Bag a Barra — 16 December 2022

Remember to buy local and fish local. visit shamanofish.com.au. Ah, Barefoot Fishing Safaris, what a fantastic company. And of course, Watty is their man.

He's our fishing guru and Watty, you've gone to the bottom of the pole today, mate. Last off the grid, your last off the grid. I feel grateful that you can manage to squeeze me in amongst such an illustrious crew, mate. I know, I know, I know.

I don't know what happened there, but you just gone straight to the bottom of the, you know, I mean, last on the grid. But it doesn't matter. Sometimes we leave our best tool last. Well, silly.

I'm silly, mate, ready to go? That's not one of them times. But anyway, now Watty, has anyone, has anybody? I don't know why you come on here and cop these insults.

Hey, listen, is anyone 110 K out there this week? Yeah, they have. I think there was only one more. does start to get a bit slower as the rain increases.

Every year it happens. The fish do, they'll start moving around a bit more and hunting around for that sort of wet season haunt that they're going to head for once it all gets flooded. So I think there was one this week, but they're still, they're still pushing this 10 grand of centimetre thing. So bloody hell, if you've got the biggest one for the, for the season, you'd, um, you'd come away pretty, pretty wealthy, actually.

Merry Christmas. That's worth it on its own, that one, bloody eh, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. So now with up there, I mean, obviously the wet seasons upon you and that. Does that bring on other species of fish?

Are people out there? I know everyone wants the barra. Well, what else is the go? I mean, it'd be, has other fish come onto it because of the season?

Oh, yeah, definitely. It's also the time of year when Golden Snapper come back in a bit closer to do their spawning activity. So, yeah, you can catch um, catch your biggest napa inshore, a bit, um, bit easier this time of year, as well as those big black Jew fish we've got, um, to fill the esky up, and then the sport fishing guys that get right into their Marlin and Sailfish actually go really well at this time of year as well. Once you, you get these really like dead glass off conditions like we've got today, not a breath of wind, and um, and you can get those sailfish and marlin really humming once you get, get the bait balls all schooled up on, particularly on some bigger tide.

So yeah, they're, they're all chatting about that feverishly on Facebook at the moment. Actually, how many fish they're catching. So that's a really good option as well when you get a nice flat day and you want to go out and do some blue water. Well, mate, sounds fantastic.

Yeah, oh, actually, the, like the, um, the Marlin and Sailfish operation up here is really going from strength to strength. They've got an annual tournament now that sort of runs over a few different dates and they're really developing a fishery to the point now where you can really confidently go out and catch Black Marlin almost every trips. There's so much knowledge getting around now, whereas, so when I 1st started guiding up here, we'd get the odd one and we'd catch a few here and there, but you could go for days without getting them, but, um, you know, as people more spend more time doing it, and they learn, you get better and better. So, um, it's going to become major part of the tourism industry up here in the years to come.

I'm sure. It's fantastic. It's the big thing up there, isn't it, fishing? I mean, which is why we talk to you because it's, you know, I mean, it's just an abundance of different species of fish and of course the famous bar of money.

everyone just loves it. I mean, what's happening now, I guess, the tourists, it'd be very, it'd be pretty quiet around the place, wouldn't it? There'd be the odd one, but it wouldn't be too big. Yeah, that's right.

Actually, it starts to really slow down. I pay you now, as even a lot of the locals will make off for Christmas and stuff like that, as we are, and Darling becomes a bit of a ghost town from, say, the Friday before Christmas through until the 2nd, 2nd Monday of January, sort of thing, and um, everyone just has a bit of time off and spends time with their family after sort of a big year at work. But, yeah, I mean, to get back to your point about the fishing up here, um, fishing, unlike sort of anywhere else in Australia. Oh, well, I guess, you know, Cairns and Broom and stuff like this where it's also really popular, but um, fishing is, is actually mainstream culture up here, which, you know, everyone who fishes thinks,

Oh, well, all my mates fish, but say in Victoria, fishing isn't, isn't mainstream, even though there's a lot of people that do it. Whereas up here, you sort of, if you, if you don't fish, you're not part of the norm, which is, um, which is really amazing, considering how many people there are, there's over 160,000 people live in Darwin now. So, you know, that's a pretty big mainstream. So, um, that, yeah, I guess that's why the industry is so big and, and, um, and while we have fun doing it every day.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, mate. And that's why we all love it. That's why we talk to you.

All right, mate, we've got to fly. But you enjoy and wait for that rain to come and we'll talk to you next week if we can get hold of you in New Zealand. Yeah, mate, that'll be good. That'll be a real change of weather, but yeah, look forward to it if we can get it lined up next week.

All right, good on you, mate. There he is. That, of course, he's my man, Watty. Barefoot Fishing Safaris, safaris.

Angling adventures as well. We'll tell you more about that over the next few weeks. But he's a good man and certainly does know it all when it comes to fishing in the Top End.