Living on the Real Northern Beaches: When craziness becomes reality.

I've never been much of a fisherman. As a scuba diver, the mere thought of hurting an animal that I consider photogenic, would be ludicrous. However, I am slowly turning my views on fishing and am seeing it good as a social experience and if I can get some dinner, that'd be good too.
Since moving up here, every person I've met has caught a barramundi. These fish, considered by many as one of the best fish to catch, with a lot of charter companies taking tourists to far flung places, by road, boat and even fly in by helicopter. I had to have a go.
So the boys at work were heading to a place after work on Friday called Shady Camp to catch some fish, the tides were good, the moon was full and it was a Friday. We were keen. Except, hang on, isn't shady camp the place where there are a lot of crocs? Maybe going there isn't so clever? Ah bugger it I thought, I wanna go check this place out!
Shady Camp is about 150kms from school, so 170kms from home. The drive in is pretty good, highway all the way bar the last 50kms, and of that about 30km is dirt. The dirt is where the fun begins. Wallabies, cows, water buffalo, lots of animals all like to pretend the road is ok to be on. We got to Shady Camp not long before sunset, so I could have a look and see at the place. Freshwater on the left, saltwater on the right and a barrage in the middle keeping them apart, except at high tides. And fishing was to be done on the barrage. Cool I thought, its light, I can see the crocs.
Some fishing was done, very poorly by me, I am the snag master, and got to learn all about birdsnests and all other stuff which limited me from fishing, and annoying the boys into fixing my stuff. When the water started to run over the barrage the fun began, lots of bait fish, mullet and other fish were all trying to get over the top, to escape whatever was hunting them on their side, except, just as much was on the other side!! Silly fish. The barra got bigger too when the water started to run, with a few legal fish caught. I didn't catch my barra, but I did get a few nibbles, so the fish were there, just wasn't my day.
So crocs at Shady Camp....... well, I now also know why it is reputed that the place has the highest density of crocodiles in the NT. I think we guessed roughly 40-50 different crocs within sight. Just the ones we saw..... The little red eyes when we shone the torches on them was an amazing sight. Apparently the average size of the crocs up there is 4m. Well we saw some small ones, but im sure there were a few who were nudging 5m too. Plenty of other big buggers too. At one stage, one monster on the saltwater side came gliding in towards a group over the other side of the barrage. He was moving wayyy to fast just to be cruising, which sent 4-5 guys moving very very fast. This scared the shit out of me. Why the hell was I fishing at night time (something ive never done), on a bank with lots and lots of crocs around. I came up with one answer. It was fun.... and it is something I will do again.