Bag a Barra — 17 January 2020

OK, let's head to the Top End to Bag a Barra. With Glenn, what he wants, thanks to Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Well, he's being evicted from the farm. Down south, and he's back up there in the Top End.

You got your brawly with you? Yeah, g'day, duck. How you going? Yep.

The old man kicked us out. We ate too many of his lamb chops and his yabbies, I think, so we're back up the top now. Yeah, plus all the work was done. He's got, he got, I'd make sure what's going on here.

Yeah, come down here. put you to work. You work your ring out for 3 or 4 weeks and then he sends you. Yeah, they're not silly, those old fellas, are they?

No, that's all right. We're back up in the territory now and yeah, we're just having a little bit of a wet spell last weekend and more coming this weekend, which is very exciting for us. How much rain you had up in the top? We at my house, I got a new rain gauge for Christmas, which I was very excited about as well, and we, um, we've had over 200 mils at our place last week, so, yeah, that's, um, that's a pretty big number in anyone's language. That's amazing.

And I mean, when you think about it, I mean, I'd love to know how much of that water's harvested. I mean, we could easily be watering the country with all of that. That's incredible. 200 mil a week.

Yeah, well, we had, um, that was, that was pretty much in 3 days, actually. And in one day of that period there, people um who are engaged with um what's going on up here would have seen there was a cyclone sort of looming. We had, uh, there was 560 mils. I think it was, fell over Dumb and Mary Island, which is just off the coast of, uh, Bynoe Harbour and Dundee there, um, in one day, so that broke a, broke a one day uh, rainfall record for the northern territory.

That's about the same amount of rain as we get in a year down the farm. Mate, there'd be people listening to us all over Australia now who haven't seen a drop of rain in years. You were listening to this, just thinking, you know, I mean, it's unbelievable. It just amazes me why of all the money that we spend around this country.

And when I say we, I mean as a government and all our taxpayer dollars, it just gets wasted on whatever and handed out overseas, why we haven't spent money investing money in funnelling some of this water throughout the country, into our river systems just beyond me. I mean, I'm only a dummy mate. But surely with some of the things that we've achieved in this country. Surely we could have achieved that.

I mean, that is just, I mean, because there are literally people and places now that have been in drought for years. It's been an unprecedented drought and you talk about that sort of rainfall in part of Australia and none of that, not one drop of that's harvested to be shared around. It's incredible. It's just heartbreaking.

It really is heartbreaking. It is, it's a, it really displays the um, the extremes from one end of the country to the other, yeah, weather pattern, but it also, I think like you, you're absolutely right. There certainly could be an amount of it harvested up here, but what people also need to understand is that it is like it's a really important part of the lifecycle of everything up here as well. Yeah, of course. But, yeah, you know, like, the other issue there is that we seem to lack, um, politicians with any sort of long-sidedness, they're worried about the next election in 4 years, not in 20 years' time where we could have a, you could have a pipeline from the Argyle dam right down through the centre in, into New South Wales for a bit of backup water, you know?

But, you know. I understand. I mean, you know, in parts of Queensland, I understand. It's just, and that's the thing.

And I think social media and, you know, cameras on phones and photo opportunities and all that sort of stuff's changed. you know, I don't know, the character or the type of politician these days. In the old days. I mean, they didn't have anything.

I mean, think back right, way, way back when not even went out of TV. And politicians were in there doing it for the country. I know they all say they are and they make a lot of promises around that time when they're looking for the vote, but geez, I did, they go MIA, some of them. Anyway, we're not a political show here, but honestly, it's just a calibre of people these days, and like you say, they're more worried about themselves and getting back in, you know, 3 or 4 years time, whatever it is, other than this make some long-term decisions for our long-term future here. If people don't agree with it, they lose me job, we'll say, you know, go get another job.

I mean, not hard. I'm fair, Inkham. But anyway, we're not going to get on our soapbox here, Wadi. What about fishing in them sort of conditions, mate?

What happens? Yeah, so fishing in the rain can be there's a few ways rain affects our fishing up here and all over the country as well. Obviously, we're going to get a um, a, a fairly um, significant drop in water temp- sea surface temperature straight away during the rain event. Um, we're also gonna get um, potentially some, some dirty water flowing in from mudflats and things like this, which can affect your water clarity. But also around those weather systems, particularly the, the cyclone stuff and our tropical loads that push in, they, they are a low pressure system and, and they do.

Um the pressure, barometric pressure really does affect the way fish behave. Um, particularly our native fish like your cot and yellow belly and stuff, blokes that um, chase them, um, a lot of those guys won't even go fishing without having, having a suitable barometric pressure and it, and it does affect their behaviour and their feeding patterns and these sort of things. So, Generally up here, the, uh, straight, straight before the rain can be really good, s- same with your native fishing. Um Right. As the rain's falling, can get tricky because you get that um surface temperature water drops down and um the clarity drops, so the fish will just go and wait for it to sort of stabilise again.

But then again, after the rain, um, you, you can have these sort, sort of micro runoff events where you can have, um, some bait that might get flushed out of a billabong that hasn't, hasn't had access to the main river for the last 12 months, you know, and, and there's these Johnny on the spot, moments when all the bar and the, and the bait will get flushed out of a billabong, say, particularly down the Daly River. Yep. And if you, and if you're there, which I'm sort of hoping to be sort of next week sometime. Um, and and be the 1st person on the spot, as those billabongs open up for the 1st time that year, you can have some absolutely red hot fish in it. It's tricky to predict those ones. But, you know, um we all know that you can't catch fish sitting beyond the computer screen.

So, um, you just got to get out and get amongst it. And I'm tipping you with the 1st person into the Daly's River, Daly River pub as well. I mean that's just the way it is. No, well done, mate.

You certainly do. You certainly do explain it. Well, Watty, we love yet being a part of the program, and you certainly do give us an insight of what it is like to go fishing in the Top End. Why do we got to leave it there? We'll catch you next week, eh, mate?

No worries, Doc. Look forward to it. There he is. That's our man, Watty.

You can check him out. Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Come on, what are you waiting for? Book yourself a trip for later on in the year.

Barefoot Fishing Safaris up there in Darwin.