Bag a Barra — 13 December 2019

OK, let's head to the Top End to Bag a Barra. With Glenn, what he wants, thanks to Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Oh, Watty, I could imagine some of the prizes you, Dave, on some of your competitions. I seen you.

Win a stubby holder, and a sticker. Someone needs a stubby, I want a duck. Especially up there. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. No, actually, I've got some good prizes. I just sent, I just posted out a few prizes yesterday for the guys from the, um, most recent membership draw, which was a big bag for Lewis and some out of bits and pieces, and I'm just signing up a few guys who won some, who won some memberships from a recent competition, I do as well. So, yeah, if it doesn't send me broke, maybe it would be around next year to do it again.

Yeah, you'll be right, mate. Have you got, have we, do we have Barefoot Fishing Safaris stubby holders or not? Yeah we do. Well, maybe you better send me one.

I'll text him your address, but you need to send me one. How come I haven't got one of them? Well, isn't it toothold down your way to what? No, no, no, no, no, it's not too cold yet.

Well, it was 42 getting my place yesterday. You're kidding. You know, mate, dear, no, no, mate, who cares how cold it is anyway? It doesn't worry me, mate.

I mean, you know. Well, you, you, you'd like these to be oldest, because they probably match your jocks. fluorescent pink. Yeah, right, okay, no worries.

You've been going for me sock and undy draw, have you? Anyway, speak for yourself. Mate, we're going to talk a bit last week. We've been talking about some beaches and fishing off tinnies.

It's funny. One of the, one of my neighbours walked over to me the other day and said, mate, how did the girl go with the fishing hook in the leg? I was a bit one, I was a bit shocked that he could even listen to it. Nick.

Thanks for tuning in, but mate, how did that girl go? You get the hook out of a league when you were in the boat the other day? I haven't even listened to that myself. I don't know whether he was sitting with a link.

We'll have to get onto that. Yeah, Kathy. So I'm actually going to have dinner with Kathy tonight. Oh, we going to do breaking news?

Yeah, no, no, well, Kathy and Roger have been happily married for about 40 years. Oh, right. I'm sure Roger's happy then today. So did you get, so have we got the hook out of a leg, all right? Yeah, we got the hook out, yeah.

Yeah, just a pretty clever little trick where you just cut it off and then you just slide a loop line around the, the sort of the base of the hook and and push the eye, the hook down, the wards of the skin and you just pop it out in no time, it doesn't hurt and it doesn't bleed. pretty good. What is surgical safaris? Yeah, yeah, that's right.

You got to have a few skills? Yeah, mate, listen, mate, Billabong fishing. Tell us a bit about that, mate. That is the go.

Yeah, it is, it is really good fun. We had a bit of a play around out on one of our local bates the other day just with the kids, so we actually didn't do any fishing, but it reminded me of how much I loved spending time in the fresh water. We um, we got a lot of billabong fishing available around Darwin. Um, pretty well, every river has its, has its own freshwater system up the top of the tidal areas and, and it's a funny thing on, on the eastern side of the Stuart Highway, barring one or 2 exceptions, you can catch Saratoga, which is a sort of a tenacious um, surface speeding sport fish, um, which is really highly prized by fly angles in particular.

But you don't get them on the west of the Stuart Hall. I all know. Well, I sort of do know why that is, but it's a, it's an interesting little fact, but beautiful, beautiful areas to spend, spend a day's fishing or a few days fishing, for sure. You said you had a favourite one, mate.

Which one's that? Yeah, one of the closest ones to Darwin. is, it's on the Mary Rivet of Corrobory, Billabong is, is absolutely one of my favourites. And it didn't fish really well.

this year, which was a symptom of our sort of poor wet season that we've had over last sort of summertime. Um, but it's a, it's, it's part of the Mary River system. It's, it's, um, a series, there's a series of half a dozen billabongs in that local area. Crobery has about sort of 60 kilometres of um fishable water and it's full to bring with fish and crocs and um birds life and you often see buffaloes and pigs there and dingoes and all sorts of things.

It's the absolute perfect place to go. If you've never been to the territory before, it sort of goes little slice of everything there. I've got to say, I mean, it's like having the northern territory experience all in one spot. Yep, it really is.

You can do, um, you can do sort of sunrise and sunset tours there and, um, obviously the fishing, you wouldn't go water skiing there, but you can hire houseboats, um, and stay the night on the houseboats. That'd be all right. Yeah, yeah, they are, it's really good. It's a great place, great way to do a couple of days, fishing there, you can hire a house boat, and then you just work those, the, um, the book ends of the day.

You know, your, your morning and evening session and just have a, have a clubby and a mapping the heat of the day when the fish aren't button as well. It's an awesome little spot. That sounds like a bit of me there. I'm a bit of a fan of the houseboats.

are good. Yeah, no, all right. Well, so that's the name of that Billawong again? Yeah, corroborate Billabong is the, it's the biggest one in that, on that Mary River system, but it's good, it's sort of Sister Billabong's, um, Hardy's lagoon, and then you've got Mary River lagoon, and then further down towards the coast, there's the shady, freshwater before you get into the, the sort of 30 kilometres of tidal river before, um, before the mouth, into the team or sea.

So, it's a big system scenario, and it's a, it's provided probably, um, you know, a, a large percentage of people's 1st ever there on Monday, and certainly Saratoga, and the beauty of corrobory bill bong is that, um, 5 minute drive from the, from the boat ramp, you've got the Corrobory Park Tavern, which, um, I was about to say to you, mate. Oh, was it going to say when I said it was the complete experience? Is there a pub nearby and you've just answered that question for me? Well done.

Yeah, yeah. All right. It's the perfect place to do a day guided fishing when it's fishing well because it's close enough to barra that you've not spent an all day in the car. But then on the way home, you go past the corrobery parked tavern, at a humpty-doo pub, and superheroes once you get back in 10. It could actually be a long a long day on the way home, but... Yeah, I'm sure.

I'm sure. All right, mate. And you certainly wouldn't want to be swimming back to your houseboat either because you might not get there either for that anyway. Oh, mate, we've got to run.

We got to run Watty. So we'll catch you next week, eh? Good on you, Doc. Have a great weekend.

I'll send you that postal address for that stubby holder. That was our man. Glenn, what do you watch? Don't forget, check him out.

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