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Vale: Barra legend Col Cordingley

LEGENDARY Top End barra fisherman Col Cordingley has died at the age of 74.

Cordingley was acknowledged as one of the best anglers in the Northern Territory and a barramundi and Daly River expert.

Cordingley regularly featured in the fishing media and is largely recognised for influencing the way many anglers fished for the Top End’s iconic barra. He has also been credited with starting the modern trend toward larger and faster customised boats in the Northern Territory.

Cordingley enjoyed success in high-profile fishing tournaments such as the Barra Classic, Barra Nationals and the Kakadu Barra Klash, either winning or placing in the major tournaments from 1982 to 2009.

He was past President and Life Member of The Darwin Game Fishing Club, and enjoyed a long association with the Amateur Fisherman’s Association of the NT inc.

According to Alex Julius of Darwin-based NAFA Publications, Cordingley was “a great angler, a great Territorian, and just a great bloke.”

“Very sad news to learn my great old mate, Col Cordingley, passed away this morning. The Maestro of the Daly, as I often called him, Cords loved that river like it was his own … and in many ways it was. Anyone who has fished with Cords, or against him in competition, will tell just what a great angler he was. He has won every major fishing competition in the Top End several times and had that uncanny ability to ‘work it out’ and catch them,” Julius posted today on Facebook.

“Col was renowned for still using wire traces while barra fishing which was the norm up here in the Territory back in the 1970s and early ’80s,” Fisho’s NT Correspondent Peter Zeroni said today.

“Mere mortals then switched over to using heavy mono as leaders as they feared that wire might affect the swimming action of lures and be too visible thus putting fish off from striking. No such problem for Col as for decade after decade he continued to catch more big barra than anyone else down the Daly. It was not only the traces that Col had totally wired!”

“A big legacy Col leaves behind is that huge fish on the Daly River can now breathe easier knowing that Col will no longer have his lure in the water.”

The staff of Fishing World wish to express their sympathies to the Cordingley family for their loss.

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