Fishing, Boating and the Water’s Edge

If you fish in crocodile country anywhere in this region, this chapter is for you above all others. In the Top End, fishing is one of the great joys of the north, and the barramundi alone draw people from around the world. But fishers are consistently over-represented in crocodile attacks, and the reasons are entirely about behaviour rather than bad luck. The sport puts a person exactly where a crocodile hunts: at the water’s edge, often alone, often at dawn or dusk, often standing still and focused, sometimes wading, frequently surrounded by the smell of fish. Every box ticked. A keen fisher can do everything else in life sensibly and still walk straight into the one situation a crocodile is built to exploit.

Now widen the lens, because fishing is the thing that kills most across the whole region, and most of it is nothing like sport. From the tin-mine pools of Indonesia to the tidal channels of the Sundarbans to the tank-and-net fishing of Sri Lanka, more people are taken while fishing than doing anything else near this water, and the great majority are fishing because it is dinner or it is a living. The barramundi angler on a Kakadu bank and the man setting a gillnet from a dugout in Kalimantan are doing the same dangerous thing in the same strike zone. What differs is that one of them chose to be there. This chapter is about the strike zone they share.

Why fishing is uniquely dangerous

• It draws you to the edge. The whole activity happens at the margin between land and water, the precise strike zone of an ambush predator.
• It happens in the danger hours. The best fishing is often at dawn and dusk, exactly when crocodiles are most active.
• It involves bait, catch and blood. Fish, bait and the act of cleaning a catch put scent and activity into the water that can draw a crocodile in.
• It rewards stillness and routine. Standing in the same productive spot, returning to the same bank day after day, is good fishing and terrible crocodile safety, because it lets a watching animal learn your pattern.
• It tempts people to wade. Reaching a better cast, landing a fish, or retrieving a lure tempts fishers into the water. This is where many get taken.