There is a place in Australia, within a day's travel of Sydney, that is so remote it not only removes you from civilisation but seems to transport you back in time...Arnhem Land. Tim Simpson takes us there.

The top right corner of the Northern Territory was given to the Aborigines as a reserve in 1920 and few people have been lucky enough to see it since. To gain access you must first apply to the Aboriginal elders of the land council for a permit. Sightseeing is usually not considered a good enough reason and entering without a permit can cost $2000 per person.

The easiest way to get into Arnhem Land and, certainly for a fisherman the most successful, is to go with a professional guide. There are three fishing guides that regularly work the area and they have pre-organised permits with the elders to take their clients for the season. It's simply a matter of booking the trip and off you go. Bryan Lynch, Rod Cockburn and I all run fishing tackle businesses; we had often talked about a trip into prime barra country to thrash test a heap of new rods, reels, lures and accessories that had come onto the market.

The guide we chose was Les Woodbridge. Les retired from working the drilling rigs of Arnhem Land and the Territory nine years ago but, bored with the quiet life, decided to embark on a new career following his favourite pastime - fishing.

It wasn't long before he gained a reputation as one of the best. After all, he comes from a good stable; his uncle is Laurie Woodbridge, the legendary marlin skipper from Cairns. Chris and the other Arnhem Land guides usually wait until the gravel road from Darwin has dried after the wet season before driving the 512km with their boat and clients.

It is often May before the road is passable and the rugged drive takes a day. We decided to pay the extra and fly in. This enabled us to fish the last week of March, right at the tail end of the wet. It was nearly a month earlier than the region had ever been fished before and Les was keen to do some exploring while the remnants of the wet season were still spilling from the flood plains.

As Les was flying in with us, he arranged in the weeks prior to our trip to have his 4WD and trailered boat shipped in by the coastal trading barge to Maningrida. This is a small Aboriginal settlement with an airstrip, carved from the bush at the mouth of the Liverpool River in the heart of Arnhem Land. Only 50km to the west was the entrance to the Goomadeer River.

This was our goal. Here the barge had delivered a 7m shipping container and dragged it up the beach with the ship's tractor. Inside were tents, a portable generator, fridges, freezer, fans, lights, tables, chairs, real beds and all the comforts of home - well, some anyway! After an overnight stay in Darwin we took the morning Air North flight to Maningrida and stepped off the plane at 11am. Chris picked up his 4WD and boat and delivered us to the ramp at the mouth of the Liverpool.

The boat was a new 7m Southwind centre console longboat, customised to withstand the rigours of tropical mangrove creeks. While Chris drove back up the red dirt road to park the vehicle in a security compound we nervously waited at the water's edge, tethering the boat and surveying the surface for mysteriously mobile logs.

The trip down the coast west of Maningrida was on a sea of brown/green glass ruffled only by the occasional swirl or the flicker of a small bait school. Dry, scrubby vegetation and eucalypts ranged down to the perimeter of the storm-etched sandstone at the water's edge. It reminded me strongly of Sydney's Hawkesbury River National Park. I couldn't help thinking that this must have been just what Captain Cook saw when he sailed into Botany Bay two centuries ago.

At 1.30pm we rounded the tidal flats at the entrance to the Goomadeer and there, sitting astride a dune at the far end of the shallows,. was the campsite. Behind it was scrub and beside it, running back up the river bank as far as we could see, was a thick fringe of mangroves. Chris nosed up to the beach and we stepped ashore. The crunch of our footsteps was not from sand but shells. The whole beach, in fact the whole dune, was entirely composed of countless millions of tiny shells.

Opposite the flats at the mouth of the Goomadeer is a creek junction. The entrance is perhaps 60m across with a shelving banlk of shell grit on one side and a mangrove barrier on the other. Being at the ocean end of the system, it was a prime location for giant sea-going barra.

With two hours of light left in the day, it was here we began our search. For the fish to turn on and actively feed, the junction, like any other tidal waterway, needed a tide change. When the waterflow reverses just after a high, the front of dirty creek water contrasts sharply with the clearer river water that has sucked in from the sea. This colour change is where the action is. Mullet, herring, prawns and other bait bunch up on the leading edge of the flush and the predators are there to meet them.It doesn't last long.

Once the two bodies of water diffuse into each other and the colour distinction is gone, the frenzy is over. We missed it, but only just. As we pulled up in the opening there were still little pockets of clear water in the small swirling eddies hugging the outside tips of the entrance.

Cast. Cast. Cast. Whack! Rod hooked up and a barra of two kilos took to the air. It Lunged against the rod, but his tackle was strong and soon, overpowered the little jumper. He hoisted it from the water and admired it briefly before removing the hooks and setting it free. Cast. Cast. Kev hooked up and another bronzed fish cartwheeled through the air as taut superlbraid pulled it over backwards. Another couple of jumps and it also found itself boatside for a quick release.

Meanwhile, Rod had hooked up again. Before this one could be jiggled from the lure, Kev hooted as another fish slammed his. Cast. Cast. Cast. Nothing! I twitched my lure, varied the retrieve, changed lures and probed all corners of the eddy but nothing played ball. About then, a mighty crash 30m up the creek spun all of our heads as one.

There, high and dry up the mud bank, was a black jewfish of at least 10kg that had obviously chased a mullet with a little too much enthusiasm. It writhed, slapped, flopped and wriggled and eventually plopped back into the water and disappeared. We stood there open-mouthed, dumbfounded. Snap! Kev hooked up and broke off just as quickly. With a quizzical look, he pulled a metre of line from his reel to check the drag. It seemed fine. Still puzzled, he took a seat and reached underneath for his tackle box.

We each had two or three outfits rigged and ready to go as spares. Of course, in our haste to get on the water, they were still back at the camp. Cast. Cast. Cast. Yahoo! A barra mercifully snatched my lure. Bronze gold flashed from its side as I slid it from the murky water beside the hull. Kev fired off another cast and watched in amazement as the Boof Bait sailed off into the distance. The frazzled end of super braid dangled limply from the level wind of his Calcutta. There was no backlash and no sudden jerk. The line just parted. More rigging.

Sunset was approaching quickly but we still found time to trick a few more fish and watch Kev lose another lure. Chris was adamant about being home before dark. The thought of having to beach the boat and unload at night was a path he chose not to pursue. The Lizards grow big and play for keeps.

We scooted back, transferred the gear and cracked the lid of a frosty can all before the last of the flow had faded to black. Chris delved into the fridge and extracted a large tub of chilled king prawns to help the beers on their way. While he prepared dinner in the adjoining galley tent, we sat back to review the day and make plans for the morning.

The high percentage of dark fish suggested to Chris that large numbers of barra had recently entered the river from the swamps beyond. That meant the upper reaches were still swollen with run off from the wet. On the other hand, the river mouth waters were much dirtier than normal and Chris felt that the large salty barra wouldn't make much of an appearance until it cleared. The decision was made.

In the morning we would blast upriver with the high tide, explore the furthest reaches then fish our way back with the ebb tide spilling water from the gutters and feeder creeks. Strategy decided, we turned our attention to tackle. All of us were using baitcasters. Their accuracy and control made that choice easy. The ability to land a lure within centimetres of a target is of paramount importance to cover ambush feeders like barra.

What did vary was the style of outfit. Rod and Kev chose regular "Top End" rigs, typically a 6kg rod but spooled with heavier super braid. My main outfit was a short, fast tapered elephant gun with a short double-handed butt. The reel was a Calcutta 400 loaded with 15kg. Spiderwire. It was a little more awkward to cast but my strategy was simple; sooner or later, among all the small fish, something would grab hold that dwarfed all the others into insignificance. When it did I wanted to be ready.

Kev had battled with his frustrating line problems all afternoon so now that he had the opportunity, his first priority was to strip off the old line and replace it with new. The reel had taken some hard work on another trip a few months previously and as we were all to suspect by the end of the week, superbraids seems to fatigue with heavy use even when, externally, they appear to be undamaged.

Even so, we all chose the new high tech lines for several very good reasons. Firstly, the incredible thinness of the line enables the lure to swim with a much stronger action. Also, it gives the lures a much greater diving depth because the thinner diameter has less water resistance and therefore the lure has less drag holding it back. There is also the option to go to a much heavier breaking strain and still being thinner than the original strength in nylon. The Line has more feel as well. With no stretch to absorb and dampen messages, the direct link with fish or lure transmits every little vibration.

This helped because we knew instantly if the line or lure was rubbing across the bottom or snag, and if a fish hit but missed the hooks we could try something to invoke a second attack. Leaders were another tricky question. Perhaps you only need a metre or so of heavy nylon for most barra, but a longer trace sure makes life easier.

If you cast lures into mangrove roots, bushes and trees as often as we do, the longer the leader that you can get hold of, the less you have to crawl in there to get your lure back! A leader that you can wind onto the reel or at least get hold of makes it a lot easier to control and handle the fish boatside.

I chose 27kg pink Ande. Its hard abrasion resistant formula proved itself well against the chafing and cutting of branlches and barra heads. The difficult part was how to get the leader knot through the reel's levelwind. They simply aren't made for line that thick, let alone the triple thickness formed by most knots. The other guys resigned to use a trace stretching from in front of the levelwind to a quarter metre of overhang at the rod tip.

I persevered, fiddling aroung with various knots anld eventually came up with a system that worked. First I tied a short Bimini double, looping the braid aroung my foot. This is very easy and strong if you use 30 turns and pull it up tightly. More importantly, using the two strands to tie on your leader gives you a full strength connection whereas most knots is super braid are notoriously weak. Then, I had to find a knot that only doubled the thickness of the leader mono rather than tripling it.

The obvious knot was an Albright and with this knot the tag end is parallel with the leader so it shouldn't catch on the levelwind, guides or your thumb when casting. To make sure, I bound a short whipping of dental floss over the tag and then coated the whole join with a smear of Goodyear's Pliobond.

The rig was fiddly and time consuming but with 15kg Spiderwire at full strength, coupled to a 4m trace, I had enough horsepower to tackle anything the river was gracious enough to send my way. The next item for attention was the lure box.

The jaws of barramundi have incredibly powerful flexing muscles that are quite capable of bending and breaking normal fish hooks if two or more trebles lock onto the mouth. Add to this the grunt that a powerful outfit can exert and you will soon see why the hooks and rings of most lures need upgrading We replaced nearly all of ours with a larger size or a heavier gauge or both. Then we squashed the barbs down and filed all lthe hooks to a menacing point.

Barbless hooks certainly increase the chance of a lure being thrown but in all the fish we were to catch in the next five days few shook free unless it was intentional. In remote areas, and especially when in conjunction with wild jumping fish or frequently brush-snagged lures, it simply isn't worth the risk of wearing a hook that can't be easily extracted.

Two hours after dinner Kev and Rod were ready to call it a day. We packed up the pliers, files and a battalion of battle ready barra fodder and they headed off for bed. I was still buzzing with excitement so I joined Chris for a nightcap and then a reconnaissance stroll along the sand spit. It was low tide when we had returned to camp at dusk but now the tide had peaked the expansive mud flat was gone. Chris swept the ridge with the beam of his torch and there, not 30m away, were the amber glowing eyes of a crocodile.

It was not long after that when I turned in myself. As I lay exuberant on the bed, I stared through the wall of mosquito mesh to the darkness beyond and listened as the knee high waves slapped down at the beach.

Concentrating past the muffled roar of my companions and the crash of the shore break there was another sound vaguely discernible. It wasn't the boisterous exercises of our friend we had seen on the ridge, but rather the subtle boofing of barramundi feeding at the water's edge. I drifted into sleep dreaming of dinosaurs and silvery fish.

We were up before the sun. Loose items of gear were gathered in the pre-dawn light and assembled outside the dining tent. A cup of tea, a bowl of cereal and we were nearly ready. Kev's bush dunny was truly a room with a view. Secluded around the back of the campsite beside the opposite beach, the open air throne was the best seat in the house to watch the colourful birth of a new day. Just remember the Aeroguard before exposing any tender bits! As the sun cleared the horizon we loaded the boat and powered up the river with the tide.

Dense walls of lush green mangroves hemmed us in on all sides as we wound a serpentine course through the labyrinth of channels and feeder creeks. If you asked what the scenery was like I would have to tell you that if you like mangroves you would love it! The tide was still flooding in as we approached the upper reaches. This usually means that the deeply veed gutters cut in the mudbanks and mangroves are shut down until the tide turns and begins flushing the bait creatures out.

This time Kev checked them all . Every crack in the bank was carefully inspected before speeding off to look for the next. Eventually Kev found what he was looking for. Sure enough, as we peered over the bow at a little gutter running back into the tangled branches, the water at its entrance fanned out in a stain of a slightly different shade. "That's runoff pushing out past the tide," he said, "it might be worth a cast or two." Three lures arced out simultaneously and splashed down in a 2m circle. Our accuracy was still a little rusty and not in the same league as some of the spectacular shots we had pulled off by the end of the week, 10,000 casts later.

Still, we were in the gutter and on this occasion at least, that was good enough. Within 20 turns of the handles, three fish were sailing skyward. They were small and dark. The biggest stretched to perhaps 2kg and on the brutal tackle they were quickly cranked in like tailor to a southern rock fisherman. But it was fun! The pretty fish with their broad black tails were shaken free or jumped off on slack line beside the boat and the lures redeployed on another mission.

In half an hour we'd caught over a dozen barra before the word got out and the bite shut down. We moved on then paused for a can of Coke and a crisp apple from the chiller. The tide was turning and it was time to get serious. Most of the drains on the way back produced fish. Some produced several. But the one that had fired on the way up really turned it on. Fish after fish after fish. If a lure made it back to the boat without getting slammed something was wrong! We caught them on fly, we caught them on divers. Some even crashed lures as they hit the water: we didn't even have the reel in gear!

When the action finally died we pulled into the bank and tied up snugly beside a stank of mangroves. There we devoured lunch and fed tidbits to the plate-sized mangrove crabs in their fortress of roots only a metre away. We stretched out and lapped up the soothing shade of the trees while Kev picked up an outfit and had his first cast for the day. "He'll be lucky," I thought. We'd just flogged the gutter to foam and hadn't had a strike in 30 casts.

"Zip!" Line ripped from the little baitcaster as the tip pulled down hard. After a magnificent fight the 3kg fish was led alongside and gently released. Kev's second cast produced a catfish. His third was nipped all the way back to the boat by a metre long whaler shark. The fourth, fifth and sixth casts scored barra. He tried not to smile, but something was going on an we knew it. "It's all in the jiggle," he said. Puzzled, we pressed him for more details.

We had all been imparting a jerky, nervous action to our lures but it seemed it just wasn't quite the trick. The secret., as we were to learn, was to quickly crank the lure down to an effective depth, say 2m, then stop the retrieve and slam the lure through the water with violent half metre snaps of the rod tip. With a vertical diving lure of the right buoyancy, its action took on a plunging shimmy of 50cm followed by a pause during which it would float up and back out perhaps a third of the distance it had just swum forward.

By repeating these snaps and using the reel only for taking up the slack, the lure remained in the critical strike zone much longer and took on the action of not just a frightened or injured baitfish but one that was fatally crippled. It was too much to resist and they usually hit as the lure backed out toward them. The side effect of the technique was an aching wrist wrist then relief was always sweet as another fish barrelled your lure. As we tried the procedure in the hours that followed, our strike rate soared.

We had learned a serious lesson. We fished our way back to camp. By sunset, we'd caught more than 50 barra, two blue-nosed salmon, tarpon, archerfish, catfish and nine mangrove jack . The two we kept for dinner were filleted at the beach and slipped into the fridge. The next morning, rather than cover the same water we had fished the day before we travelled down the coast to the next opening and spent the day prospecting Nungbalgarri Creek. It was more of the same. Barra after barra sprinkled with just enough other species to make it interesting. We caught them on fly, on divers, on rattlers and even on poppers.

The following day we did it again at Wurugoij Creek. Chris even caught a three kilo tarpon. Day five was my birthday and what a beauty it was. We were back in the Goomadeer and the river was its clearest yet. Early in the day Rod had a barra almost eaten out of his hands. He had just released the fish when a whaler shark big enough to scare a croc materialised beside the hull and snaffled it in a shower of scales. Later, right up stream in the fresh we found a large fallen tree blocking the rivers flow along one side. The eddy had trapped a blanket of leaves that swirled beside the main trunk. It looked just too fishy to ignore.

The main branches were in deep water so I changed outfits to an ultralight bass rig armed with a sinking rattler. The first cast plopped down beside the trunk. I fed it line to sink the lure but when the slack accelerated and dipped its bed of leaves I engaged the reel and struck. A pretty, two kilo barra leapt through the leaves, bounced off the trunk and crashed into the tangled sticks at the end of a branch. With the light braid I was able to steer it out and before it knew what was going on it was freed and off. My next seven casts caught seven more barra.

By then the other guys had changed lures and were also hooked up. For a while it seemed we had tapped the mother lode but as always, before along the word got out and the frenzy shut down. Later that afternoon we were back at the river mouth fishing the junction opposite the campsite. There was a different feel to it this time. The tide had peaked. Warm, green water with an emerald clarity that promised raiders from the salt, spilled into the junction. Up the creek a brown barrage of mangrove water massed up, preparing for its assault on the river. There was an electricity in the air.

Gone were the bass outfits and Chronarchs we had played with in the headwaters. These were the conditions we had waited for. Our big guns were poised and ready in sweaty hands that twitched excitedly in anticipation of serious action. It wasn't far away. As the tide tipped over, the creek water began its march. Minutes later the foam-lined, rippling edge was within range.

Three 15cm deep-divers flew simultaneously and plopped down 5cm into the dark side of the border. We plunged them down with a quick burst on the handles then cupped the reel in the palm of our hands and began the savage twitching that our mentor had taught us. I don't remember who hooked up first, only that within a couple of casts there was a frenzy going on. Rods slammed down left and right. Fish jumped out right and left. And lures whizzed in all directions.

Kev by now was also getting an itchy casting thumb so we invited him to have a throw. His third cast didn't make it 10cm from touchdown before it was smacked into a dead stop. Three trebles somehow missed their mark and the fish was gone. It was just a strike and it was over in a second, but the jolt that Kev felt was enough to sit him on his bum in a mumbling quivering mess for the rest of the afternoon shaking his head.

I don't know what it was exactly that he felt or how he could determine its size but for a guide who sees barra as long as your leg almost weekly to be so shaken it must have been one very exceptional fish. Chris's lure got eaten next. Then mine. Then Rod's. Then round we went again. It wasn't a fish every cast but the action was hot. These fish were different. Not the dark fish of the previous days but huge, slab-sided chrome beauties. Six,seven,ten kilo fish danced all around the boat. It was what we had dreamed of for months.

In a situation like this there is always the very real possibility of an exceptional fish, the kind you see sprawled across the covers of fishing magazines. Rod's number came up first. The fish tore out of the junction and was still running hard 100m into the main river. His little rod was bent flat. We had no option but to fire up the engine and give chase. It slugged, bumped, rattled and jumped but the hooks held and the drag wore it down. Rod had his prize. To the whirr and flash of an eager camera, it was dragged aboard. What a fish! Twelve kilos of glittering silver barramundi lay panting, cradled in the beaming angler's arms while we captured the moment. Rod slipped it back into the water and swished it back an forth to revive it then helped it on its way.

Meanwhile, back at the junction, the edge had intruded into the main river. There wasn't much time left. Chris coaxed out a beautiful pair of barra, one of which, an eight kilo fish, had inhaled the lure so far down we were forced to keep it for dinner. Then, I pulled the jackpot. Finally, the fish I had waiting for, the fish that justified the outfit I had persevered with engulfed my lure and made off on a barnstorming run. Eventually it slowed and I regained most of the line. We found ourselves beside the mudflats of the far side of the river. The fish had changed into a strong, thumping, relentless force. That's a big tail beat I thought, hanging on and hoping like mad that the hooks held. It hadn't jumped, but then Rod's fish hardly made an appearance either so discussion ranged between another big barra to the possibility of something odd like a shark. I had a suspicion what it might be but as the chances were pretty slim I dare not put too much faith in it until its golden gleam slid into view and Kev swept it into his net. A black jewfish, and at 15kg it was a gift wrapped in scales. We were ecstatic. What a way to end a fabulous day.

The next day was our last on the river and after the evening before you can guess where we started the morning. It was an anticlimax. At the bottom of the tide we caught barra and I scored a giant herring but the big fish were absent. Late afternoon was the high tide change. We were there and waiting when the stain marched down. We caught fish all right, and some decent ones too, but compared to the day before it was very slow.

This was our last session and with the anticipation we'd built up all day we were feeling a little anxious. But good things come to those that wait and sure enough as the sunlight dimmed Chris latched onto the fish of the trip. It was a huge barra, perhaps a metre and a half and more than 20kg in weight. The jump was a long low broach almost as though its bulk was too much to throw around like the wild gyrations of lesser fish. No matter. It had done the job. As the fish splashed down the lure pulled free and the line went slack. It was over. Chris's utter despair permeated the air.

We could only sympathise with the heavy, sick feeling he must have felt in the pit of his stomach. Rod changed the mood with a holler from the bow of the boat. His light rod was once more bent flat and the way line poured from his little reel he was in danger of being spooled. Chris and I quickly wound in, Kev kicked over the outboard and the chase was on. Straight up river it powered. The line reached out in a flat angle that didn't touch the water for 200m. Then we saw the tree. It was the only tree that had fallen into the river for kilometres but the fish had set a b-line for it the moment it left the creek. The end was obvious even before the line parted but it made a dramatic end to the day and we couldn't help but be happy.

To the east the sky grew heavy with night. With the last of the sunset to guide our path, we headed for home. It had been a fabulous trip. In five and a half days we had caught nearly 300 barramundi and a hundred mangrove allsorts. The next day, as we flew off into a similar sunset, I gazed out, mind detached and drifted into the intense colours. I was planning a return trip.

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