The Cambridge Gulf channel SNAGABARRA finally got back on the water for 2026, and the first barra of the new year fell to a bait card most Top End anglers would never reach for — a Tennessee-built bass lure sent over from a mate in the United States.
For more than a month the host had been locked down at home in Wyndham, watching cyclone systems track across the Kimberley. "Trying to head out to go fishing for 2026 and it's just absolutely pouring," he said in the opening scenes. "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 also doubled as a 50th-birthday session. "Today marks a very special day," he said as the boat slid into a local creek. "Half a century has come along." The first half-hour was quiet — fresh-water foam, mangrove leaves, a shark skulking on side scan — until he tied on the unfamiliar US lure and a chapstick-style fish scent he'd received from BFP in the same package.
The combination produced almost immediately. "I reckon this would be the first barra on a Tennessee bass lure from BFP," he said when the morning-dawn pattern got crunched on the surface. "First buzzer for 2026 on a bass lure. Absolutely smashed it down." A 59 cm fish went home for dinner; multiple 55-60 cm fish were released as the bite turned on.
Crocs forced the day's biggest tactical calls. After flagging a half-metre belly slide on a sand bank, the host put the drone up to find the saltie before he committed to the next cast. "It's not a big croc track, but it's really fresh. That makes me nervous," he said. "We're going to reverse out of here." He repeated the move twice more before the day was out.
The Cambridge Gulf waterfalls — barely trickling in the dry — were the visual centrepiece of the trip. The drone footage compares dry-season frames with the same canyons now running flat-out. "This particular waterfall I haven't seen flow for many years," the host said. "It just comes straight off the escarpment into a little canyon and feeds out to the Gulf."
Later in the morning a back-eddie of cooler water held a pocket of fish in 38 °C creeks. "I'm thinking, where are the barra got to go? Surely they have to move into cooler water," he said. "That paid off." A Rip-y Rouser surface lure from Jabiru Tackle Australia closed out the day, accounting for several mid-50s fish before the front rolled back in.
The SNAGABARRA verdict on the early 2026 wet season is upbeat. "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." For Cambridge Gulf and Kimberley anglers planning runs over the coming weeks, the report points to active runoff systems, fresh croc activity and a barra population just starting to school up around cooler back-eddies.