{"id":716185,"date":"2026-06-05T04:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T04:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716185\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T04:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T04:35:14","slug":"major-fishing-competition-the-barra-nationals-gets-under-way-after-six-week-delay-due-to-flooding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716185\/","title":{"rendered":"Major fishing competition the Barra Nationals gets under way after six-week delay due to flooding"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Australia’s biggest annual barramundi fishing competition, and it’s happening on a remote river in the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n

The Barra Nationals have been drawing anglers from across the country to the same stretch of the Daly River, south of Darwin, for 30 years.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Barra Nationals is under way on the Daly River this week.\u00a0 (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

The rules are simple. Teams are made up of three anglers, they have a week to fish a 50-kilometre stretch of the river, and they’re scored on the total length of their top five fish of each day \u2014 taking a photo of their catch next to a ruler before throwing it back in the water<\/p>\n

The team with the highest score at the end of the week are crowned the winners.<\/p>\n

Over the first three days of the competition alone, 1,419 fish were caught, with a total length of nearly 830 metres and a combined weight over 3.9 tonnes.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Teams are scored on the total length of their top five fish each day. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

About 150 competitors from 50 teams have travelled from around Australia to the remote river this year, with one keen group bringing their boat from Tasmania.<\/p>\n

Participant Tracy Chelepy, who is competing with her team the Bamboo Pandas. said she had been travelling to the event from Rockhampton in Queensland for six years.<\/p>\n

“We travel for three days [to get here] \u2014 you drive in and you’re like ‘let’s bring it, it’s the Barra Nationals’,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Tracy Chelepy (middle) and her team travelled three days to make it to the 2026 Barra Nationals. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Record floods fail to stop competition<\/p>\n

The community of Daly River \/ Nauiyu experienced its worst flood on record<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

At the flood’s peak, houses were submerged up to their roofs in the community, which sits on the banks of the Daly River.<\/p>\n

Less than five kilometres downstream of the community is the Banyan Farm Tourist Park, which hosts the Barra Nationals every year, transforming into a hub of fishing and live entertainment.<\/p>\n

Three months ago, a video of a tinny driving through the park’s flooded outdoor dining hall went viral on social media.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Kerri Draper, who owns the tourist park with her husband and has hosted the Barra Nationals at the park since 1998, said it was a while before she could bring herself to watch the footage<\/p>\n

“It’s pretty heartbreaking \u2026 it looked pretty disastrous,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said as soon as the floodwater had receded, a team of volunteers had gotten to work to ensure the park could reopen in time for the tourist season, and, most importantly, the Barra Nationals.<\/p>\n

\"White<\/p>\n

Kerri Draper says seeing her business flooded was “heartbreaking”. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

“Most of them were retirees, so between the ages of 65 and 70 \u2014 but you should’ve seen that crew on the shovels, they were fantastic,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s great to have the event here. It’s a lot of hard work, but once it kicks off it’s a great week.”<\/p>\n

\"Foreground<\/p>\n

The NT’s recent wet season brought significant flooding to the region where the Barra Nationals is held. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Delayed start presents new obstacles<\/p>\n

Despite the work of the crew at Banyan Farm, the flooding meant this year’s competition was delayed by about six weeks.<\/p>\n

Darryl Smart is the president of the Palmerston Game Fishing Club, which organises the tournament.<\/p>\n

\"White<\/p>\n

Darryl Smart says he has seen more crocodiles out at this year’s Barra Nationals competition. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

He said the delayed start date had added a new element for anglers to contend with.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot more big crocodiles out now with the cooler weather, which is good. If they could stay on the banks, that’d be even better,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Competitors have been spotting crocodiles like this one on the banks and floating in the water of the Daly River. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Even though the recent flooding took the river to record levels, the late start to this year’s competition means the water is lower than it normally is.<\/p>\n

That presents some risks, as fisher Will Simpson and his team the Metery Maniacs found out the hard way.<\/p>\n

“We hit a log \u2026 we started sinking so we had to turn around and make like a cat and scram,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Will Simpson’s boat hit a log while coasting along the river, causing it to start sinking. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

“[We were going] about 76 kilometres an hour.”<\/p>\n

“Got the heart pumping a little bit \u2026 a bit too much maybe.”<\/p>\n

With crocodiles a frequent sight on the river banks, it’s easy to see why.<\/p>\n

One team will be crowned the champions when the competition ends on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s Australia’s biggest annual barramundi fishing competition, and it’s happening on a remote river in the Northern Territory.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,347522,347526,241042,75,347525,347527,347523,347524,347528,241045,128],"class_list":["post-716185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barra-nats","tag-barramundi","tag-daly-river-flooding","tag-environment","tag-fishing-nt","tag-nauiyu-flooding","tag-nt-fishing-competition","tag-nt-fishing-tournament","tag-nt-flood-impacts","tag-nt-flooding","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}