Mark Berg has built his Fishing Addiction series on giving everyday anglers trips most people will never get to take, and the latest film — shot over five days on Melville Island in the Northern Territory — is one of the more emotional episodes in the catalogue.
The two competition winners are Mick, a Canadian who admits he has never landed a saratoga or a barramundi in his life, and his Aussie host Slug. Both men were briefed in the same lounge-room moment and clearly still couldn't quite believe it. "Many people in the world don't get these chances, let alone more than once that I've had," Mick said as the trip was announced. "It's unbelievable. I'm still blown away, man."
For Berg, those are the moments the show exists for. "I got to tell you guys, it makes me so pumped to get guys like this on the show," he told the camera. "Mick from Canada, he's just a firecracker. He's so excited." The crew flies into Melville Island under a tropical sky and lays out a simple plan: half the trip is freshwater saratoga and barramundi on surface lures, half is bluewater hunting.
Day one was the saratoga education. Berg threw a $500 Wilson gear challenge on the boat — first man with a saratoga over 75 cm wins it — and a wide-eyed Mick worked through dozens of follows, missed strikes and lost fish. "I probably hooked what, 20 that day and I landed maybe half of them," Mick said. "It was humbling, that's for sure. But it was exciting."
The visual surface bite was the draw. "It was so cool to see them come out like that," Mick said. "You'd cast to a fallen tree and you kind of bring your bait away, and all of a sudden this creature comes flying out from under this dead tree." The takes are violent, and the rejection rate is brutal — saratoga have a famously bony mouth. "It's like your heart kind of skips a couple beats and then it stops for a second and then it starts again when you hook up," Mick said.
Slug, more of a bait fisherman at home, found the constant lure-flicking tougher than expected. "That's like, I say, it's completely different for me. Like I do some luring at home, flicking lures, but by no means that much," he said. "It's hard work right across your body. If you're straight on, you're only going straight up and you can't go any further than that." The pay-off, he said, was worth it. "It's rewarding when you catch something, and especially this sort of trip because it's all new. It's hard work, but it still is relaxing."
Quality, not size, eventually broke the curse. Mick landed his first saratoga at 67 cm — short of the cheque, but a fish he is unlikely to forget. "Welcome to Australia, my friend," Berg said as the GoPro panned across it. "Look at that color. Look at that fish."
Berg ended day one back at the Melville Island lodge with the AFL Grand Final on the TV and the Brisbane Lions getting up. "What more could you ask for? Pretty sensational," he said. "We've still got four more days of fishing in this incredible place. And who knows what tomorrow's got in store for us. Hopefully we can find the boys a nice big barra."
Day two reset the brief with another Wilson challenge: $500 worth of gear if anyone on the boat catches a jewfish, a mangrove jack and a barramundi — the famous Top End trifecta. For Mick and Slug, neither of whom had ever held a barramundi, even one of the three would have been a career fish.