Bag a Barra — 3 December 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 shamanofish.com.au.

Yes, well, he is, of course, the owner and operator and the guru there at Barefoot Fishing Safaris up there in the Top End, and a great bloke knows how to catch them as well. And of course I am talking about my mate, Watty, Watty, g'day, mate. G'day, duck. How you going today?

Mate, you know what? I'm going all right. I'm doing the best I can. Now, before we get into it, I was with a mate of mine having a few beers last weekend who has to fly to Darwin for a little bit of work.

He's only going to be up there for a couple of days. Mate, will he feel it when he gets off the plane? Oh, dear, he'll feel it. He'll get punched in the face like he's never had before.

It's like Mike Tyson giving you one. You walk out of the airport this time of year. Yeah, that's a feeling that I, the very 1st time I came up here. Uh, would have been, you know, um, early 90s.

Yeah, I remember getting punched in the face by the heat and the humidity. Um, as I walk out the air conditioning, uh, sliding doors at the airport, that's, that's something you'll never forget. And when we come back, you know, from anytime we head south, that's a, that's the feeling of, oh, yes, I'm back home. So yeah, you'll remember that for sure.

Yeah, well, I mean, no, it's, uh, he's certainly going to be a, a different, um, a different surroundings, weather-wise, for sure, because it's, to be honest, it's been pretty muggy down here this week too, and it's, they keep, they keep threatening us with all this rain, and we haven't been getting it, but it's just been overcast, and, and pretty muggy, but I reckon when he gets off the plane, and he gets up there into Darwin and just walks out, it's going to hit him like a ton of bricks. But anyway, mate, what's been biting up there, mate? You've been out and about. You were telling me you were at a place.

What's it called? Showa Bay? There is a Shell Bay down here, I think, on the just northern Newcastle. Shoal Bay.

Where's that? Yeah. Yeah, Shol Bay's, um, Shol Bay's a real little gold nugget, actually. It's the sort of place not many visitors would ever get to, um, that really, unless they're on a guided trip.

Uh... Is that the complaints manager? Hang on, hang on. What's that bird in the background? What's that, the complaints manager for Barefoot Fishing Safaris? Yeah, I think he's putting a complaint into the lioness.

He's a bit late on the bathroom. He's got the wolf whistle going. work, guys. He's pretty, mate. Plenty of dude. Who's been teaching him the wolf whistle? Yeah, well, that might have been probably Oscar, wouldn't they?

All right, okay. All right. So, so, Shelby. So, it's not, it's not, it's not usually a tourist spot, so tell us a bit more about it.

No, it's not a tourist spot. It's a big It's the bay, the road to the east of Darland Harbour, and it's sort of not a huge area, um, but it's treacherous with its sand, shifting sand and mud banks, and, um, you know, we always say you, you haven't fished Sholbay properly until you've sort of sat, sat on the mud for 10 hours, um, being stranded. So, um, you know, tourists usually show away from that sort of stuff for good reason.

But once you get to know it, in the build up here. uh, when you get the, it's a, it's a, for a um, spawning ground for the big barra, and they come in about September, as the water temps to pick up, and, and you can get amongst them right through until, until it's sort of, Oh, well, you can do it all year, really, but um, until it gets really monsoonal and and rough, blowing into the bay when the, when that weather changes in December, or late December. But yeah, really good spot to go and we just hit it for a, you know, for a few hours at a time.

I tend to just do it for, sort of for a half day, a 4 hour trip, um, because you can just hit it over the high tide, um, you know, hit it and quit it. Have you ever been caught in the mud there for a long period of time or? I've never been caught on the mud there. I have, yeah, one of the greatest things to do in Salt Bay is to do a lock-in where you, you go up a creek and deliberately strand your boat and and uh, you know, fish the low tide pools up in the creeks and I, and I have done that, but it's a long day.

Uh, you know, plenty of, chocolate milk and donuts and, and plenty of shade and, and plenty of patience too, because the tide seems to take forever to come back in when you sit on the mud up in those creeks. Yeah, no, fair enough mate. Now, um, what, so what's happening now? We're in December, and so it's obviously the wet seasons are underway and the temperature's, um, not the so much the temperature's all over the place, but the, the mood or the weather and the storms and the showers and all that's happening. So how long will the fishing continue?

Will the locals keep fishing and all through? Oh, yeah, we'll certainly keep fishing all through as locals. The thing that um probably does happen this time of year is you probably do focus a bit more on your bike times and um and shorten your days a little bit. So, uh, you know, guys heading out to Darwin Harbour, this, uh, over the weekend will be, um, that, you know, you, you'd try and go out for 4 or 5 hours rather than 8 or 10 hours just because you can get a bit cooked out there all day, uh, and try and avoid the afternoon storms, which, which generally, you know, we'll get wind change, usually 2 or 3 o'clock in the arvo, from the, from the north, that sort of monsoonal, um, sea breeze, and, and that'll blow some storms in, and that usually, you know, that switches the fish off a bit anyway, so, it's, it's high time to head for the nearest

drive-through by then, Duck. Yeah, of course. That's it went over the timber and straight through the drive-through. Well done now.

I'm tipping it on every night now, wouldn't it? I mean, the beers, I mean, the beers, not just for you, but for everybody up there, they'd just be flowing every night as they watch the storm drilling, wouldn't they? Well, it's thirsty work this time of year, you know, like especially anyone who worked outside is just ripping wet all day, every day, and you, I remember when I was roofing in towny, when I 1st came off the stations, like, between 3 of us, we'd do 3 of those 15, 20 litre jugs a day without even blinking, um, and then you've still got a 1st or hell of a 1st at the end of the day. So, luckily for me, I've still got a little bit left over from the 40th there. So far, we got about half a barrel there with the, taps sticking out the beer fridge door and kicks at 2 degrees, which is a fairly convenient temperature, as you're walking past with the pot glass hanging on a bit of string at the, on the big door, works well.

What's in it? What is it? Oh, that's the good, the high end good stuff, the, the Victoria bitter. Right.

Not my not my preferred drop. I'll say. At least it's not mid strength. No, no, no, no, no, it won't be a drink.

Yeah, no, we're off the we're off the midstring this time of year. You've got to have a bit more bang for your butt. A bit more bang for your buck. Does anyone up there actually drink light?

Well, there used to be a fella. It happened till about 5 years ago when we used to launch at, um, that launch our boat at Dundee Beach, uh, with a tractor, right? So, you don't hook your boat in the car park, and old Jethro would, he's come and hook on with this old Fergie tractor and and drag you down the beach and launch, and you can be any, any time of the day, um, up until sort of dark dawn. Give you a number and then um, So you come back in and hold your number up in your boat, you know, and he'd see, see you with the binoculars, go and get your trailer for you. And about lunchtime, old Jethro.

I used to love sitting under the big beauty leaf tree there at the boat ramp. And about lunchtime, he'd, he'd throw a bag of ice over a box of the, um, Carlton light stubbies. Yeah. And he'd kick, kick back with his feet up with a, with a good book and and drink Carlton light stubbies while he pulled boat trailers in for the rest of the day. But I think Jethro might have been the last bloke to buy a box to light up here. Yeah.

He retired now, so it might be all over. The last bloke to buy a box of light. Oh, how good is it? So, mate, the $1000000 fish, anyone?

Anybody? Oh, hang on. Oh, there's a security gap for beautiful fishing safaris in the background. The real deal, the Top End, isn't it?

They're good, is it? Mate, what about what about anyone jagged any cash in the last week? No, just not since that one we spoke about last week, so that puts the telly to 5. It's a bit lower than past years.

What they did do this week though, which is uh out of the ordinary is Santa turned up to the ski club and uh and released a couple at the beach there um out of his uh Santa sack and then they released a couple more as well. They've chucked a couple of, couple more bonus ones in around the harbour, which hopefully, um, you know, might get caught in the next few days, because they don't, they don't often move too far straight away, evidently. It's all right, that ski club too, eh? been in there.

It's a beautiful spot. It's hard to beat the sunset. I stuck my head in there when we were up there last year and went in had a look there. The pool out the back, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the pool there and beautiful, you know, kids can play down the beach while you slide a couple over the wood there and they quite often will have live music, of course, and, you know, this time of year, she's spectacular there for a sunset. Oh, mate, it'd be great. I wish I was there now.

I mean, we're getting ready. I mean, I guess that's a good thing about up there. I won't, you know, the beer gardens with the pools in the back, out the back with the, it's just, oh, the caper. How good is it?

There's no, there's no, not a lot of political correctness up there, is there? Oh, I love about that, mate. We try to keep it, keep everything fairly high brow. I feel I know, what are you measuring this again?

What are you going woke, are you? What does that mean? I still can't. I still can't work out what that means or nobody's actually telling me what it stands for.

Oh, that'd be something you and all your, um, or your Instagram mate would be coming up with. Well, latte shipping buddies, you reckon? Yeah, all the skinny pant wearing types down there. It's funny, you know, you talk about the last bloke who bought a cart and a light. I've got to tell you, the mate of mine turn up, he did a bit of building work.

Anyway, he's turned up here with a carton of fosters. And I reckon he would have been the last bloke to buy a carton of fosters. I haven't seen anyone drink. I think they've just relaunched it.

But you don't see too many people drink Fosters. I've got to say, it wasn't too bad, but then when I bagged him, I said, mate, where did you find them? I said, seriously, I haven't seen anyone drink that for ages.

And he tried to make out that someone gave it to him. on a job, you know, like an appreciation thing. But I mean, I've got to say, they weren't too bad. They were, they, we, we got them icy cold, once they're icy cold, mate, they're normally pretty good.

Well, that's right. I mean, you won't fly, you go over to London, mate. You won't find an Aussie drinking anything, but Foster's, but down home, once we get back home here, it's a, it's, um, it's not quite as popular, but it's a sort of, that's the sort of thing. We'll buy a box of foster as long there for Australia day, you know? That's the real Australia, baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the whole foster's long neck. Nothing wrong with them mate. All right. So what's the plans, mate?

So you're just easy. You're not doing any, you're not doing any tours at the moment or you are. Yeah, no, we're just ticking along with a few, um, few of the tourism bouts of stuff. I've got the course launched again.

At the moment. We're taking a small intake for the Top End Barra Secrets course, but we're, yeah, largely we're gearing down and starting to get stuck into the um wet season maintenance and preparing for, for next year. You know, we've got um probably about 90% booked for 2020 at the moment already. So, um, Murder, make sure everything's uh, Mickey Mouse and Ships shape before we kick off the season.

Not much time and room for breakdowns, um, come mid-per-. No, exactly mate. And then we're in December now. So mate, when do you head to the farm?

A few weeks? Yeah, yeah, back there, only a couple of weeks, actually, we're flying down on the 17th, so really looking forward to a feed of yobies and go, jag a redfin in the, in the farm dam, and um, hopefully the old man's got a couple of killers, hoggets lined up for me there if you haven't sold them all at the markets. Land's making record, probably, nice as these days, so I'll probably, might be lucky to get one. Well, he's true to form, mate.

of the last couple of years, you've told me he's made sure he's kept plenty of work for you down there throughout the year. You go down there to do a bit. Yeah, yeah, usually lines up a few major jobs for the Christmas just to win the family's home, which is, that's what you do when you're a farmer, you know, like he, his dad was, was one of 16 kids and I think they were all bred as farmhand, so, you know, runs in the blood. Yeah, absolutely.

Man, you escaped, you're up there. anyway. With those birds in the background. They've probably been drinking, probably been drinking that VB out of a straw.

Anyway. Making one? Yeah, exactly. All right, mate.

Well, it sounds like it's all happening here. Shoal Bay. It's not a very popular spot for the tourists, but if you're heading up that way and you want to go and take your chances, might want to check, might want to check it out, show away. I never heard of it up there.

I know of a Shoal Bay here in New South Wales, but there it is, Shoal Bay up there in the Northern Territory. You're a good man, Watty, we'll catch up for you next week, mate. Yep, that'll be good. Yeah, I mean, anyone who ever is wandering up in the car, in the car topper or towing their own boat up.

Um, yeah, just hit us up, uh, through all the relevant channels and oh, certainly put you on the right track, um, even if you don't want to book a trip, um, you know, it's, uh, there's plenty of room up here for everyone, so more than happy to point anyone in the right direction. You're a good man. Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Just go to the Facebook page or the website.

barefootfishingsafaris.com.au and pretty useful information on that Facebook page as well. Plenty of videos, plenty of interaction there. So Barefoot Fishing Safaris. That's the name you've got to remember.

If you're heading to the Top End with a boat and trailer, or if you're heading up there without that and you want to go fishing with one of the best. Barefoot Fishing Safaris. We'll talk to you next week, mate. Good on you, Doc.

forward to it. There he is. And of course, here's my man, Watty, from Barefoot Fishing Safaris.