Bag a Barra — 16 July 2021

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 Shamanofish.com.au.

Barefoot Fishing Safaris. That's the people you want to go fishing with when you go up the Top End, and of course, the guru there at Barefoot Fishing Safaris, of course, is Louise, who's not available, so we've got Watty on the line. What do you g'day? You're a shocker.

Listen, I spoke to you through the week. You said you were doing some office work, mate. How is the colouring in going? Yeah, well, you know, with a bit of practice, I'm managing to keep it in between the lines mostly, mate.

Unlike you're driving. Mate, you went camping. How good is it? You got a bit of downtime.

Mate, where does a bloke like you go? Obviously there was some fishing involved, was there? Or where does a bloke like you go camping up there? Yeah, um, not a hell of a lot of fishing for us.

It was mostly a bit of school holiday activity or for me, I've booked a couple of weeks off over school holidays to play with the kids and yeah, I'm lucky enough to have plenty of connections up here, of course. So, I've got a cousin who's got a big property down right along the Daly River and um, yeah, we went down there for a few nights last weekend with a heap of other families and um, yeah, we had a good adventure through his, what, what was an old um, peanut farm and cattle station as, as well as a little bit of fishing down there and um, no snooping around, finding some buffalo in the billabongs and some pigs and this sort of thing. So, yeah, great fun. How good is that?

Got to be out. But that's, I mean, how good is it for kids who live up there? It can get away to places like that for, you know, with a drop of a hat, really. And mate, mate, the buffalo spotting, that would have been interesting.

Yeah, that's right. Talking about the kids. I mean, it can be tricky if you, um, depending where you go, um, as far as swimming and that sort of stuff goes, but luckily enough, uh, in that upper daily region, there's uh, plenty of uh, shallow sandbars and um, safe swimming areas, I suppose. um in inverted commas.

So, yeah, we um, we, we tend to focus on those sort of areas, but yeah, I mean, there's all sorts of critters out there. There's donkeys and horses as well, but we see quite a lot of buffaloes just on dusk. We're driving around the buggies when I'm coming back from a swim and a fish and um, saw a big, saw a couple of big buffalo. Actually, a real highlight of mine, one of the best dad jokes I've pulled in a while, was we're driving along in the bush there, and there's a great big buffalo cake, I'll call it, on the right in the middle of the road.

fresh one. And I yelled out, oh, look, everybody has an a kid there. And all the kids ran out to go and pat the echidna on the, in the headlights of the car and soon found out that it was a pretty smelly, soft, smushy echidna. Yeah, you are. I mean, fairly, come on. I mean, mate, with the buffaloes.

Well, what will they do? Did they just, as long as you don't bother them, they're not going to chase you or anything? What's the story there? No, that's right.

They're, they're, I mean, they're a lot more scared of us than we are of them to a large degree. And the only time you'd ever get in trouble by one is if, if you're, I guess, if you torn him and he's injured, you know, if you, if you're hunting, or if, if you might startle one if you're doing sort of walking around some shady areas near some water, middle of the day, you might start or one and you could sort of have a little charge for a few metres, but, uh, that's just, uh, it's not because he's angry, sort of thing, just scared and uh, and they usually run away they've got. Um, they haven't got the best senses in the world. They've, um, their, their eyesight isn't real flash.

So you can sort of hide in front of a tree if you ever get charged by one or behind a tree. Yeah, right. But they've got excellent smell and excellent hearing, so. there you go. It sounds like me.

Anyway, so fair property. You can do all that on there. Well done, mate. biting up there, mate.

Have they been, um, yeah, got any mail there? been happening this time of year, obviously. Yeah, absolutely. I tell you, one thing that we don't talk about probably enough is the mud crabs and they're really running pretty hot up here at the moment.

We do a lot of, or in past years. I've been a bit too busy this year, but do a lot of half day mud crabbing and fishing charters in Darwin Harbour, and uh, I know uh, that there's plenty of mud crabs getting around. We've been catching a lot of them on the remote mothership trips and, you know, uh, I think if you buy one in a restaurant, you're looking at a 100 bucks or so, so, it's a pretty good um, substitute for a, for a feed of fish out there, you have a um, mud probably every 2nd day if you like, and the, and the, the clients really love it. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, good. You are right. We don't touch on that enough. They are muddies, mate.

they are good and they're obviously very, very good up there. What's your, mate, how do you cook those? What's your go to there, mate? You got a recipe or what do you do?

Yeah, I don't need them a hell of a lot these days. I've had a bit of an overdose of crabs over the years. I actually struggled to trust a part for a week after having a fleet of crab seecase, so, but um, I do love cooking them on the barbeque. Um just, we clean them and um, I just cook them on a low temperature with the um, hood down on the barbeque, just get a bit of smoky flavour, but of course, the chilli mug crabs really popular, and then a lot of people just like them, plain steamed as well.

I mean, there's any amount of recipes and variations. Yeah, absolutely mate. And look, I know there should be no running. are you running some fly fishing courses?

Is that what you're doing? Uh, well, I'm actually just prepping up for a, um, big fly trip that we've got coming up in a couple of weeks, we've got, uh, got a group of 2 coming up for a week, um, through one of the booking agents down in Western Victoria, actually Fly Odyssey, and these guys, yeah, and we're going to do a bit of a tour, um, a couple of days, fishing in Darwin Harbour for some Pelagics, and perhaps milkfish, and then some Billabong fishing for barra, Saratoga, and then into the flats. Uh, for our um, for our barrow fishing site casting and then Queenfish and Tramale and all the other things go along with it. Yeah, there's a bit of prep involved and it's actually pretty exciting for me as we get as I sort of work towards it.

Very depressing just hearing about this. You know, remember, I mentioned this earlier. The memories that pop up on your social media, and this time last year was at the Daly Waters pub. Here we are now in lockdown, back, hey?

Yeah, it's a really sad. everyone in Sydney area. Well, I've had a few trips have to be cancelled or postponed because of that and we'll just reschedule them to when they can get going again, but yeah, I sort of thought we were past that to a large degree. But anyway, yeah, you live with it for a little bit longer.

Takes one person. And that's it. Unbelievable. anyway.

All right, mate, we'll let you get back to the colouring in and we'll have a chat to you next week, eh? Yeah, good on you, Doc. Thanks mate. I'd love to have gone camping with you last week.

Does that sound? All right, mate. Talk to you then. That, of course, is...

It would have been a spot for you at the front gate, mate. Yeah, I understand that. I know. I'm on the.

I know. Just make sure you got the grass whipper stip for when I come up there maybe out the front near the road. Yeah, I know, just run a lead out for me in case I need a bit of power, although I'm pretty self-sufficient these days. Anyway, no, your hospitality is just unbelievable, buddy.

Yeah, it's endless, isn't it? Yeah, I know. See you later. There, mate.

There he is, Watty. What a great day. mate's like he's, eh? Like him, eh, eh? Anyway.

He is the best in the business when it comes to that fishing caper, though. Barefoot Fishing Safaris. That's the that's the name of it. You need to go to the website.

Barefoot Fishing Safaris.com.au or get on the Watty's Facebook page and jump on there, Barefoot Fishing Safaris, lots of videos and tips and the like there. And he is a great bloke, good mate of the programs. I think he's mucking around with me. I hope he is. He's all right.

And I only wish I was up there with him. And we had a good time when I was there last year. We caught up a few times and we went fishing, as you know, and certainly wish I was up there with him right now.