ON Sunday, NT local Wayne Leather reeled in a $10k tagged barra and doubled his cash prize to $20k thanks to the “Double the Dough” initiative.
The competition also doubled the donation, donating $2,000 to Million Dollar Fish charity of Wayne’s choice, which was the Darwin Star Ball through the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
Fishing at a secret Adelaide River with his son, the Humpty Doo resident reeled in the 68cm barra and was surprised to see a beaming red tag hanging off his catch. Wayne was kept busy reeling in two more biting barra while his son attempted to read the writing on the red tag. When they realised it was a winning barra, the duo quickly packed up and raced home.
Wayne has signed up for Million Dollar Fish every season since the competition began in 2015 and has fished across the Top End in the hope of pulling in a lucky fish, carefully inspecting every barra he’s ever caught to see if it was sporting a red tag.
“We’re quite lucky actually. It’s hard to believe that it’s happened because we didn’t go there to catch a tagged barra. We hadn’t given up, but you’re getting to the end of the season, and you think the doors are pretty well closed,” says Wayne.
This makes Season 8 the biggest and most successful season to-date, with the largest amount of cash ever won in a season.
Season 8 will run till 31 March 2023, with 81 barra worth $10,000 waiting to be caught and nine barra carrying a tag worth a million dollars. The nine barra remain active all year round for registered Season 8 anglers.
