Bag a Barra — 17 June 2022

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.

Oh, don't we love Shimano, but don't we love this bloke? It's fantastic that he's back on the radio with us and I've had an email here from Peter from Victoria. G'day, duck. Love the show.

It's fantastic that Watty is back. Can you just ask him? This is the G-up, isn't it? What are his tips?

What bait do you use to catch goldfish? Watty, is that right or not? Peter, you're a gibro. a bit of a stitcher.

Yeah. That's how I get the ones out of the pondie when I clean it out. Like, all right, the goldfish. I don't think they'd be very good eating, no. No, I don't reckon they'd be real good eating myself.

Mate, you've been away on a 5 day fishing trip. How'd you handle that? You survived. Yeah, I did survive, although only just, to be honest, it was a pretty tough affair.

We had our um our sort of 1st cold snap come through here. Oh here we go. Oh, here we go. Oh, no, don't tell me.

It was down to 22 degrees, was it? Well, it was certainly a lot lower than that, actually. On the 1st morning, we went out to your favourite spot robbery billabong, and it was actually 12 degrees at the boat ramp. Really?

It was very chilly run down the river. yeah. absolutely. Really? Really?

Why is that? It's been cold everywhere. I mean, down here. And I mean, I can imagine back at home on the family farm for you.

I mean, we've been, we've had frosts here through the week. I know out just an hour or hour and 10 minutes from here out west of Lithgow. It was it was in the minuses there. There's been a bit of snob out the place last week.

I never thought that existed up there. 12 degrees. It wouldn't happen too often, would it? What happened to global warming?

No, well, that's right. I mean, it does happen. It generally, it's, it's pretty, it's a good indicator that, you know, our dry season's really here and it's driven by weather that actually comes from Western Australia. So when you get a big high pressure system, pushes into the, into the bite.

Um, You, you probably know, duck band, amateur, meteorologist yourself that, uh, a high, a high pressure system spins in an anti-clockwise direction. So it blows all that cold air up from down south from that desert country up to the Top End here and we'll have, yeah, 4 or 5 days of really cold overnight lows and sort of cool, cold, windy days as well, which certainly does change how we have to attack our fishing days. So, um, yeah, we look forward to that, that, it's actually sort of just easing off here today. So hopefully get back to warmer and more stable conditions. Back to that 34 every day in the middle of winter.

That's for sure. Now, mate. A 5 days. So mate, that sounds like a good trip.

You did, I'm gonna make you survive it. I thought I could just imagine how many cans you went through over nighttime and on that. Where'd you go? I mean, what were you catching and how did all that work out?

Yeah, so this is a, it's a group of 6 um that we just did. So meself and another guide, Jacko, who's a bit of a legend up here. We, um, we took them, so because it was a bit, we knew, went to, we sort of trying to, um, keep out of the rough ocean sort of water, I suppose. So we did corroborate Billabong on the 1st day and that was quite good.

We got into Saratoga and some Barra there, and then off to Dundee from there where we based at Dundee Lodge or at the Caribbean Park there for the next 4 days, and we mixed up the fishing between sort of the river, the Finnish River and the Bluewater options at Dundee, and then in Bynoe Harbour for some shallow water site, fishing for Barra yesterday, actually, which was um, was a really good day, and it, and it just showed the boys that once the water team did sort of stabilise and warm up a bit that, The fish really did switch back on again and we had some pretty exciting fishing yesterday, which was really good. Oh that sounds fantastic. Geez, you're a good part of the world there.

I love it, mate. How good is it? Jeez, it would have been cool though. Corroborate.

12 degrees. Corrobory Willow. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they're a bit like, you know, me when we get this 1st cold step and yourself too, you know, you get that 1st bit of cold weather for winter and you sort of go, oh, bloody hell, it's cold on...

So what happens? hide, the fish hide. Yeah, they do go. they sort of switch right off the bike.

So you've got to fish a bit differently. We tend to have better results once that sun gets up and warms up some of the shallow bays. They might move up in there to some bacon, warm up a little bit, or then the other techniques is to go down, like fishing really down deep, and slow where the, um, the water temperature hasn't cooled as much down deeper, of course. So, um, yeah, there's, uh, there's ways you can get them to, to eat, but it, it certainly is much trickier, and we found the barrow fishing, particularly in the river, in the Finnish river, quite hard, and it, and it matched up with some big tides, so it was dirty as well, and windy, and there was a bit of a non-event in there.

So we're lucky down that area that we get to. We've got, like there's half a dozen boat ribs within a half hour drive, so we can, we can poke up into Bynoe Harbour and get on the shallow flats where the bar up there, some of themselves are warming up and get into them from that angle. Oh, mate, sounds fantastic, mate. So how often do you do the 5 day safari trips, just, but every now and again?

Well, this is what this is what I've been doing all this year, really. Which is why we haven't been able to get hold of you. Yeah, that's right. So I've been away, you know, every 5 days a week, every week up until next week.

actually, it's going to be my 1st sort of week at home and going into just a week on week off patent for the rest of the year, which will be really nice to actually be able to go and do some camping ourselves and fishing, and, of course, all the events that are on, um, in this time of year. The V8 supercars is on this weekend, so we're pretty lucky with that. Oh, absolutely. Well, I was up there when that was on.

When I was there. Yeah, 2 years ago. I have to get back there, mate. You'd be missing me, I reckon.

Oh, yeah, well, the Top End might be almost recovered from your last visit. You kidding, aren't you? No, the restock, restock those bottle those anyway. Anyway.

Where's Egon? Dr. to his newest drank up here, actually. Yeah, I know. Well, yeah, I tried that lolly water that you drink, but anyway, that was okay.

Got like on the real gear, mate. You're a good man. Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Get onto it.

That's me, if you want to get up the Top End and do some real fishing with a pro. Well, there's your man right there, Watty, Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Watty, you're a good man, mate. We'll touch base with you next week.

We'll have a chat next week too about this new venture you're into with your brother where you're going to be sending people overseas to go fishing. We're over to Papa New Guinea anyway, which would be fantastic. Let's talk about that next week. Yeah, that's right.

We've actually got a crew fishing in Alaska right now, which would be for them. Yeah. Yeah, they're going, they're there to do some fly fishing for various different salmonoid species. So pretty exciting and might be able to have a report for you from that one.

That would be fantastic, mate. All right. We'll talk a bit about that next week and we'll tell people how they can get onto it and get away. You can organise that for them.

You're a good man, mate. We'll talk to you next week. Good on you mate. There he is, Watty.

And of course, you'll find him Barefoot Fishing Safaris.com.au or go to the Facebook page, Barefoot Fishing Safaris. And if you want to go catch that big barramundi in the Top End, you go with nobody else except our man, Watty. He is the man. It was great gods up there, but he's our favourite. Barefoot Fishing Safaris.