Get A Mullet Up Ya

Introducing the snapping handbag

THIS IS A book about fishing. This is a book about the Territory. So how could I possibly get underway in any other way than to talk about crocs?

When you think of the Territory, you think of crocs. It’s an instant and unavoidable mental association. Territorians simultaneously celebrate, venerate, demonise and most of all, commercialise, our large, leathery mascots. We have croc slippers, croc hats, croc oven mitts — even T-shirts supposedly ripped and bloodied in a croc attack.

There is a croc aquarium complex in the tourist strip of Mitchell Street where you can swim with crocs in the ‘Cage of Death!’. There is a dedicated croc park on the outskirts of town that also boasts a smattering of other exotic animals, presumably only to act as food stock for the main attraction because, let’s face it, who wants to see any other animal in the Top End?

There is bitter competition between ‘Jumping Crocs’ cruise tour rivals on the nearby Adelaide River where the stars of the show are encouraged to leap vertically out of the water (well over the gunwale height of any fishing boat) and grab a snack of manky, old battery hen from the end of a raised stick.

Our local newspaper headlines any story with a tenuous link to crocs and every Top End tourism brochure has a croc lurking menacingly somewhere on the margin. Wildlife-park staff nurse baby crocs with taped snouts in the mall during the dry season, allowing tourists to avail themselves of a five-buck cuddle and photo opportunity. Many of our roadside signs carry croc caricatures and the Northern Territory government even took out croc insurance for President Obama when he visited the Top End.

We are fair dinkum croc crazy! It used to be said that Australia rode on the sheep’s back — well I reckon it would be fair enough to say that the Top End is carried on the back of the salty.

Before we go on, a bit of biological clarification is required. When we talk about crocs in the Top End, it is generally accepted we are referring to the mighty Crocodylus porosus — the saltwater or estuarine crocodile — not their smaller, more reserved cousin, the freshy or Crocodylus johnsoni.

The freshy has a narrower snout and doesn’t grow anywhere near as big as the salty. Consequently, they have a much lower media profile.

Apart from size, the main difference between them is their temperament. A freshy may give you a nasty self-defensive chomp on the leg if it feels threatened, but a salty will tear your whole leg off at the hip for no particular reason at all.

The croc is an evolutionary masterpiece; a patient, stealthy, awesomely powerful predator that deserves its unchallenged position at the pinnacle of the Territory food chain.

It is the largest living reptile on the planet; growing to a size of over 6 m in length and 1000 kg in weight. It has the ability to approach a fully grown buffalo totally undetected, explode out of the water, grab it by the snout and drag it to its watery demise. Its immensely powerful jaws can easily crush the luckless bovine’s skull.

Curiously enough, this devastating power is only available when closing, not opening its jaws. Just a few loops of duct tape will quite successfully clamp even a fairly sizeable salty’s jaws shut. Putting yourself in a position to apply the duct tape, however, provides its own set of unique challenges.

Crocs are increasing in both number and size, and most worryingly, seem to be losing their wariness of human beings. This is quite understandable given today’s real big boppers were only young ’uns when croc shooting was stopped in the early ’70s. This is becoming a bit of a concern, particularly during mating season when things can get a bit hairy in the handbag world. During this time, the big, dominant males stake out their territory and see off numerous challenges from toey young bucks full of ticker and testosterone, looking to make a claim on the old fella’s turf and womenfolk.

Speaking of the fairer sex, they are no slouches in the kill, maim and mutilate department themselves. Maternal aggression is also running at peak level during this time as they vigorously guard nesting sites. Their maternal instinct is strangely short-lived though. Once the hatchlings burst out of the egg and make their way to water, Mum couldn’t care less what happens to them: ‘You’re on your own, you little buggers, don’t expect me to hang around to kill and dismember for you!’

The number of big salties is definitely on the rise. The number of boats and fishos, many of whom are new to the Territory and croc-survival etiquette, is also increasing. Put these two population explosions into close proximity on the same waterways and there are bound to be incidents.

As I mentioned croc shooting stopped in the early ’70s, legally, that is. Old timers will tell you stories about having bush picnics and letting the kids swim about in places like Yellow Water and the Daly. Generally, there’d be someone keeping half an eye on proceedings with a .303 close at hand, but big crocs had pretty much been shot out of popular waterholes by that time. Those that were around were painfully aware of the association between the two-legged monkeys carrying a big stick that goes bang and Mummy and Daddy going belly up in the billabong in a spreading plume of blood.

Those days are long gone. Crocs are certainly not in any peril of dying out these days, as far as I can see. The old adage that even if you can’t see the croc, rest assured he can see you, is an invaluable aide-memoire in avoiding the famed ‘death roll’ from the punter’s perspective.

It can be astounding just how many crocs a relatively small waterway can host. A cautious walk down to the water’s edge at night can prove this beyond doubt. Cast around the waterline with a powerful torch or spotty from a safe distance back and you will often see many sets of red eyes reflected back at you; positive confirmation of a handbag’s position.

Strangely enough, I feel safer hanging around the water’s edge in pitch-black conditions than I do in broad daylight due to this very fact. If you looked around in daylight hours, you would probably be lucky to spot 50 per cent of the crocs that have you locked firmly in their sights.

Fishos are the folk most likely to come into close contact with ‘snapping handbags’ on a regular basis. This should come as no great surprise as the places we like to go to chase barramundi are pretty popular with our leathery friends for precisely the same reason. The safest way to go about fishing and boating in these parts is to always assume that crocs are present and act accordingly.

Very early on in my time in the Territory, a mate took me fishing at Corroboree Billabong. While he was rigging the tinny to launch, I was stuffing around doing nothing in particular down by the water’s edge. My mate came up behind me and clipped me quite heavily over the ear. He locked me in his stern gaze and growled in a very serious tone, ‘NEVER turn your back on the boat ramp.’

I remember the incident very clearly to this day, and in turn, pass on these valuable words of advice to Territory newcomers myself. I also clearly remember what he said next: ‘Now get me a beer, dickhead.’

I personally believe in affording crocs the respect they deserve as creatures that can crush my flimsy aluminium craft, drag me to a violent, watery death and then store my bloodied corpse under a submerged log until I am sufficiently tenderised, whereupon they will tear me apart with a minimum of fuss and consume me appreciatively at their leisure.

Crocs are a fact of life — and death — in the Territory. We, as fishos, are constantly confronted by them. There are a considerable number of ‘Tales from The Tinny’ that could more accurately be defined as ‘Tales about the handbag’. Here’s one to get the ball rolling …

Crocs! (Kane)

KANE PELL IS a fisho from Girraween, a rural area about 40 km south of Darwin. Situated near the intersection of the Stuart and Arnhem highways, and a stone’s throw away from Humpty Doo, Girraween is perfectly located for ease of access to a number of popular fishing destinations.

Taking the Arnhem Highway option, you will find Corroboree and Hardy’s billabongs, the Adelaide River, Shady Camp and Kakadu. If your tossed coin told you to take the Stuart Highway, you would hit the legendary Daly River, or by turning off Cox Peninsula Road, you could have a crack at Middle Arm of Darwin Harbour, Bynoe Harbour, Dundee Beach and the Finniss River.

We in The Tinny call the intersection of the Stuart and Arnhem highways the vortex of indecision. Hopefully, the roads department will never decide to place a massive big roundabout on this intersection as it would cause traffic chaos. Indecisive fishos driving onto the roundabout with boat in tow would proceed to loop mindlessly around and around and around, unable to fully commit to just one of the multiple, enticing options on offer.

The traditional wet season run-off was in full swing, and the Adelaide River was uppermost in Kane’s thoughts one Sunday in March. He reckoned the conditions for the feeder creeks upstream on the Adelaide would be cherry ripe for a short, sharp, frenzied session of run-off barra madness.

Kane’s old man, Graham, was in town at the time and was always keen to be ‘Gilligan’. They fuelled up, iced up, tackled up and hit the road for the short journey along the Arnhem Highway to their chosen destination.

To set the scene, the boat ramp on the Adelaide is situated next to the bridge where the Arnhem Highway crosses on its way to Kakadu. From here, it is about 150 km of snaking estuary to the river mouth when traversed by tinny, or about 80 km as the brolga flies. Still tidal at this point and — like most Top End rivers — riddled with crocs, the Adelaide nevertheless rates a special mention in this regard.

The bridge section of the Adelaide River is also home to a pair of competing ‘Jumping Crocs’ cruise tour operators. As the name suggests, these boats take tourists up the river and entice the star attraction to leap out of the water by dangling a chunk of old battery hen from a string on the end of a 10-foot pole.

The strobing of flashes and the staccato of electronic shutter noises is accompanied by oohs and aahs of awe, wonderment — and barely restrained fear — as the leathery leviathans launch from the murky depths on cue. They propel themselves out of the water with such force that often only their tails remain submerged.

Competition between the two operators is cut-throat. The pole operators endeavour to give the punters the most spectacular show — and the highest leaps possible. The bait is dangled tantalisingly out of reach to encourage the crocs to greater efforts, before finally allowing the leaping lizard to claim their reward — a chunk of well-past-its-use-by-date battery hen.

Some of these acrobatic big boys are in the 14–15 foot range so there is often 8–10 feet of ‘handbag’ projecting vertically from the brackish waters of the Adelaide. Kane’s tinny — and many like it that ply Top End waterways chasing barra — is 3.85 m long or not quite 13 feet long (3.85 m in the new measure). It has freeboard (the amount of hull above the water) of about 8–10 inches.

I’ll just pause here briefly to let you assimilate those comparative dimensions … and then return to our yarn.

Kane and Graham launched at the bridge and headed towards Marrakai Creek, only a few kilometres upstream from the ramp on the left. Kane’s thinking was that if the still-present monsoonal storms decided to belt them, they could be back at the ramp in fairly quick time.

Apart from the obvious danger of lightning strike, monsoonal storms can also dump so much rain in a short period of time that it is sometimes a bit of a mission to keep up the rate of bailing required to actually remain afloat.

Upon reaching Marrakai, they pushed the little tinny right up to the back reaches of the creek and towards the floodplains until overhanging branches made further progress impossible.

Conditions looked perfect. There were beautiful colour changes in the water indicating floodplain run-off and lots of bait activity.

Turning the tinny around and cutting the engine, they began drifting back the way they had come. The aim was to flick all the very enticing looking run-offs they had noticed on the way in as they drifted the reverse journey back towards the mouth, propelled by the current.

After negotiating their way back under the last overhanging branch they’d passed under before their progress had been brought to a halt, Kane had barely regained his seat when there was an almighty BANG!

The hull shuddered and rocked. Kane looked to Graham and said, ‘Y’know what that was, don’t ya?’ Graham nodded but said nothing. He had actually seen ‘you know what’ come out of the water to chomp the back end of the tinny and was momentarily lost for words.

Not much discussion or consultation was required though before ‘getting the hell outta there!’ was deemed the most appropriate course of action. Kane scanned around and noticed something large under the water ahead of them, its progress marked by floating grass and foliage forced aside to make way for its passage. It had to be the croc.

Unfortunately, it was heading in the direction that they also needed to travel to make good their exit. Soon they lost the telltale signs of its progress and were totally unaware of the bugger’s location.

There’s only one thing worse than seeing a big croc, and that’s not seeing a big croc. You can always rest assured in Top End rivers that even though you might not be able to see him, it’s a fairly safe assumption he will definitely have an eye on you.

With this thought nagging at the back of his mind, Kane started the motor and tentatively steered the tinny off in the same direction that the croc had gone.

They had not travelled more than 50 m downstream when Kane noticed the water level rising quite sharply inside the boat around their feet. The tinny had carpet down over the bare deck so they couldn’t see exactly where it was coming from, but water was streaming in at a considerable rate.

It was then that the slightly unsettling realisation struck them — they were in a sinking tinny, not far from where a very big and obviously quite aggressive croc had already had one swipe at them.

On the way upstream Kane had noticed an exposed mud bank near a fork in the creek not far away. He quickly put his foot down in an attempt to make it there before the tinny sank. It was about 200 m further on.

They made it without a second to spare: the water inside the hull was level with the bench seats by the time they beached on the very dubious safety of the mud bank, which protruded only an inch or so from the water.

Jumping out of the boat, they instantly sank knee-deep in mud — conditions not exactly conducive to making a run for it should the handbag decide to line up for another crack. Frantically, they ripped the carpet out from the hull and searched for the leak. Directly underneath the rear bench seat — and probably the most inaccessible point of the hull — they found a hole that you could stick three fingers through to the first knuckle.

Kane’s wife Kerry, with all the sensible practicality of the female of the species, had insisted on the inclusion of a first-aid kit aboard the tinny about four years prior. She had been enduring good-natured ribbing from Kane about her over-cautious OH&S tendencies ever since. After all, who needs a first-aid kit when you’ve got beer?

Every sarcastic jibe he had ever uttered in relation to Kerry’s first-aid kit was now being wholeheartedly mentally retracted as the gaping hole in the hull was stuffed with rolled bandages.

With the flow largely stemmed, the boys got back into the tinny and began madly bailing with their Akubra hats. ‘Make damn good buckets them hats,’ Kane told us. ‘And it’s amazing how much water two desperate men can bail!’ Soon, sufficient water had been Akubra-ed out of the tinny that it had regained enough buoyancy to get underway once again.

Kane started the motor and they headed steadily back towards the ramp. Graham was on all fours in the bottom of the boat with his chin perched on the bench seat next to Kane’s date. He held the makeshift bung in place with one arm while continuing to bail with the other. This system seemed to be going OK until Kane rounded a corner and saw another substantial croc of about 3–3.5 m gently slide off the bank and into their path.

In the next few seconds a series of events unfolded in a very rapid rhythmic fashion. ‘Shit!’ said Kane. ‘What?!’ asked Graham. ‘Croc!’ said Kane. The leg