Bag a Barra — 1 July 2022

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.

And, of course, Glenn, what do you, what is the man and the guru at Barefoot Fishing Safaris? You can check out the website, barefootfishingsafaris.com.au. Check out the Facebook page as well. He is the go to when it comes to fishing in the Top End, and he's the, as far as we're concerned, he is the number one fishing man up there, and there are a few, and they're all good blokes, but what is our number one?

He's all over it, knows what's biting, where they're biting. He gets around a bit, and he's been out on a massive adventure. He's on the line to tell us about it. What do you g'day?

Yeah, g'day, Doc. I, um, yeah, I have been on a massive adventure, but I did hear you talking about those suits from Lowe's. I went through a fair few of them, stacking me B&S ball days. I can tell you.

Oh no, no. No, hang on, you're being this bull days. actually not that far beyond you either. I've got to say to you, mate, you're revealing some breaking news here.

I didn't know you were into the BNS balls. I could imagine. Did you have the with the big aerials and all that stuff? Oh, I didn't have big aerials.

I did have a very nice old HX holding newt with a red 253 in it, an Aussie 4 speed, which is... hold it right now. Is it a nice game worth mudflats? Yeah, yeah, well, bloody oath it would be, yep.

Yeah, geez, yeah, like I say, I wish I had it now. Great old cars. But anyway, moving on. No, you would have been, you would have been just cutting a sway at the B&S balls around the place.

educated there. I mean, like seriously, did you have the big hat on and all that? I, well, no, I didn't, I didn't wear my big. don't wear my hat inside.

as you know, good man of country boy, but no, I did. I used to, it sort of used to be a bit of a 3 or 4 day event for myself and a few of them, mate, so it wasn't just one night. Was it as much fun as that time you got there? Where were you?

Were you a strand on the Nullabore at Christmas? Did you have as much fun as you did that time? Well, let's do, the 2 stories are a little bit intermingled. actually.

The, um, the 2 compadres that I met on the, uh, on the Nullabore plane, uh, one faithful Christmas day, um, ended up coming to our local billionaires ball in, uh, down in Harrow. Toxic Jumper's Ball in Western Victoria there. Yeah. So good stories from there.

A few people with me will probably know that one. Oh, backpacker, right? They were backpackers that you met there on the, when you were broken down on the Nullerball. I mean, it could only happen to you, Watty.

seriously. But anyway, Jesus, it's all happening there in the Watty household. What's doing? Oh, we got the kids here, school holidays up here, of course.

My kid's got a couple of mates over there at the lawn kicking the footy. Yeah, fair enough, mate. No, good stuff. And mate, plenty of people in the Top End at the moment.

I mean, it's that time of the year where people are just flocking up there in their 100s, if not 1000s, and getting out of the colder climate in the south. How is it looking around town? Plenty of vans, plenty of tourists. Yeah, absolutely.

It's actually fairly chaotic in the van parks. Apparently in Catherine. They had to open up the showgrounds because every van park was overflowing and nowhere for people to camp. Um, it seems like is um, I think I heard something like 60,000 caravans on the road, uh, at the moment in Australia, on the news the other day up here. So, a huge, huge number, and half of them are here, of course.

So, um, good turnout for the V8 supercars we've had up here. What was it last weekend or the weekend before? That was, that was an awesome day. We went out there on a Saturday.

Beautiful weather and some nice cold beer and some big loud V8s and stuff rolling around, so that was good. and yeah, then we went and did a bit of fishing too last week, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, no absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's amazing. I'm just imagine how many people up there.

Now, let's talk about this fishing adventure. You were out on a mother ship around Arnland. Yeah, that's right. We do.

Oh, probably averaged about half a dozen of these trips a year. larger groups up to up to about 9 or 10 is is what we'll take on those big, um, on the liverboard mothership and we, we sort of depart Darwin on day one of 7 days and uh, steam overnight and arrive at our 1st destination the following morning and and then we fish for 5 days and and back home we come again. So, the trip just gone, we, we headed off up to um sort of West Arnham land there and there's some remote sort of coastal um creeks and coastal river systems and uh although it was quite windy. Of course, the fishing is largely untouched out there.

So, um, you know, still have excellent fishing, which was, um, really good and particularly when, uh, you know, we will get this cold weather, I quite often talk about how it can slow the fish down, but it goes to show just how many fish are in a system, uh, when they're still really biting aggressively and sort of competing for that food, which, um, which is obviously, you know, really good for your numbers on a fishing trip. That's unbelievable. Mate, when you go away on the mothership. I mean, what happened?

So what you, you jump on other ships, on other boats, and then just go and scout out. What happens on that? Because you go away on the, what, for a week or something? Yeah, they're, they're week long trip, so generally a week we can take.

taken them up to 9 or 10 days as well. But yeah, we tow our, tow our guide boats behind the liverboard boat, which is um quite a big aluminium catamaran. You can look up um, crew can look up their website. It's uh tropic paradise is the name of the boat and Top End seafaris is, is the business and so we hire that, we hire that mothership um for the week as guides and and we tow our guide boats behind it and um sort of point, point it in any direction, we um, we, we see fit and where the fishing conditions are going to suit the weather and what the clients want to do.

So, we get to see some really cool country while we're doing that, and of course, um, the best thing is that there's never anyone else out there, so you get the whole place to yourself. Yeah, you got to be happy with that. Just incredible, mate. So with the mothership, how many of you go on that?

Yeah, so usually maximum group of nine. uh we'll have 3 boatloads of uh of 3 uh fishers and and 3 guides and then we've got a uh chef on the boat and uh and a skipper to look after all our needs on the boat and we cook our fees, our bacon, neg brekkies, and do the washing for us and all that sort of stuff, so we get pretty spoiled when we're away on those trips, Duck. Yeah, absolutely. Um, oh, just I just think it'd be fantastic.

I mean, that would be one hell of a trip. And I remember you saying thinking that we're going good at the moment because we're out in the up, back and travelling and camping and lighting campfires and all that stuff. And you're up on a mothership fishing around Arnamine. I mean it doesn't get much better than that, does it?

No, well, it's interesting thought to um, to run through, Morn, when you're sitting around, the campfire is, is what other people are doing, and I think in Australia, we're pretty lucky where there's, there's a lot of people doing um, lots of cool stuff right now, um, particularly up north where it's a bit, the weather's a bit more conducive to it, but, uh, we're, we're the lucky country. I reckon we've got plenty of opportunities to do cool stuff year round and um, yeah, every time you sit beside a campfire or you throw the line out in a remote coastal creek for a barrier, you should count yourself lucky as an Australian, I reckon. Oh, absolutely, mate. We are lucky.

Now, mate, you've got this new little add-on to Barefoot Fishing Safaris where you've got these, these are, these are extreme charter trips. Just quickly thoughts about that. Yeah, that's right. I've been busy doing today, actually, just um, working on sending some guys overseas to go fishing, um, as well as there's some uh, really cool lodges and and good guiding operations right to Australia as well, but one big draw card for the angling adventures business is, is uh, these couple of lodges that we've got exclusive access to over in uh, PNG.

Um one of them is at a place called Lake Murray where we fish for black bass and and big Barramundi there and then um Ben's back river, which is, they're both sort of down in the southwest corner of New Guinea and um, Massly big floodplain system and uh, uh, untouched populations of, of really big Barramundi, um, in their, their runoff uh, season there, which sort of starts in, in May and runs through till perhaps August, depending on the season. So, uh, yeah, uh, groups are feverishly booking those trips there about week long trips as well, um, for next year and the year after. So, there's a fair bit of admin that we've got to do to get those trips off the ground, but um, yeah, we're, we've got the ability and the connections to do it. So, yeah, it's um, it's really cool to be able to be sending, not only um, taking people fishing, but sending people fishing, and and then going fishing with them myself these days, which I'm really looking forward to.

Yeah, that's unbelievable, mate. Really, I think it's, I just, so people want to get onto that, mate, how do they do that? Yeah, the best way to go is just to search up angling adventures, and that'll take you to the Angling Adventures website where we've got all the lodges and operators that we practice booking agents, sort of conduit for. Um you can browse your way through there.

We've got um trips to Alaska, to New Guinea, New Zealand, um and of course, across the Top End, and plenty of others as well. So, virtually anywhere you want to go in the world, we can find a really good operator for you and um, and go over and check it out and then start um, organising your groups for you. So saves people doing a lot of the sort of heavy lifting themselves when we can arrange flights and visas and all the transfers and that sort of stuff for them. Gee, I tell you what, mate, you're a high flyer these days, eh?

I mean, you're gone to the days when I went fishing with you, mate, you know what I mean? And we just had bacon egg rolls and, you know, did our best and copped the spray for being, you know, 3 minutes late. And, uh, but now you, you, you, you're setting people around the world to go out and, and, and catch them. Mate, you're on title. So the website again.

This is a great idea. I'm going to say to you now, there's a market for this. Give us the website again. Yeah, anglingadventures.com.au.

It's actually, the business has been operating for over 30 years where, where the 2nd owners of it, and um, yeah, so we've got really long-standing relationships with all these uh, super awesome fishing destinations right across the world. So really exciting sort of phase of my life as I've been a bit less time on the water guiding myself and more time doing some overseas fishing. More time at lows, more time at lows, buying new suits to get to all those cocktail functions that you'll be invited to now that you're, you know, a guru. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I'll have to get the tuxedo version for the next... I'm in the taxi version. I mean, fading. I want to see fat as of you in the low suit at the B&S ball, to be honest. I mean, that good, but that.

Sleeves cut off with a pocket knife, a whole lot, yeah. Oh, unbelievable. Oh, what are you full of surprises, mate. All right, good stuff, mate.

You're a good man. Barefoot Fishing Safaris is, of course, is the day-to-day business if people want to get up the top bend and catch that barramundi, go with the best in the business. Of course, it's my man, Wadi, barefootfishingsafaris.com.au. Mate, we'll catch up with you next week. See what you've been up to, eh?

Good on you, mate. Yeah, I'll have another report for you. I'm heading out, spend a couple of days time. Good on you, mate.

Get out there and kick that footy around, all right? Will do. Fish tacos for dinner at our house, too, so we're going pretty good up here. Fish tacos.

Okay. Yeah, stuff. Redfinned salmon. Salmon tacos, I think. What about the night when I was at your place if we had the baked dinner?

What was it, lamb or something from your old man's farm, wouldn't it? remember that? Yeah, beautiful Louise. The long suffering, Louise.

The long suffering Louise. She did the baked dinner. She's a lucky woman, that lioness, isn't she? Oh, see you.

Fair take it. Hey, listen, listen, I noticed too that our man, our man, gunners is, he give it, he give it away. I mean, Gunners, I'm surprised that you didn't put your hand up for that job. Oh, well, yeah, I think better candidates out there than me, mate.

But yeah, we've got... no, no, no. seems to be doing a good job. No, we're on 2 radio stations in Darwin.

We're also broadcasting in Catherine as well as Ularoo. So we're going to have the push for the Barefoot Fishing Safaris political party and we'll get you in for next election, okay? You're the number one candidate. I reckon you'll go good in there.

You can drum yourself a bit of support, mate. That'll work. Oh, mate, I'll do it, mate. You still have to do the press conferences in the low suit.

See you. Yeah, would be. You'd probably make more sense than what goes on anyway, so yeah. There he is, Glenn, what are you, what?

Checking me out Barefoot Fishing Safaris.com.au. How good? it? A boat? What was it? A mother ship? At Arnam Lane.