Bag a Barra — 5 March 2021

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.

And, of course, our man, Wadi, is the fishing guru up in the Top End. You've been to a few beer gardens up there, haven't you? Yeah, I've been at, um, been to probably all of them, I think, Duck, and I'll probably be at one later on the Saturday. I've no doubt about that.

You are the king when it comes to the pubs and clubs and beer gardens in the northern territory. You took me to a couple while I was up there too, mate. That's right. Even that little one you got at home is not too bad.

How's that looking now? After all the water and everything that's been there? That'd be looking like an oasis, wouldn't it? your place?

Yeah, that's right. yep. Yeah, the kids are in the in the dam and the creek swimming every day and we've got the pet barr there that we hand feed and stuff. So yeah, it's all good at this time of year for us.

Yeah, absolutely, mate. sounds fantastic. Now, I did mention we are bringing out some blue collar media merchandise, Watty. I like to try and send you something.

Um, but, um, I can tell you, we are going to ask people, if you look, if you if you can't behind a pub. Send us in a photo of your favourite pub and beer garden and the one I judge to be, you know, the best, which is, doesn't mean it is the best, but I'll try and do my best. We'll send you out a pack. And of course, like I say, we will be bringing that out online very, very shortly.

But don't be disappointed if you don't win. I love all pubs. I don't think I've ever came behind a bad one. Now, listen, Watty.

Now, Watty, you've been Dundee Beach, mate, fishing. How did you go? Yeah, that's right. We just finished up a couple of trips out there.

Actually, the Daly River, like I'm supposed to be down there at the moment, but it's in, it's in flood, so me caravan, I think, you know, halfway out the wheels and crocodiles swimming around at the moment. So we've been pushed out of there and down to somewhere a bit more coastal and yeah, it's been good. We've been getting into a few barrow and a few reef fish. So, the boys took a few enough for a couple of feeds home and some crabs, as well as, you know, we ate as much fish as we could get into us while we were there.

So yeah, it's been good actually. Yeah, you got to be happy with that, mate. Now, look, how long now before that wet season? It's still, it's still now the, the tail end of the wet season or is it done?

Yeah, it's still like we're, we haven't had rain for like proper rain for a week or so now, which is, it's actually sort of what we needed just to let everything settle down and um, and dry out a little bit. The whole house is a big mould ball for the last month, so it's good to actually get a bit of breeze through and, and um, settle everything down and hopefully that river will start to drop and we'll be able to get back there. But it'll keep ticking along a little bit yet. Just, um, you know, it goes back into stormy stuff unless we get a monsoon, come back down to another cyclone.

But, yeah, which is always a chance through March. But yeah, it'll keep going, you know, through end of March is pretty much when it sort of properly stops. Yeah, I know you I know you do personally look forward to the wet season when it comes because it's been dry for so long. Does it happen at the end of it as well?

Do you look forward to it? Stop raining? Well, I mean, it depends on the year. you know, the last couple of years we've actually been sort of wishing for more rain.

But this year, we've had such good rains, particularly in the catchments of, you know, Catherine and Daly River where I fish through this time of year. We're ready for it to stop there probably. It can keep ticket ticking along a little bit, but at the moment, the river's flooded and has actually closed the whole area down, so we actually need to stop there for, you know, a week or a fortnight and drop the river and get us all access again, and then it can keep ticking along. But yeah, I mean, we look forward to dry season, the weather's nice, and um, uh, you know, things start to cool down again, I suppose.

So, yeah, we do, and you want to get going camping and out to all those waterfalls and everything else there is to do around too. So we, we look forward to that. It's a good place up here. We look forward to all the seasons.

Yeah, I know, it's very good. It's very me. I know that. Now, listen.

Just on the water and everything. How is it at a corroborate? Can you get out there? That'd be that'd be fairly full, wouldn't it?

Yeah, it's full and closed now. Mary copped a heap of rain in the last couple of weeks and it's really risen and given that a good flush out, which is what it needs every year, um, and, you know, clean all those big lotus lilies out from last year, they grow each year, so they don't need to be sort of cleaned out and get that, give that river a good flush and um, hopefully restock some of those, those fish stocks. Um, everyone's uh, fishing in that area at the moment's focussed a bit further downstream, um, in that Shady Camp, uh, area, and there's been some good fish being caught down there too. I know.

Is there any Kakadu? an extra. No, it's it's pretty well, it's the last river before Kakadu, really. The Mary, yeah, once you get into, uh, a little bit further down, you've got the west and east alligators and um, and then the south alligator and it's, they're all inside Kakadoo there. Yeah, right, okay.

So, um, and now you mentioned those swimming holes up there for people who were planning a trip up the territory. They won't open for quite some time, will they? Some of those, like Litchfield and the like and... Yeah, some of them definitely won't.

Particularly the Kakadu ones, the gym gyms and that sort of stuff on a big year like this, they'll they'll remain closed maybe through until May. But the Litchfield stuff will generally opens a bit earlier, and the easiest thing to find out which is open if people are coming up is to just get onto the tourist information centre in Darwin itself. Um, oh, there is for Kakadu. There is Bawali Visitor Information Centre out there in Jabaroo as well.

So, quick phone call to save yourself, 4 hours of driving and then some disappointment is easy. Yeah, exactly right. But they just do a bit of a sweep through and catch any critters. It may have popped into some of those watering holes and keep them safe for the for the swimmers that dive in there.

You don't want to be, uh, you don't want to dive in and land on one of those big lizards, they've got big teeth. No, you don't want to be the 1st one to dive in, I don't think. Yeah, they'll go through. Once the water goes down, the ranges will go through, fix up the tracks, fix up any of the walking tracks and facilities, and then they do some nighttime surveys and put some traps out and just remove any of those, save the tooth geckoes, and then we'll be right to go, get the green light and in you go.

You have to think, oh, mate, Matt Wright would be busy this time of year, mate. going around and clearing out some of those billabongs and river systems on stations and the like up there, mate, right out of the wet seasons almost over. Yeah, those guys do a lot of egg collecting this time of year, raiding the crocs nests in the while and bringing them back to the hatcheries and crocodile farms so that they're very busy. If anyone wants to know what I'll talk about there, just go on and have a look at that outback wrangler.

Unbelievable. Matt Wright. He's got big ones, mate. He taps them on the nose and everything.

It's unbelievable. But anyway, all right, mate. So there's a fish to be caught up there still. So, uh, you're going, all right, your um, Barefoot Fishing Safaris is back into it for the season and uh, and you had a good day over, we've had a couple of good days over the last few days.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we just finished that 2nd trip of the year and I'll line up again in a couple of days time to take some guys fly fishing for a week. So we're very excited about that one. Yeah, that'd be good mate.

All right. Well, we'll let you get back in and go home and wash the boat and flush the motor and get to that beer garden, all right? That's what I need to do. I know, that's what you do well too.

Don't worry about that. All right mate. We'll talk to you next week if we can find you. Thanks, Doc.

Will do. Good on you, mate. There he is. That is, of course, our man, Glenn Watty, what?

You can find him on the website, barefootfishingsafaris.com.au, or he's got a Facebook page, Barefoot Fishing Safaris, and look, get on there if you're travelling to the Top End, you want to go out with one of the best in the business, and come home with a feeder Barra, or whatever else, he can catch him. He knows where to find them. You just go to that website, Barefoot Fishing Safaris.com.au. Go with who we go with, and that, of course, is Watty, and you will bring coming home like an expert.

I know I did, Ricko. I was up there. Had the, uh, went out there with no idea, had all the gear and come home with a big bar of money. I was pretty happy with that.

Barefoot Fishing Safaris. And of course, we will catch up with he's a bit hard to get this time of year as he gets into it because he's either out on one of those big week long trips or even longer he goes out to sea, but we certainly will catch him up on a very regular basis, our man, Watty up there in the Top End.