Saturday, 21st July, 2012 saw the staging of the second annual Barra, Bass and Bream Digest Harbourmasters’ Invitational on the waters of Darwin Harbour. In stark contrast to last year’s event, a cool, windy dawn greeted the 41 keen competitors who made up 21 teams taking part in this year’s BBBDHI, and the stiff sou’ easter continued to build throughout the morning, peaking at close to 30 knots before subsiding a little in the early afternoon. The aim of this unique one-day tournament is straightforward enough: go out and catch as many barra and bream as you possibly can on cast-and-retrieved lures or flies (trolling, bait fishing and berleying are not allowed). However, where it gets really interesting — and very different to any other Top End fishing competition — is in the final scoring process. Only the combined lengths of the longest barra and the longest bream taken by each team actually count towards their final points’ tally. And, critically, one species doesn’t rate without the other. In other words, you could theoretically land a metre-long barramundi (a monster by Darwin Harbour standards), yet still score zero points, simply because you’d failed to catch and record a bream! Unique concept My wife (and fellow writer/presenter) Jo and I devised this unusual event in an effort to effectively force Top End anglers into thinking a little more seriously about the vast schools of bream that frequent our waters, especially during the cooler months of the Dry Season. In the past, most Top End fishos have been quite dismissive about bream and bream fishing. Yet, with my southern background and years of competing on the bream tournament circuit, I know just how challenging these little buggers can be to catch! I wanted a way of sharing that challenge...