Yellow Water Fishing

Wednesday 29th July 2009
It looks like the whole family is now back in good health although still suffering a bit of a cough.
This morning we made our way to the Warradjan Aboriginal Culture Center where we met Lizzy, a very quiet and softly spoken Aboriginal woman who'd been out collecting plants from the bush to give us a demonstration on bush craft. But first on the agenda for us was to meet Lilly, the baby "Agile Wallaby" which was orphaned due to it's mother getting killed for bushtucker. Lilly arrived on site inside a backpack carried by the ranger who is it's new mother. Lilly came out of the backpack and straight into a fabric pouch where she was very comfortable. We all had a hold and a cuddle of this cute and furry creature.
Then is was onto some hard work - transform Pandanus leaves into string, getting strips of sand palm leaves and weaving them into useful articles and turning Kapok fruit into a paste ready to be used as a dye. Alexander and I made a little fire to boil the Kapok slurry and dye some of the natural materials stripped from the plants. It was indeed a very interesting morning as Lizzy was quite happy to tell us everything we wanted to know about her people and country. During this time she patiently taught me how to separate the layers of sand palm leaves and produce the raw material for the weaving. It took me the best part of the morning to get the hang of this. Later in the morning a bus load of styled and well dressed European oldies arrived on the scene. They were from Switzerland, spoke German, had their own tour guide with them, and were proudly displaying their arrogance and ignorance. The tour guide was explaining to them, in German, how I, sitting next to Lizzy, was stripping those sand palm leaves and how difficult this process is. You can just imagine the looks on their faces when I said to them (in German) that this work requires great skill indeed and that's why only Austrians can get it and the Swiss can't!
We had a quick lunch at the caravan and then joined a fine young gentleman by the name of Dean Jackson for some serious work in his office. Dean's office is on a fishing boat out on Yellow Water, that's where he earns his living as a fishing guide! This time of year Barramundi is pretty dormant and very lazy due to the cold water so most people don't even bother fishing for Barra at this time of year. However, we haven't got the option of coming back later when the fishing is good so we placed our hopes in Dean, who's been doing this for over 13 years, to try and land our first ever Barramundi. To make matters worse, in Kakadu one is only allowed to Lure fish, bait is off limits. The only thing we had in our favour was Dean's knowledge and experience. His first job was to teach us (that's Alexander and me) how to make the lure look attractive to fish - believe me this takes a big effort and is very hard on the wrist. I'm sure it also causes RSI, but that's an occupational hazard in many other offices too. Once he had us producing the right lure action while trolling we went into some pretty narrow (4mt wide) areas of water with a bit of structure beneath. We were casting and retrieving with that special action - my wrist is still hurting now, but Dean reckons if it doesn't hurt we're not doing it right. We had quite a few close calls where the Barra spit the lure and others where we slowed down or sped up the retrieve as he was just about to strike. By 2:30pm the first Barra was successfully landed but like most fish at this time of year well below size, 55cm is the minimum. By 3:30pm Alexander started to land Barra and we were pretty happy to have caught Barra but still had nothing to put on the dinner table. Over the next few hours we landed a few and lost a few but after 5pm I finally hooked one that put up a decent fight and ran with the line. We got him into the boat and he came in at slightly over 58cm - large enough to keep and with the nice silver colour which indicates he's come up from the saltwater recently and will be delicious to eat.
We got of the water just before sunset with a total of 9 or 10 Barra landed but only the one keeper who was filleted for us by Dean and is now in the fridge ready for the dinner plate tomorrow night.
The afternoon out on Yellow Water was nothing short of spectacular, the crocs came right up to the boat and we saw them fighting with each other in the water. They sure make a huge splash and wave when they move about. Dean bled and washed our Barra in the water just on the side of the boat, but apparently crocs are not like sharks so they are not attracted by blood. One croc came and stalked the boat from about 8 meters away, Dean reckons we were in his sunning spot, but a few movements on the boat soon made him go under the water. However, he surfaced again whiteout making the slightest of noises some 5 meters away from the boat. Dean got a Lure and smashed it hard on the water surface and that seemed to make him go away again.
We even saw a Sea Eagle gently descend, elegantly grab a fish out of the water while getting only his claws wet, and then flying away with the fish as his meal. Being out on Yellow Water for an afternoon is just like sitting in on the shooting of a David Attenborough documentary.
We'd like to spend another week at Kakadu but unfortunately we have to move on towards the colder parts of the country, so tomorrow we'll try and get to Katherine Gorge.