Bag a Barra — 11 September 2020

It's time to head to the Top End and Bag a Barra. With Glenn Watty Watts. Thanks to Shimano. Remember to buy local and fish local.

Visit Shimanofish.com.au. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you Happy birthday, happy birthday

Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday. Ugh.

You can imagine how many great northerns will be consumed this afternoon up there in the Top End. Watty, happy birthday, son. Yeah, thank you. That was very nice.

Appreciate it. Mate, how many do you reckon you'll have today? Well, I said, I had a couple of blokes ring me before and said, oh, if you're going to call in, make sure you do it early, because I've got meetings or something, and I said, well, I'll be drinking beer by lunchtime, so we'll be right. Ah, well done, mate.

Happy birthday, mate, you're going well for a bloke in your early 50s. I've got to say. Excellent. I, uh, yeah, I'm on the, I'll be on the downward spiral this time next year.

Turn 40 next year, so it's a bit of a worry. I still, I don't know, like I, I, I imagine 40 year olds to have all, all their ducks in a bit of a row, but mine are still all over the paddock, mate, so I don't know. I've got a bit of catching up today there at some stage. Yeah, well, mate, I'm on the wrong side of 55, mate, and I can tell you, I also haven't got them in a race.

mate, don't go worried about it too much. But I've got to say, mate, 40 next year, do you like to come back up? I'm going to have a big party. Yeah, we're going to have a party, yeah.

Oh, mate. You warming up up there? Is there a bit of a difference in the weather since I've been there? I see, I've been, obviously, for, you know, I've had a bit of interest in it, and I saw yesterday, one day this week, now, when we was up around 35, and she's starting to warm up a bit of a change.

Yeah, it is. So further south, you get, you get, um, obviously it still gets a bit hotter. Catherine's had a couple of 40 degree days and we're down daily there over the weekend just gone and it was 3738 or something. So, um, warm enough, but the good thing down that way too is that further in there and you get the cooler it stays overnight as well.

So, Darwin at the moment, we're having, like in Darwin, you got 31 and then 23 overnight, but even out my place up now, down there, it's a bit hotter, but um, it's cooler overnight, so it's still 17, 18 and that, you know, so, it does cool down lastly for sleeping. Well, I did text you a thing yesterday of what it was here, and I'm not sure if you saw that, saw that it all and raining at that time. But anyway, now listen, through the week, I know we normally talk about fishing and stuff, but through the week, mate, there was a video posted on social media of a crocodile racing about. You see that?

Yeah, I did just see that. Very interesting footage, actually, it makes me wonder what's going on with that crocodiles. Normally they just pop up and take a breath and sort of swim the other way to a boat, but almost look like he was racing him, wouldn't it? Well, you look like a dolphin.

I mean, if people haven't seen it, you need to go onto Facebook. I think it was on the 7 news Keans Facebook page, go on and have a look. It'll be everywhere. Now.

I'm tipping if people have shared it all over the place. And me, he's an absolute giant, isn't he, this croc, and he's racing the boat and swimming like a porpoise. Yeah, yeah, he comes up a couple of times in this couple of minute video, which is really strange is, obviously, normally they can stay underwater for, you know, up to half an hour sort of thing, and um, you have no trouble taking a breath and nicking off, so, yeah, it's probably something going on with that crop behaviour there for some reason. Mm, and he was, and like we say, he was a, he was a fair size.

So, I mean, you've obviously seen plenty of them in your in travels, especially you spend most of your life on the water. You ever seen anything like that? Never. No, definitely not.

You do get them, the ones that get used to tourist boats. Obviously, you've got the jumping crops out at Adelaide River, which are pretty spectacular, and then they got the, say, the crocodiles out of yellow waters in Kakatoo there, where they see so many tourist boats every day, they'll sort of happily swim along beside you without sort of getting spooked and nicking off, but, um, that one, yeah, he, he sort of looked like he was trying to get away, but he wasn't going, uh, he was running straight along beside the boat, which is win. Yeah, exactly mate. So how's the fishing going, mate?

So is it as she warms up? Does it change? what you'll catch? Yeah, definitely.

We start to think about, you know, with the buildup now. So, uh, we start to on these neat tides. um we'll start to think about um finding some clean water and some bigger sort of pre-spawn barrow that are looking to feed up before they um spawn later on in the next couple of months. So um that comes back on the radar as well as um the inshore reef stuff really um pops back up again.

Dewfish and snapper has come a bit closer and start to aggregate again as well. So it's a really good time to to come up here for for a few days fishing. The crowds are usually a bit less, and um, and the fishing can be, you know, like better than any other time in the year, particularly for the reef in those bigger barrow. Oh, that's fantastic.

I wish I was here with you, mate. All right. Well, listen, you enjoy your birthday. I'm sure you will, and they don't have too many, OK?

Because you've got to get up and fire up tomorrow. Yeah, that's right. No, no, I'm keeping pretty, pretty low profile. We're going out petite tonight for the pub and that'll be about it.

be good. Yeah, what pub are you off to? We'll go to the Virginia Tavern tonight. I do a really good feed there and I got a playground for the kids, which, um, you know, these days, our lives are pretty much dictated to by which venues have got playgrounds, so...

Yeah, it's good. That's our local too. So happy to go there. Yeah, I'm sure it is, mate.

I know exactly where you are. I'll tell you what, where you are there. You'll be looking forward to that rain because I think your place is just going to be an absolute tropical oasis once that wet season kicks in where you're living there.