Bag a Barra — 8 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 Watty, what is our man in the northern territory and is the man behind Barefoot Fishing Safaris? And if you're heading to the Top End, and you want to go and catch that elusive Barramundi, or you just want to get out there and enjoy the fishing, you know, scene and the atmosphere and the, what it creates. It's just, you know, you want to go with one of the best. And of course, yeah, man, what is that?

And now he's a fashion icon because he's been delayed. What are you g'day? G'day, Duck, how are you? Yeah, I've been to loads this morning.

got a couple of new shirts. Very nice. Oh, mate, we love lows here, and I've got to say, there's plenty of lows, flannelette, gear, and whine gear walking around here, because there's pretty cool here, mate. We're in Birdsville broadcasting from the Big Red Bashing and probably hear some of the noise in the background.

Here it is all happening. There's 11,000 people here, mate. All at the base of Big Red, which is, I'm not sure if you've ever been to Birdsville or out here, but mate, it's fairly remote. Yeah, I haven't been out that way, particularly somewhere I'm pretty keen to go and have a look myself.

It does sound really good. I hope you're not stirring up too much trouble there. No, no, no, mate. Please, you know me, mate.

I'm always on my best behaviour, but I've got to say to you, mate, this is an unbelievable event. If you can get out to the big red bash, you need to do it. Right on the edge of the Simpson desert, at the base of the big red Sea engine. It doesn't get any better than this.

And mate, it's just a, it's just a festival. I know it's a mute, it's a music festival and, you know, you got Jimmy Barnes, the headline act, and a stack of other artists, you know, John Stevens, Casey Chambers, just it's just unbelievable. The amount of, you know, the big names have performed here. Midnight Oil performed here.

They're performing at Monday later in the year, but it's more than that. There's just so much going on in the background and in and around them, music, and, man, you've got people here just having a really good time and enjoying themselves and, and that rural Australian, you know, entertainment, you know, like they're drag races, which was basically all the blokes dressed up in dresses and running down the sand here and doing a lap around the place and, and a running race, and, you know, and they've got camel rides, and then there's the nutbush city limits, world record with the most amount of people doing the nutbush at one time, in which they broke that record over 4000 people. doing the nutbush.

Just, mate, it's just typical Aussie stuff going on here, mate. you'd love it. Yeah, it does sound really good. Yeah, you would have looked good in the drag race, mate.

some high heels run down the sand dune. Well, unfortunately, at that time, I was setting up some radio. Do that, so I just observed it. Yeah, that's probably the best thing to do.

Yeah, no, I don't think I'd come up too good in the tutu, mate. Oh, no, you old twinkle toes. I think they used to call you back in the, yeah, yeah, that'd be right. That would be right.

But no, it's good that you found Lowe's, which is fantastic, and you're into the Lowe's gear now, which is great. So, uh, and you're actually converting some of the cotton shirts into fishing shirts, mate. So, mate, you could be onto something, fellas. Yeah, I reckon we reckon we're giving the chance here.

They got a couple of nice cowboy shirts there that could go really well as a fishing shirt, I reckon. Cowboy shit. That's the game, mate. Now, you've but things have been a bit quiet in regards to getting results, but mate, you've been out and about and you're heading off again.

What's doing up there in the Top End? Yeah, that's right. We've, well, it's like, everywhere in this country, I suppose, at the moment we're having a bit of weird weather up here. We've got a really prolonged sort of cold spell happening.

So, I did make last week's trip, uh, a little bit slower on the fish front, uh, a bit like, uh, you and I, you know, on a cold morning, the old Barrett don't really want to get out of bed and get up and into it too much. So it can be a bit slower. We, we did get fish sort of each day throughout the week, but it, it was, it was sort of a bit more harder work, but I, I guess the, the payoff to all that is, is that, you know, we're, actually um, did my 1st uh, trip into Kakadu since I've had the permit um, and to be able to fish places like the, the East Alligator River up in the beautiful escarpment country up there and um, just to go exploring some of these places. I haven't been able to take my clients in the past, was, was sort of a good, um, good trade-off for a bit of harder fishing, but, um, that, that was that week, just gone, and then next week coming up,

I'm actually about to go into 2 weeks off, um, and go and do some camping myself, which I'm really looking forward to. Where do you go when you do that? Uh, this trip, uh, we're actually heading um, down, back down to the Daly, uh, to the very upper reaches of the Daly River, um, uh, through some private access on the station, to a little camp right on the side of the river, and uh, But fishing isn't particularly red hot up there, but really good um camping and you can have a bit of a play around some water holes where you've got some safe swimming areas.

Um, well, safe fish, I suppose, from crocodiles, but some shallow pools and that, that you can jump in, have a splash, and chuck the cherubin pot there. We spoken about cherubin in the past on the show. Yeah, grab a fee of them and and we actually use them for a bit of live bait as well. So, uh, we got 4 or 5 nights down there with a couple of other families, which is going to be really good fun.

Yeah, sounds like fantastic, mate, and it would be good, and you mentioned the weather, and it is all over the shop, and we're copying it at home, which has been a bit of a worry for us, so it's certainly, honestly, it's all over the shop at the moment, and probably not as traditional in the territory this time of year as it has been in the past, mate. Yeah, that's right. We've got these, um, the big high pressure systems down the Great Australian Biders, what drives our weather at this time of year, and there's this big high after big high pushing in, and that, that blows that cold desert air up from sort of where you are, um, up, up north here, and and we get these cold southeasterly breezes, and this time it's actually, we're sort of in our 3rd or 4th week of it, and it doesn't normally last that long without a bit of a break, but, um, yeah, uh, I mean, it's beautiful weather for tourism and camping, uh, just means Sort of gets a bit trickier.

Uh so, you know, like you can't have it all. I suppose, can be beautiful, cool overnight loads for us while we're camping, but um, you know, you can't. Yeah, the, the payoff is that you, you might, might perhaps have to work a bit harder or not catch as many Barra. Yeah, no, unbelievable, mate.

And like you say, you're a great part of the water. Love the territory. You want to try and get back up there soon. What are you? So I can't annoy you a little bit more, mate.

But mate, we're going to run out of time, so I'll leave you there. We'll have a chat next week till we can get you while you're on your little camping holiday, eh? Yeah, mate, we'll see how we go. It's pretty scratchy service out there, but I can I'll probably have to do a nice run at some stage, of course, find a bit of phone service for you.

Yeah, sir, we can't find you. All right, you're a good man. Watty, get back the lays and get onto the winner runout, Sal, okay? Good on you, mate.

See you later. See you, mate. There he is, Glenn, what do you want from Barefoot Fishing Safaris? And of course, you can check him out.

Barefoot Fishing Safaris.com.au and check out the Facebook page as well. By the same name, Barefoot Fishing Safaris.