Fishing on Arvos — 8 July 2026

And what are you using to catch your fish these days? And can I interest you in a custom-made lure? Fashion from an old iPod. Captain what he's hoping to win the custom lure section of Darwin show with his creation.

He'll tell you all about it very shortly. He also has an interesting ear piercing story to share, I think. But 1st the Barr Classic gets underway this week down the Daly. It was rescheduled after the big floods earlier this year, but it has not kept the Fishers a wage.

George Nichol from ABC News Darwin is down there. I spoke to him earlier this morning. It is looking spectacular. It's a nice cool morning.

The fishes have been sort of commenting about how it's so much cooler than it normally is because it's obviously been delayed by a couple of months with the floods. So, yeah, it's a nice cool day here. Well, we just got down here yesterday afternoon. The cob hasn't actually got underway quite yet.

Today's the orientation day. They're all having a look at the river, which is a bit lower than it normally is for the comp, working out where all the snags are and all the places they need to worry about hitting with their boat. And then tomorrow the comp will get underway for good. All right. How is, what are people saying about how the river's looking apart from the height of it, because this was an issue for the previous fishing comp, the river has changed because of those extraordinary rains and the historic flooding earlier this year.

And there were some issues on the water for the last competition down there. Yeah, there were a few issues on the water. There's just been like a lot of flood debris on the water, a lot of logs. There was a pontoon that they used to use for all the comps that's sort of halfway up the river, sticking out now.

There's a lot more sharks in the river, apparently. I don't know if that's good later or because of the floods. But people have been saying they've been putting fish back and they've just been taken by sharks straight away. So, yeah...

Do you know what kind of sharks they are? What are the river sharks of the Daly? I think they're bull sharks and black tip reef sharks. I'm sure someone will call me if that's right.

You know sharks. Are you a Fisher, George? Have you been down fishing at the Daly before? Um, I brought my ride both times, but I didn't get a chance to use it um, just because we were so busy, so it'd be good too.

I haven't caught a barra since I was about 10 years old, so it'd be good to grab one. Where did you catch your Barra as a little 10 year old tacker? Um, it was on the Darwin Harbour somewhere. Okay.

You're not giving it anyway, any secrets away, even all these years later. Yeah. Well, what's ahead for the next few days? What are you going to be bringing us across the ABC as you report from the Barra Classic? We'll cruise up and down the river on a boat and see what we can find?

We'll chat to some people. We've got, yeah, Murph Hughes, the Aussie cricketer here. The anti-treasurer Bill Yan is here as the head marshal. So plenty of people for us to chat to.

Have you been getting questions from our newsroom journalists to just sneakily put to the treasurer Bill Yan while he's down there? Not yet, but that might come. No, because can you ask him, because what we want to know, because it was, they were very upfront about the fact that he was unavailable this week because he's down at the Daly volunteering, as he has done for 20 years, I think. They put out the press release on Friday about fares coming back for the bus network, public transport, and the new ticketing system that's going to come in and everyone's very curious to know what the ticketing system will look like and how much bus fares will be when we start paying again.

So if you get a chance, can you ask him about that for us, George? Yeah, I'll try to. You might not be very happy with me, but I'll give it a go. He did say last night that when the CLP came to government, he asked the chief minister, if he could be the minister for fisheries, and she told him that he couldn't be because he would just go fishing every day.

All right. So he may he may not like pesky journalist questions about stuff that the territorians want to talk about. I think, look, I think when he was missing ahead of the budget last year or whenever it was, there were mixed views, a few people and maybe a lot of journalists were questioning that decision. I think a lot of territorians were like, yeah, nah, it's okay.

can go fishing. Merv is down there, big Merv. What's he doing? Is he just fishing as a competitor?

Yeah, he's a competitor. He said he's been coming down here competing since about 2008, so he loves it. The shenanigans of the competition. I know it's a very serious business fishing, but there's also, you know, dressing up and fun team names and all those types of things.

Do you know much about what's happening on the kind of more social side of it? Yeah, they had an auction last night, like the teams all auctioned each other off. I was, it seems quite confusing. I'm not really sure exactly how it worked, but yeah, I think they've got things like that most nights.

They're baronets, they all wore tutus until they the 1st time is until they're caught a barrow, but I don't think that's happening here, so it might be a bit more serious. George Nickel from ABC News down at the Daly for the Barra Classic, which gets underway this week. Rocky Edwards is just back from the Daly. Well, a few weeks ago now and a few other places in between, Captain Watty from Barefoot Fishing's Farris. He's also down the Daly, but not for the comp.

He's got some good reports from corroborate. And look, we've got a cast of 1000s today. I should turn the microphone on so you can say, hello, Rocky. Hi.

It's been a while. It has. I've been away fishing barra now. This is the problem with this fishing section of the show.

When there's fishing to be done, you guys aren't here. We disappear. And when you hear, there's no fishing to talk about. But we're making it work.

welcome back. You've got some good reports for us Wadi, down the Daly as well. Captain Watty from Barefoot Fishing Safaris is an AFANT board member.

Hello? Hello, yeah, we've just pulled up down here, setting up camp down at the Dahlia. There's a lot of things that have changed down here, Liz. It like a new world.

Oh, is your 1st trip down? Yeah, I haven't been down. It's amazing to see the high watermark on all the ghost gum trees. as you're driving around just to try and comprehend the amount of water that went through this joint.

So, yeah, even where we come out to private land out here and yeah, there's creeks and whole billabongs that have appeared. And yeah, it's like coming out to explore an entirely new place. So it's exciting on its own level. Yeah.

Rocky, you were down there for the gnats. Yes, a few months ago. Is that what you noticed as well? Yeah, look, up until Brown's Watty.

There's a few different changes. There's a new there's a new sandbar south of Wooliana that I'll just give you the good oil go left of the sandbar going. Go right means you got a thin channel between big boulders and the sandbar. take your take your take your pick.

But, um, yeah, that's um, probably worth a fish around, actually. But go left. of that sniff. Yeah, well, I'm I'm no risk of being of hitting those rocks because we are a few kilometres upstream.

Over the river and upstream. So, yeah, we're up here where I don't think any of those boats will be going and it's always pretty nice and quiet up here. Oh, that was a hot tip from there. We don't even have a boat here. If Merv is listening, that's a joke for Merv.

There were a few accidents down there, weren't there? Yeah, there was 2 really bad ones. I've nicknamed the snag, the tin opener because it's exactly what it did. It almost ripped a transom off one boat, and the other one, it actually sliced it right up.

A lot of money's worth there. But, um, that's a snag that's been there for a while. It just was just on the morning, very foggy. just too left of the track, I suppose, and hit the tin opener.

So, yeah, not good, not good. You had a pretty good competition. Yeah, yeah, we did. Team wise and individual wise.

There are 2 different ways of scoring. So we couldn't get a lot of the big fish because we didn't have any scopes. So we just, we just clocked it up on our individuals. So individually, we came good.

So my teammate came 3rd overall. I came 5th and my other teammate came 17th. So not a bad run for no scopers, in a little tinny. smallest, smallest boat in the field, the smallest and smallest boat.

The little boat that could. A few fishing trips since then as well, and we've got time to find out about those before half past three, but I should introduce well-known fishing identity and cat fluencer Dave Krantz bring him into the conversation. Although, Dave, before I say hello, I've been instructed by a special friend who's got a listener question for you that I need to introduce you with this bit of sound effects. Have I got you there, David Krantz?

Yes. Sounds very ominous. The jungle drums, the Jumanji drums. This has something to do with the axolotl, I'm told. Oh, the axolotl.

Someone's called a fish on the axolo. No, I don't think anyone has caught a fish on the axolotl. I've got a, someone texted in with a question for you, Dave Krantz. to ask if you desire the return of the famed axolotl.

Allure that. Legend has it curses its owner with fishless sessions until they part. It resembles a poo, but with a tail, a little curly OEC fins? Peck fins.

with little peck fins and treble hooks. David Krantz. Do you? Desire the return of the famed axolotl.

I don't actually need the famed axolotl back because I have my own axolotl here, which I keep in the shed. Um, I've got a copy of the famed lure, uh, which has been hanging around and, uh, you know, like a 2nd one wouldn't be bad. I could return to try to catch a fish on it. Does your axolotl, which is it's a lure, right?

Does your axolotl work, the one that you've got? Or is yours the cursed one? I think the cursed one is the one that's being offered to me. I don't dare to take the one I have out on the water just in case it is cursed as well.

I mean, we can't be careful. All of that is a massive in-joke. It won't mean anything to a lot of people. That was a message for you, Dave Krantz, from The Beard, who happens to be in town at the moment.

So he wanted to say good day. It was one of the titty crew. Sounded like it, didn't it? Yeah, I was tipping it was going to be Hubble. I've got a little axolotl story.

I think I might have been the last person to try and catch a fish with it, actually. Got it off Hubble, and we took it over to PNG, to Ben's Back River, which is, without doubt, the best Barramundi Fishing River in the world, and the flight got cancelled and things happened. We never even got there. So, yeah, the curse is real.

Don't worry, don't stay away from it. Fishing, it's bad luck for anything you do with the axolotl. I wonder if you could I wonder if you could deploy its powers beyond fishing in that case, Dave. Well, yeah.

I'll put it at a polling booth at election time or something. Precisely something like that. Who can, I've stepped a few steps ahead. People will not know what we're talking about. Dave Krantz.

What exactly is the axolotl and what are we on about? The axolotl is a large sort of rubbery lure. Resembling slightly an axolotl, funnily enough. And um, no one, to my knowledge, has been able to catch anything on the axolotl.

It has been deployed in a number of scenarios, um, blue water and fresh water. in the middle of huge bites in the middle of fish frenzies, and nothing wants the axolotl. It actively deters fish from your boat and it seems too bad luck another way as well. I bet. It definitely does that. And charter flights from Cannes.

Very powerful. Dave, the reason I thought to invite you on today was to not relive the memories of the acts, a lot of book, what he said he'd been out on corroborating you guys had run into each other out on the water. how was your corroborate fishing trip? Yeah, mine was pretty good.

I had just one fellow with throwing some flies around in there for a couple of days and he'd been over from America. He's been here for 6 weeks. He just flew out today and has been dreaming of catching a Saratoga for a long time. So he did that.

He ended up with 8 or 10 Saratoga's and one of them was actually much larger than what our sort of normal average is these days at 68 centimetres. So, yeah, very very happy angler there and off he went and yeah, and I did, and then Crancy messaged me that night and said, oh, yeah, cleaned up in, oh, it was the next day. Uh, so, Crobery Billabong seems like fishing really well. You were telling me off here, Woody, there's no lotus lilies around, and you didn't love that, because you like to fish over them, but Kratz, do you like a billabong without the lotus lilies?

That sounds like it did help you. No, I like I like lilies as well. I'm not so keen on the current state where there's not any lilies around, but you know, you might do with what's there. There's a lot of grass growing on the edges of the middle of all.

It's that floating grass. I think it's pronounced something like hiber, hype naracne or something and it's a introduced grass. Yeah, that's olive, that's olive hibernac acne. And unfortunately, it looks like it's taken over quite a bit, but it strangles the habitat underneath.

It blocks out a lot of oxygen and stuff like that. So it's not good. I was hoping that would flush out and there has been a bit flush out. And maybe we've just got to wait for the lilies to come back.

But if the lilies are under that and they don't get sun, we probably won't see them. They look pretty too. It is 23 past 3 on 1057, ABC Darwin, and across the territory. It is a cast off 1000 for fishing this afternoon and Rocky's back in the house after a few fishing adventures.

Where have you been in the last couple of weeks, Rocky? I did a private charter. in the Gulf on the Queensland side on a remote river where we had to helicopter in from Normanton and we had a mother ship in the river and we're the only boat fishing. So we had the whole river to ourselves.

Oh wow. And it was excellent. My 1st day I got a 105, a metery, and they were very healthy fat fish, as ours are here too. So, but the fishing was extraordinary.

was really, really good. So we caught everything was big. We got lots of golden snapper. We got lots of finger mark, I should say, not golden so much.

And they were huge. Like, I'm looking at them thinking, I can't believe how big these fish are. Um, lots of uh, threadfin sandwiches, great. mud crab and so we had a seafood delight for 7 days. Um, amazing food, um, amazing fishing, so, and do it with great friends.

So really, really good. It sounds like a beautiful place to land on your own, far away from everyone. Would you have had an amazing time if fish weren't caught? Oh, look, because of where you were and who you were with.

Yeah, it's an amazing experience, but if you've ever moved around the gulf and you're up in the air, you'll realise how flat it is, there's just not even a bump. And it's amazing. They don't really have floodplains like we do because they have a lot of saltwater intrusion. But even out into the Gulf when you sail down the coast, it's only like 2 to 4 metres of water.

As you're making your way down or up to weeper or down to Normanton. But it is extraordinary country, and incredibly, the crocodiles are still very shy. So you have unlike ourselves. Yeah, yeah, so I find that amusing, you know, being on the Daly or anywhere that we fish up here.

The crocs are not shy by any means. And, you know, they'll come out the boat, whereas down there, as soon as they hear a motor there, you can see them all diving into the water. So it's still quite remote enough that they're spooked. Oh, you have had such good fun and good fishing since I saw you.

Last day. Have you got any trips coming up? Yeah, I've got, I've got secret women's businesses coming up in September. And then at the end of September, early October. I'm fishing in the Gold Coast Fatty Classic in another women's team.

So a little bit of fishing there and then, of course, a bit of pre-fishing in between. Talk of the tackle store. What's everyone talking? Well, I haven't been there, so I've only just returned. With their today, though?

You're in the shop today? Yeah, in the shop today. So there's a lot of visitors in town, so a lot of tourism, fishing tourism. And incredibly today, we had a whole group come from America just to come to the northern territory to fish.

So that's quite exciting. How long are they here for? I want to catch up with them I'm not sure, but we're connecting with them in case they're going it alone, kind of, so we'll just see how they go.

Well, if you hear from them, maybe we will get them on the show next week. Dave Krantz. You have been successfully fishing on corroborate Billabong, but I do believe you've also been doing some cap fluencing lately. What he told me that you're busy making furniture out of recycled timber, but what are you building?

Well, I've been making a bunch of different things over the last sort of few months, but currently I'm building a cat fortress for one of my cats. Wow. So picture a sort of tower with battlements and I'm just working on the portcullis and the drawbridge because no cat portrait will be complete without that. Ah, there needs to be some kind of Darwin show category for creations like that.

I can't even remember. Did I even ask you about your lure? What are you, at the start of this conversation? You've gone straight on to cap fluencing and what Kranzi's building, how to recycle timber, in the only, about fishing for the entire week on the ABC these days.

No, um, I have the most expensive uh, lure ever. um, to enter into the um, the Darwin show, the, the iPod uh, pelagic slayer, uh, sent Liz a photo today. It's proven. There's been more for a few years, though, so... The iPod is working as a sinker. Is that why the iPad's part of the iPod?

Because it's so shiny. It's shiny and you throw it way out there as far as you can. You wind it back in really fast and Trevelli and queenfish and sharks just loved it over in the Kimberleys back in 2011 when I created it. The shininess of it. Oh, dear antlers in the office ever since.

Could you take home the blue ribbon at the Darwin show in a couple of weeks? Could you make something similar with just anything else mirrored? Oh, of course, yeah. I mean, an old spoon, a knife or, you know, bottle openers, anything, anything works for those type of fish.

They're pretty dumb and that's why they're the guide's favourite. That's where you get straight to every time you've got a day trip. If you get the blue ribbon for custom lure, and we're going to be down at the show doing outside broadcast, so you can come and have a chat about it with us. How much do you win?

Is it? $2.50 for that? That's a good one Because it's a major prize.

Yeah that's right. It's all about prestige. By time I win the other 2 or 3 blue ribbons. be up to about 7 bucks and that'll get me a nice cold beer at the bar and we'll be able to have a talk about in the victory.

Or half a beer. Before you go, one final story. got a piercing story for us, Watty. Well, you were talking about get the young fellow's ear, Pierce, and I said, why don't you don't worry about the shop, mate.

Just do the old boarding school style. We used to pull a prong out of a hairbrush and heated up with someone who was a smoker, heated up with a cigarette lighter and then just jam him through, mate. So, you know, you're rocking the mullet and listening to play lunch, that's how you probably should be piercing your ears as well, I reckon. when you're when you're 12.

That description suddenly makes a safety pin and an ice cube sound like a far better option. What do you reckon, Rocky? Well, that's the way the girls did it. that's right.

So you did it with the girls in the other board. You'd light, you'd heat up... Isn't a hairbrush, brush prong, or back in your days, was it not plastic? No, you know the metal ones? Metal ones, little skinny metal ones. It's like a safety pin and you just, you can pull one out, yeah.

Yeah, metal though. I was thinking you were using plastic and that was an idiotic idea. But it was metal, so much better than that. Glad to catch up with you.

Finally, it's been a few weeks. Rocky, very nice to see you back in the studio and Dave Krantz, well-known local fishing identity and cat fluencer. Thank you for joining the program this afternoon. Thank you.

It's lovely to hear, lovely to hear Kranti back on the air. Are you still there, Crancy? I'm still here, just listening in shock to all these various tales. It'll be an outrage if he wins with that iPod.

I've got to say. I know, but like, do they get a lot of entries? We don't know. Don't spoil it. For Wadi to win, you'd need one entry, which is his.

Exactly. That might be what happens. David Krantz, lovely to hear from you. It is just gone half past 3 on ABC radio down.

get the news headlines in just a sec and Rocky, good to see you. Yeah, it's good to be back. Good fishing. Black fish, it's a tumahook.