{"id":792908,"date":"2026-07-11T05:44:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T05:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/792908\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T05:44:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T05:44:22","slug":"chasing-an-iconic-fish-hundreds-of-anglers-hit-remote-daly-river-for-the-nt-barra-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/792908\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Chasing an iconic fish’: Hundreds of anglers hit remote Daly River for the NT Barra Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crocs, sharks and an Australian cricket legend have all spent the past week battling to catch a barra in the Northern Territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the second time this year, a small tourist park on the Daly River has been transformed into the centre of a major fishing tournament.<\/p>\n

The week-long Barra Classic has been held annually on the same stretch of the remote river since 1982.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anglers travel from around the country for long days of fierce competition and long nights spent catching up with mates, including Australian cricket legend Merv Hughes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Cricket legend Merv Hughes is one of the hundred competitors to take part in the 2026 Barra Classic. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

The community that comes with the tournament \u2014 and the opportunity to escape Melbourne’s cold winters \u2014 have been drawing him back to the river for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n

“The first time you do it, you just fall in love with the place,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This is the premiere fishing competition in Australia \u2014 the Daly River, Northern Territory, chasing an iconic fish. It doesn’t get any better than this.”\"Two<\/p>\n

Merv Hughes says the Barra Classic is one of the best fishing competitions out there. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Sharks clued in to benefits of tournament<\/p>\n

While the Top End may be best known for its saltwater crocodiles, anglers at this year’s Barra Classic are talking about a different threat.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

Crocodiles are a common sighting along the Daly River. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Skipper of the team Bad Karma Rohan Short said sharks have been adding a new challenge to the competition by eating fish as anglers reel them in.<\/p>\n

“We’ve lost a lot of good fish to sharks, just can’t get them in fast enough,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Rohan Short (right) says sharks along the Daly River have been an added challenge for the fishers. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Judy Ward, who \u00a0fishes the Barra Classic most years with her team the Angry Birds, said she also lost a fish to a shark.<\/p>\n

“It took off and I was like ‘this is bigger than I thought’, but really the shark had it,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Wound it in and all I had was the head \u2026 it was pretty funny.”<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Judy Ward (left), on the boat with her teammate Emma Harbrow, says a shark stole one of the fish she caught as she reeled it in.\u00a0 (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Charles Darwin University marine ecologist Joni Pini-Fitzsimmons specialises in sharks and rays, and said the rise in shark sightings could come down to the record-breaking floods that hit the Daly River region in March.<\/p>\n

“We got a lot of runoff, that could be improving bait and different prey of sharks, so we could be seeing a little bit of an uptick because of that,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s also the breeding season for a lot of the species that we get in the Daly River so we would normally expect to see good numbers of sharks at this time of year anyway.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Fishers along the Daly River have needed to be on the lookout for both crocodiles and sharks. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Dr Pini-Fitzsimmons said sharks might be clueing on to what a fishing tournament means for them.<\/p>\n

“Sharks are smart. They can very quickly learn associations between boat noise, struggling fish, and an easy meal,” she said.<\/p>\n

“There might not be more sharks, but instead more people fishing and lots of smart sharks showing up for a quick feed.”New technology for a changed river<\/p>\n

It is not just the sharks that are adapting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A new app has been implemented on the river to help anglers log hazards that have popped up after the floods.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Buoys are used to mark problem areas along the Daly River that fishers have reported. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Veteran Daly River angler Alastair Shields said the floods had made it more difficult to get to the fish.<\/p>\n

“There’s lots and lots of fish \u2026 and they’re fat, healthy, silver fish but it’s a bit treacherous with all the new snags and logs,” he said.<\/p>\n

Flood debris in the river wreaked havoc on boats at last month’s Barra Nationals \u2014 the Daly River’s other major fishing competition.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Alastair Shields (right) says the Daly River has become more “treacherous” following the flooding across the region. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Ms Ward said the app is great and should have been introduced “years ago”.<\/p>\n

“If you see a snag, you flag it and get the co-ordinates,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Then when you get back you just scan a QR code \u2026 and they’ll come out and put buoys on there for us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crocs, sharks and an Australian cricket legend have all spent the past week battling to catch a barra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,373260,373261,373259,373263,347526,740,238469,373264,124999,1098,373262,347523,85],"class_list":["post-792908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barra","tag-barra-2026","tag-barra-classic","tag-barra-nationals","tag-barramundi","tag-cricket","tag-daly-river","tag-daly-river-town","tag-merv-hughes","tag-nt","tag-nt-fishing","tag-nt-fishing-competition","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792908","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=792908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}