Bag a Barra — 9 October 2020

It's time to head to the Top End and Baga Barra. With Glenn Watty Watts, thanks to Shimano. Remember to buy local and fish local. Visit Shimanofish.com.au.

Well, if you were tuned in last week, you would have known that we encouraged Watty to enter the world of politics, and we're actually going to call him now, the honourable Glenn Watt, because I think he could end up being the chief minister up there. That's right. The top dog. He could be in charge.

You could just imagine the extended hours at the pubs. They'd be open 24 hours. There'd be no mid strength or light beer available. It'll just be full strength and rum.

There'd be nothing else there to buy. And I think that what are you'd be one of the most popular chief ministers the northern territory he's ever seen, but he's had to put all that on hold because in recent days, he's been sleeping on his boat, because the $1000000 fish is on, and that's, he's on the line to tell us all about it, Watty. How are you, mate? G'day, mate.

Good, how are you? I'm going all right, mate. What are you up there now, campaigning, getting yourself some funds for your political, you know, campaign? I mean, you're running in a few years?

Yeah, maybe we'll go have a run at it in another 4 years. Yeah. There we go I reckon you'd get in, mate.

You like the idea? Look, that's my suggestion. If you do get in, you've got to decide the run first. I think 24 hour pubs.

No mid strength, no light. Maybe a popular policy, you reckon? I'm telling you now, but you'd walk in. You'd walk in, mate.

You wouldn't even have an opposition. Anyway, in all seriousness, mate. I noticed a couple of storms at nighttime up there and I look at the weather forecast ever since I've been to the territory and in particular up there in Darn with you. I've paid a fair bit of interest to what's doing with the weather changing up there right now.

And I've actually got a young mate of ours cattle who, uh, and another mate of mine, Denny Dave, who's up there in, uh, he's actually over the border in WA at the moment, but he's up there working, watching the start of the wet season, and the storm's rolling in, and I know me young mate. Well, he's actually my young folks, mate, who's working on a station up near Dundee Beach. He's booked to come home in early December, I think, because the work's done, as the wet rolls in. How are the storms going?

Yeah, you're dead right. It rained again last night. I think Darwin got another 50 mil last night, so that puts us into twice the average rainfall for October already and September, I think, finished up with 6 times. It's, uh, it's average rainfall. So it's an amazing start.

We, you know, fingers crossed, it keeps ticking along and window 1st monsoon turns up around Christmas time. The soil will all be all wet up and the rest of it can go into the floodplains and start creating that life cycle for all our barra fishing for next year. Oh, beautiful mate. And look, there's a bit of a push at the moment too, where they're saying Ularoo's open.

The place is open trying to encourage people to get up the northern territory for a summer holiday. I mean, it's not a silly idea. I think it'd be all right to be honest. No, you're dead right.

Actually, like, it's probably the, if you're ever going to come to the territory from southern states, um, at this time of year. This is the sort of um weather patterns that you'd be looking for, is this regular rain, you know, because it keeps it cool, even this morning. um, what is it, 10, um, before lunchtime, normally by lunchtime 35 degrees, but sticking around 2627 at the moment, you know, with these storms hanging around. It's just beautiful conditions to, to be in and, and the country's green and, and you can still get out and do all the attractions um before it gets too wet.

So it's great time to come up and they're up right now. Yeah, absolutely, mate. I don't think there's a bad time. I've told plenty of people.

There was nothing I didn't like about it up there. It's certainly, for me, the jewel and the crown, mate, the territory. I love it. And I got to hang around with you a couple of times too, which was good.

I just learnt that one big lesson in life. Don't be late going fishing with Watty. Now... Now, listen, the $1000000 fish there, it's been run a fair few years.

Now, I can remember talking about this on the radio way back when we 1st started doing this type of program. It's on again and tell us how it works because there's already been 3 fish court. Now, before people get too excited. They're not $3000000 winners there.

There's a 3 fish with money attached to them. Just tell us how it works, mate, but it's on. Yeah, that's right. So there's been a 100 borough released, um, tagged and released into sort of the popular Top End waterways, I suppose.

And they've all got a $10,000 price tag attached to them, so you catch one of them. Um, you win your 10 grand and then there's, they're in season 6 now, so they've, they've got 6 chances plus a bonus one from season four, um, uh, fish out there, uh, that are attached to a $1000000 price. So 1st person to catch one of those particular 7 fish will win a 1000000 bucks. So, always topic of conversation when we're on the boat at the moment, how are we going to split it when we make the deal, but I sort of make sure that people have read the fine print in the book.

In other words, yeah, in other words, you get nothing. Listen, now, you mentioned that there's still fishing out there from season four. What happens if somebody catches one of these fish throughout the year in normal times? What's the go there? They obviously don't win the money, do they?

Or they throw back or do they not even say anything? What happens? Yeah, well I don't know. You definitely don't win the money.

You don't win anything unless it's within the season. Um, so, I mean, yeah, if the case of put it, put it back or put it in the freezer, when the season opens. But I was about to say, go home and on the way home, go and buy yourself a tank and put it in there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that'd be the game.

Anyway, so it's on. There's been 3 court and but this would attract a few people from interstate, wouldn't it? to head up and try some keen anglers or is it more of a local thing? Oh, that's definitely the goal of it is to attract people to come up through this time of year for sure.

And I think there was one court the other day, there was 98 centimetres that had 2 tags, maybe 3 in a dirt, might have been tagged from a previous season as well, and that was caught from a genuine interstate angler. So that's really good to see. Um, and that was, so that was, um, The 2nd tag on that fish was part of a new concept, um, that they've brought in this year, which is um, 10 grand for you and 5 grand to help a mate out in need. So, um, after a tough year, you can, you could nominate someone who you're going to give that, that, um, bonus 5 grand too.

So yeah, that's a great result for those guys. Um, and yeah, the other, the other guys have caught the, The single tag, red tag fish all around in Darwin Harbour, I think so far. Yeah, unbelievable. I tell you what I did see through the week too.

You may have seen, it was a croc having a sunning himself on Mindle Beach. Oh, yeah, right, eh? you see that? I didn't say that.

No, I didn't say it, but it's that sort of stuff does happen this time of year as it starts to rain. Obviously there, um, lifecycle kicks into gear as well and they start to move around, um, looking for places to mate, assault his, um, nest over the wet season. So, the little fellas will probably be getting bullied out of territory and the big bells will be moving around trying to find extra territory. So, yeah, not an uncommon thing.

Um, cool to see, but uh, obviously you want to be, um, hopefully the lifeguard's got his eyes peeled when you swim between slangs and E. Oh yeah, absolutely. It was, um, the one thing I don't know whether we touched on it either a few weeks ago were those whales that swam into the river at Kakadu. Yeah, that was amazing.

They were lucky to get out of there. I mean, obviously, they were just obviously just, I mean, that crocodile infested river and 2 big whales go in there. I mean, and obviously the crocs took a look at them and said, mate, you're too big for us boys. Yeah, that's right.

It may have been a different story if they'd have got stranded on a mud bank, which the East Alligator river is notoriously shallow and treacherous. So, um, I think, yeah, they took a wrong turn at Albuquerque, those Wales, but they found their way out and it was all good, you know, but yeah, amazing, amazing to see that for sure. Yeah, incredible. It was, it was, but my young bloke 1st alerted me to it. I thought, mate, you got to be joking because I remember after I left you, I went out through there through Kakadu and along that river and I actually went for a run across Carl's Crossing as well just to go and have a look.

And mate, I was thinking, if you imagine that. Now they got in there. He's just unbelievable, then they've got to do a UE in there. and then get out.

Anyway, they did all that. All right, mate. Well, good luck with, um, good luck with catching your own um, $1000000 fish, mate. That'd be great.

Mate, if you do, I'm heading straight back up there at your shout. Yeah, well, I'll shout everyone who turns up if I get the million. Don't worry about that. Oh, mate, yeah, good with that.

Yeah, good would it be? It's quite amazing. And obviously, if you are going fishing with what do you read the fine print? You could be going home like a bustard.

All right, mate. Well, good on you, mate. Great to chat, and it's a great initiative up there. And look, I think they're doing some good stuff up there at the moment in the territory, especially those local tourism vouchers.

And I see you've still got 2 more rounds of those things to come where the government are providing everyone with a voucher to spend on tourism businesses and I see that there's something happening up there now with a retail voucher as well. Look, he hasn't done a bad job, Gunners, really throughout all this, has he? No, he hasn't done a bad job at all. I think that's largely why he got reelected recently.

So, yeah, everyone's pretty comfortable up here. You know, we haven't had any dramas through COVID and um, you know, as long as he keeps performing, he might give us a bit of a run for our money when we overdig at the top job in a couple of years time. Well, no, I mean, we don't talk politics here, apart from when you run, we'll give it a massive run then, but I mean, but I mean, I noticed with him, he's keen to work with the federal government and he just seems to be about the territory. He just, and I think that's what you need up there, and a few other people around the place could take a leaf out of his book, to be honest.

He just, you know, he, he, he, he, you know, he, he, he meets. I saw a press conference where he, there obviously there was some stuff for the territory and the budget and someone asked a request. He said, look, I don't want to be, you know, the kid on Christmas morning going, well, where's the rest of the toys? You know, he's grateful for what he got and he's just, you know, happy to be working with them and he just seems to be on it at the moment.

So good on him and it's good for you people and good for you too. those tourism vouchers. Great idea, and you've done all right out of a couple of those as well. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I mean, that's like got me out of working in the mines again. So, saving the pay and back to work doing what we sort of want to do and what we love doing. So yeah, great initiatives and um, you know, good on the territory government uh, for keeping up the good ideas. Yeah, and I saw it firsthand when I was up there because there were plenty of locals around the place, visiting places and staying places where I was, and I saw it working in, you know, and they must have been pooling them together and getting in and, you know, booking big cabins and things, and anyway, it was all good, and I guess that's what you got to do.

All right, mate. Well, good luck. We'll leave you with it. your hosting a kids' party today, which is fantastic.

I'll actually go and put the, I'll let you go and put the clown suit on and they, um, and the balloon, mate, you're making the balloons, you know, them blow up those long balloons and make things out of them. You doing that? Yeah, yeah, I'm good at the fish and ride in the Barramundi ones. All right, mate.

Well, we'll talk to you next week, eh? Right, yeah, good on you. Good on you, mate. There he is, Glenn, Watty Watson.

If you're listening anywhere around Australia, and you want to go fishing in the top in, you're not going to go with anyone better, then my mate, and that's Glenn Watt, and he's got Barefoot Fishing Safaris as you go to the website, barefootfishingsafaris.com.au. Check out the Facebook page as well. Give it a like. Put some pretty good videos up there too.

does a lot of live stuff, Barefoot Fishing Safaris.