Bag a Barra — 1 January 2021

It's time to head to the Top N and Bag a Barra. With Glenn Watty Watts, thanks to Shimano. Remember to buy local and fish local. Visit Shimanofish.com.au. Well, he's normally up there in the northern territory, catching a barrer and just annoying people in pubs, but he finds himself today, doing some real work.

Fair income stuff, hard yakker. Sweat running off his brow on the family farm. Watty, happy New Year, son. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you too, mate. Inspector. Well, actually, I should expect to be put to work when I come down here for holidays. It happened every year.

I'm bit of a sucker. Yeah, I know, you know what? I reckon what happens from about September, October. They say, no, don't worry about that. Watty, we'll get Watty to do that when he gets here at Christmas.

Yeah, that's right. The trouble is, we've got to say, which Watty down here? Because there's a fair few waddys down here, but, you know, they definitely line me up a few jobs. I know that. Yeah, no, good stuff, mate.

So how are you enjoying it, mate? With the family and and the like and a good all in all catch up, I guess, which is what's going on all over Australia with families and friends getting together. But mate, how's it been? How'd you spend it all?

Yeah, we've had a really good one so far. We spent a bit of time over Christmas uh in Melbourne there um and then Bendigo and then out to back to Western Victoria, down at Balmoral here where we've got our family farm and we're we're staying out at um the big reservoir out here called uh Rocklands Reservoir, a place called Glen Denning on on there. There's a heap of campers out here and uh, Fisherbite and the yabbies are running so life's pretty good. Happy days.

Now, when you go fishing down there, do they know that you're like a fishing guru from the Top End or you just don't tell anybody that? I'm talking about people who aren't what he's and people who don't know you. Do you just stand there? That's a good question for someone like you.

Do you ever go, when you're down there now fishing? You see people fishing and think to yourself, oh, we've got this imbecile. He's got a clue this play. No, no.

Or do you walk up again, mate? doing it wrong. eh? No, no, I rely on a lot of sheer luck when I come back down here is that, you know, like everything, you've got to be in tune to the local situation and what's going on and it takes you a little while to get the vibe of it down here.

So yeah, I'm pretty much that bloke that everyone's looking at going, what are you doing, you imbecile, I think. Yeah, right fair enough. I thought you would have been going, no, actually, you might have heard of it. Watty?

broadcasting on a radio show to almost surrounded stations around Australia. You know, if you need a tip, just let me know, and I'll give you an invoice. Yeah, that's right. No, no, definitely not.

That's not my style, mate. You know that. Yes, I do. No, I actually, I've had, I've had a little bit of lap at, not too much here. I did catch a bloody great big rainbow trout there in Melbourne of all places when I was in Melbourne for Christmas on Boxing Day.

I think I went down at lunchtime during the cricket and had a bit of a crack at um the local little water hole there at a, it was the Fernfree Gully quarry. They stock a heap of fish in there for summer holiday stuff. and um, yeah, mate, I got a like a 68 centimetre rainbow trap there. happy with that, haven't you? Have you heard anything?

Have you that, mate, have you heard anything what's happening up the top, mate? Fishing sort of just now the weekend hacks and a couple of people around the place. Have you heard what's happening up there or you haven't taken much notice? Uh, yeah, I mean, I pretty much, whenever I'm got to stay a minute, I'm checking the phone for the rainfall stats and the river heights and stuff, and the rain's certainly still falling up there, the monsoon, uh, is, you know, sort of forming and and uh, reforming every 4 or 5 days, which is the cycle that we like to get it into, and, yeah, everything's on track for a crack of season, so, it's looking really good, and um, you know, we're looking forward to a, hopefully a full year without too many distractions, this year, comes sort

mid- February when we kick back off again. Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully, uh, hopefully we can have a better year than last year, uh, in regards to, you know, border closures and things like that because, like we say, we were mentioning it earlier, that a lot of businesses are really hoping for that 2021 to be some sort of a recovery year to make up for what they lost last year, uh, because it was obviously nobody travelling. you know, so we don't need to have another repeat of that.

So, yeah, hopefully that'll happen for you and everybody else because, you know, we need that, don't we? You'd truly struggle to battle through another year of that, wouldn't you? Yeah, certainly, um, in a good place. I mean, it's not so bad for me because I can sort of pass the boat up and go and pick up some other work, but bigger companies that have set up and got a lot more overheads, that, that'd be really difficult and uh, yeah, certainly, you know, fingers crossed, everyone, just uh, sort of continues to do the right thing and and that's what's going to get everything back to normal is not being selfish and thinking about the greater good when you want to go to the northern beaches to go for a swim.

Just don't go, you know, and that's the thing that's going to stop this whole cycle for everyone is if we just all do the right thing. Yeah, well, I know that it's through the week or much earlier in the week and I haven't been following the news too much, but you talk about some people trying to do the right thing. I think there was like 8 or 9 people took off out of the northern beaches, went to a wedding. I mean, fair income.

I mean, look, I know it's not ideal, and it is an ideal, and we feel for people that are, like Vic Wimman who comes on this show. He can't go out. But, you know, we do, and it can happen to any of us, no matter where we are in this country or in the world. In fact, it happens, but if you're told, don't go out, well, you're trying to get on top of this, well, you just have to, we just have to do it, you know, and not sneak off and go to a wedding.

So those people have voted the dopes of the week already, you know what I mean? I mean, seriously. And to be honest with you, you're lucky they didn't, you know, I mean, anyway, it is what it is, but you know, like you say, the majority of the people get it and they don't like it, but they're going along with it and everyone's, everyone's living with it, mate, no matter where you are. All right, well listen, Watty, you enjoy yourself down there.

Just get, you know, some, you know, let you get back in some of that hand cream into your hands to soften up the calluses and all the hard work you've been doing and they're roping and shearing sheep and whatever it else you're doing and dripping, probably from drinking cans and, you know, look after your hands, mate. Don't do too much for more hard work and we'll let you do that. we'll talk to you next. When are you back on the Top End?

Oh, we've still got another 2 weeks down here. We're doing Yeah, we're doing pretty well at first, nice holidays, go. So, yeah, no, we're we're making a pretty big dint in the Western Victorian Yobi population, mate.

I can tell you, they're going down a tree. Yeah, yeah, if you missed them, but... Yeah, we're not half as big a tent you're putting into the bottle A section down there as well. I'll talk to you next week, eh? No worries.

hand, mate. Yeah, I know mate. All right. There he is.

We'll text to Watty next week. Great, man. And if you are planning one of those trips to the Top End next year, or you want to go fishing, of course you do. You want to catch a bar of Monday, just like I did last year.

You need to go with the best in the business. And of course, that is, I mean, Glenn, what he, what. He is the owner operator of Barefoot Fishing Safaris. You can go to the website, barefootfishingsafaris.com.au, or of course follow him on Facebook. Same name, Barefoot Fishing Safaris.

He is the go-to. When you talk fishing and want to go fishing in the Top End. He heads you out to Darwin Harbour. He gets you out the Corrobor Villabong, down the Daly waters.

He absolutely knows all the spots, and you certainly can do a lot worse than go out with our man, Watty. And again, we'll be joining us on the radio program for 2021. He's a good man and you just imagine the damage he's doing in the pubs down there in Victoria. They'll be going, mate, where did this riffraff come from?

But anyway, I can see where he come from. He come from the Top End and he'll be up there, back in the Top End, giving us the rundown, all the fishing action up there in the northern territory throughout 2021.