Bag a Barra — 10 December 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.

Well, I reckon there's a few people up in the northern territory at the moment spending up big at the pub and the bottle there, because there's been a few people catch those tag fish through the week for that $1000000 fish competition, and of course, Watty wasn't one of them because he's on the line now to talk to me. What do you g'day? Oh, you're dead right, Ducker, I wouldn't be answering the phone if I got the 1000000, I could tell you. Mate, so people have been jagging them, mate.

How good is it? Yeah, it's unreal. There was, I think another one from the Daly, and then 3 or 4 from just around Darwin Harbour, which very likely to be the ones that Santa let go there a couple of weeks ago. Most of them caught land base too.

So, you know, it just shows that the, the winnings are well within reach of anyone, um, and yeah, we remember, uh, took there a while back there, got one on a $10 handline that she um, bought a survey, she walked down to the jetty. So, yeah, anyone's in with a chance, that's for sure. Except for me while I seen it. But that's a great story. That was a beauty last year, and that just convinced me.

that you just go to the local survey, spent 10 bucks on a hand line, go to the jetty, drop it over and jag a fish that's got a 10 grand tag on it. Happy days. Has she sober up yet? Yeah, I don't know.

Once he did, actually, like these. I mean, perfect time for a lot of these guys catching them now, just bleeding up to Christmas, so they'll be flying. So, mate, you're actually on the maintenance program at the moment and pretty warm, pretty sticky up there in the Top End and you're on the welder. I mean, what are you, a complete imbecile.

I mean, oh, you're out there. I mean, how hot is it? You're outside working on a welder. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I feel like I've been standing in front of one of your spit water pressure washers at the moment.

I could not be one bit wetter and a bright sunny day here. So, yeah, she's um, she's certainly a bit tropical swinging off the welder. I'm just, uh, welding some stuffs onto some uh, casting place to, put me container, another donga, donga on, so I can finally build me shed and um, and get, get in out of the weather for when I do me boat, maintenance, hopefully through January after Christmas. Yeah, happy days.

And what's been biting through the week, mate. I'm tipping there's more locals and tourists there at the moment fishing. What's doing? Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. No, it's been, the fishing continues to be pretty good. Most of our stuff that I'm doing at the moment is in Darwin Harbour. The half day, early morning stuff before it gets too hot and yeah, I mean, uh, it's a beautiful time of year to be out there doing that then because the weather almost, um, guaranteed to be glassy flat, so you can really, um, go and choose, like you've got a much broader option of, of where you want to go and what you want to fish for.

But we've been doing the sort of light tackle extra fishing and the Trevalli and Queenfish and some really good golden snapper, biding there, and in the golden Trevalli, which we spoke about last week as well as the um, the barrow that, you know, we're trying to catch and um, and get that tagged fish. absolutely. Now, mate, how's, how are the um, the swimming holes in the waterholes in general now? I'm tipping a few, but most of them would be closed, would they, and they'd be all filling up and overflowing?

Yeah, they wouldn't be overflowing just yet. There's certain areas that definitely getting a bit more rain at the moment, which is always the way it goes. It usually starts off building up from the east. So, um, all the kakadoo billabongs and that sort of stuff will, will get that rain earliest.

Um, they, they wouldn't be overflowing just yet, but it is a, it's an interesting time because it's, it's the start of the really good time for that country, you know, with, with floodwaters rising and then that, that big boom of uh, of life that happens in there and keeping that food chain going. But in the meantime, this is the time of year when we do have, um, the, the occasional fish kill, which is a natural event where you get, like, a big 1st rain and wash heap of leaf litter and stuff into a billabong, and if it doesn't follow up pretty quickly, it can deoxygenate the water and knock a few fish over, but it's a natural thing and, and the fish, the fish up here are used to it. So, um it's just a bit distressing when you go out to try and catch one and you find a few dead ones floating around. But that's ladies this time of year and it's all part of it.

Not good. And mate, what about with the crocs this time of year, mate, what do they move about a bit? you see, see more of them and or or they just, oh, does that happen? No, yeah, they're definitely moving around a lot more now.

particularly the the smaller males, I suppose, the sort of 2 metery jobs that are, um, they sort of don't have their own patch yet, because they're not big enough to fight the big fellas, but they, they're also keen to go and find their own patch. They do move around a lot more. We actually had a dog up here last week, the week before, um, Staffy got, um, got bitten by a crocodile on the beach and, um, yeah, left a few big teeth marks in, but he got away. He's a pretty pretty tough old dog, that one.

Yeah, I'll tell you what, he's lucky he got away because he could have ended up being breakfast or whatever it was. I mean, seriously. Yeah. And what, where was that at?

That was just long, um, Cagerina Beach, along the dog beach. So, um, it's actually, it's not close. Well, I mean, it's close enough in the scheme of things to sort of the SB stuff. There's, um, there's rapid creek and then Shoal Bay just either side of it, but, um, yeah, it's, it's not the sort of place throughout most of the year that you would ever expect to see a crocodile, but this time of year is, is when you do and um, but just because they're moving around from sort of creek to creek and system to system trying to find that, that path for themselves to set up over the wet season and fatten up themselves. I mean, you've mentioned the crocodiles with their, you know, just claiming their own patch.

I mean, so with your patch, what pub is that this time of year? Well, finally you say that, actually, because I'm working right beside my container here, and it is absolutely stinking hot, and I just know that about 5 metres through, the wall of the container is half a keg of VB sitting on, on about 2 degrees there with the, the pot glass swinging off the string on the door handle. So that's my closest at the moment, but we're probably heading to the Nunamar tab and more than anything at the moment. It's a little post pub, just out of town here and where they held a pretty famous Rodeo, which we have spoken about, perhaps last year.

I haven't really held too many of them in the last couple of years, but yeah, it's a, it's a good country, sort of bush pub, full of plenty of locals and um, yeah, good time down there. Yeah, I'm sure. Well, you know them all. I think we went to a couple of those up there.

So you could do the pub guide trip as well, as well as fishing guide, you could be a pub guide, I reckon. And it'd be fantastic. As long as you could take people to the ones that you haven't been barred from, which would help. Mate, I'm tipping the tourist numbers now, just dropping, dropping now as it warms up as we get closer to Christmas, obviously. But there's still the odd tourist about, but I'm tipping things are probably getting back to a little bit of quiet normality for people up there.

Is that right or not? Yeah, definitely. This is, I mean, traditionally for me, 1st of December is when I'll pull up for the year and get stuck into this maintenance sort of time of year and same with um pretty well most operators, um particularly all the the Kakadu and Litchfield type guys that once all those waterfalls and stuff start um getting closed off, they'll um they obviously have to pull up. But, yeah, it's pretty hard to convince tourists to come up here at this time of year is when things are getting good down south, you know, and it actually, it sort of goes the opposite way too. Like, this is the time of year, of course, when pretty mass, mass exodus of territory locals heading south to, to go family Christmas and get back and, um, you know, do some things back in their own, own hometowns where they grew up and, you know, of course, I'm one of them, we're really looking forward to that next weekend.

Yeah, well, I can tell you now, you're talking about the weather down here. It hasn't been that flash because we've had, we've had like a, what's what they call now, a bunchy weather event and it's been raining and the like and it's been pretty windy. We went camping last weekend, almost would have blew a dog off a chain in the afternoon on the Saturday. I mean, it's unbelievable.

just incredible. But anyway, we'll get through that and it was still out and about, which is good to see. All right, mate. Well, mate, we'll keep talking to you each week, sir, what's happening?

Get the latest. and then obviously, as we get around that Christmas period. We'll talk to you down there on the land when you're annoying all your family and your old mates down there and they all throw streamers at you and the like to when you leave, which is fantastic as well. But we'll keep, we'll get, we'll keep up. get the updates on what life's like in the Top End this time of year, and of course, the fishing and everything else is we move along towards the end of the year, mate.

Yeah, that's right. Next time you yarn to me, I, I will be south and um, it'll probably be, probably be lining up a couple of handles over the wood at the old uh, the Western Hotel there in Victoria. Some of your listeners would know that um, the Western Hotel in Dalemoral, there's got a white fox mounted up in the bar there and um, famously, my old man actually was the one who shot that fox. So, yeah, here we go.

There's a white fox shot down there, which everyone should be able to try when they go through Balmoral. I'm sure our listeners around that part of the world certainly would know it, mate. so there you go. All right, Watty, will you take care?

Get back on that welder, mate, and don't leave any of that VB behind, will you? No, well, we wouldn't want it to go off over the Christmas break while I'm not here, would we? No, not at all, mate. Not at all.

No, get it into you. All right. Talk to you next week. Good on you, mate.

See you later. See you, mate. There he is. Glenn, what he, what, he is the guru at Barefoot Fishing Safaris.

And if you want to head up to the Top End and go fishing next year or you just want to get some educational tips as well, you need to jump onto Barefoot Fishing Safaris.com.au or follow him on Facebook, Barefoot Fishing Safaris is a good man, Watty, and he certainly does give us all the updates and paints a great picture of what life is like in the Top End.