Chris Suitor, took me on a fishing trip down the East Alligator River. Chris is a project manager for the Ranger mine just outside of Jabiru. Believe me the river is aptly named. We saw 10 or 12 for the day and several came right up behind the boat. We fished at "White Lady", an outlet for the huge wet lands that abut the river on both sides for 30 t0 40 kilomteres. A very prolific barra region. The wa et lands are very similar to the Goorganga Plains in Proserpine but at 12 or 20 times the scale. All of the swamp outlets produce barra during the run off.


I caught 12 fish, the largest seen in the photograph below. This fish is 70 cms, it was taken on a propeller lure just after dawn. The 2nd cast of the day. There were quite a few other boats in the river on the day and this proved to be very comforting .















Here are a brace of 4 that we kept. The smaller ones are 60 cm fish. I would have let them go as I thought they would be "Muddy" comming from the wetland swamps. I'm sure this will be the case when Chris tries to eat them. I saw about 3 fish over the metre caught in the East Alligator.

















We ventured about 30 kilometres down river to the mouth of the Magela creek as the tide went out. Unfortunately the motor refused to start and we needed to be towed home. This took over two hours and certainly ruined the day for the guys in the tow boat and us. Chris had only just had the moter serviced in Darwin the weekend before the trip. Not a happy chappy, believe me. The hill in the background id an isolated section of the escarpment and they are very picturesque. The guy at the wheel is a fishing inspector from NSW, on holidays.