a morsel left.

For the second night in a row we had a feast. This time enjoying fresh crumbed bull shark and salad. And for the second night in a row the adults enjoyed sitting around the fire chatting when the kids went to bed.

What a fabulous time we have had at Daly River with Tim and Joy fishing, feasting and spending quality time together.