Cash-strapped teenager catches million-dollar fish

ITS delicious white flesh makes it one of Australia’s most prized fish species, but a barramundi caught by a teenager in the country’s tropical north came with an added bonus: a cash prize of a million Australian dollars (£520,000).

Landing the 2ft-long fish promises to be life-changing for Keegan Payne, 19. The teenager, one of eight children in an Aboriginal family that has struggled to make ends meet, was out fishing on the Katherine River with friends and his little sister on Sunday when he snagged the “barra”, which had been tagged as part of a popular fishing competition.

The Million Dollar Fish contest was launched in 2015 with the aim of luring fishing enthusiasts to the creeks, rivers and estuaries of the Top End, as the Northern Territory is nicknamed, during the wet season, a time of thunderstorms, torrential rain and cloying humidity. The prize money is paid out by Sportsbet, a sports gambling firm.

Each year, barramundi are tagged, with different tags commanding different amounts of money. Mr Payne landed the jackpot – a million-dollar barramundi that had evaded capture since the competition began.

Mr Payne, who describes himself as a

“mad keen” fisherman, could hardly believe his luck. “This is crazy for us. We’re a big family, there’s eight of us, this is more money than we could ever ask for. This is just great,” he said. “It means so much. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. I’m happy, really happy. It’s pretty hard going for us at the moment with money, but now with a million dollars, (we) don’t have to complain about it.”

He said that while he hoped to buy a four-wheel-drive and a boat, his priority was to help his parents pay off their mortgage.