Kimberley barra channel SNAGABARRA opened his 2026 season the way most Top End wet seasons start — locked down by weather, then unleashed. After more than a month off the water out of Wyndham, the Cambridge Gulf regular finally launched into a runoff system pumping fresh water, mangrove leaves and bait into every creek mouth he could reach.
"Trying to head out to go fishing for 2026 and it's just absolutely pouring," he said in the opening minutes, pinned home by lightning, thunder and a cyclone parked off Wyndham. "Been home for four days and I'm itching to get out. I just can't do it. I have to sit and wait."
The trip doubled as a milestone. "Today marks a very special day," he said as the first cast of 2026 hit the water. "Half a century has come along. All the fishing I've done, I've just been thinking about in the last few days over my lifetime."
The early casts were quiet — clouds, frothy fresh-water foam, a shark on the bottom and a school of small jacks scratching the side scan — until he reached for one of two new pieces of kit. The first was a US-made Tennessee bass lure sent over by a mate, the second a chapstick-style fish scent the host had not used before. Both produced.
"I reckon this would be the first barra on a Tennessee bass lure from BFP," he said when the first fish thumped a small, naturally finished hardbody on the morning dawn. "First buzzer for 2026 on a bass lure. Absolutely smashed it down." He kept a 59 cm fish for dinner and released a string of upper-50s after the bite kicked off.
The scent stick — branded as a fish scent in chapstick form — became the day's running joke. "How good is this? A fish scent in a chapstick. No more getting on your hands, spraying it all in your boat," he said. "It's going to be a game changer."
What dictated almost every move, though, was crocs. The host backed out of two creeks once side scan flagged a half-metre belly slide, then put the drone up to confirm what he was looking at from a safe distance. "It's not a big croc track, but it's really fresh," he said. "That makes me nervous. We're going to reverse out of here."
The drone footage doubles as the video's set-piece. The waterfalls feeding the Cambridge Gulf, dry to a trickle in November, were now full-flow runoff systems. "This particular waterfall I haven't seen flow for many years," he said. "It just comes straight off the escarpment into a little canyon and feeds out to the Gulf." Side-by-side comparisons with dry-season clips show entire rock faces underwater.
Later in the day a foam line and a back-eddie did most of the heavy lifting on smaller fish. He moved up into 38 °C creek water and worked a tactic the channel's audience will know — find the cooler back-eddie, sit on it, and cast soft plastics on a Dirty Tackle weedless six-of-an-ounce jig head. "I'm thinking, where are the barra got to go? Surely they have to move into cooler water," he said. "That paid off."
He finished the day on Rip-y Rouser surface lures from Jabiru Tackle Australia. "Rip-y rouser time. This has got to do it," he said as another mid-50s fish committed. "Bar after barra around about a 57 cm bar." One more 60 cm fish on the foam line capped the session before the next storm front pushed in over Wyndham.
The SNAGABARRA verdict on the 2026 wet season is the kind of report Cambridge Gulf and Kimberley anglers will want to read. "Everything's just pumping. Absolutely pumping everywhere I've been so far," he said. "It's just a matter of timing which creek is going to go first and then just keep moving through."