Bag a Barra — 21 April 2023

It's time to head to the top N and Bag a Barra. With Glenn Watty Watts, thanks to Shimano. Remember to buy local and fish local, visit Shimanofish.com.au. Well, he's the man in the top band who knows how to Bag a Barra, and, of course, you can find him on Barefoot Fishing Safaris's website as well as the Facebook page. He's angling adventures.

He's, oh, mate, he's everywhere. He's Mr. entrepreneur up there in the Top End. He's got all these other little things going and little businesses and things that we're going to talk about. But his name is Watty, and he's on the line to talk about.

He's experiencing Kakadu recently. What do g'day? G'day, Doc. How are you?

What is it? Angling adventures, Barefoot Fishing Safaris. else? Oh, there's a bit going on, isn't there?

I need to write a list, but probably biting off a bit more than I can chew, I reckon. what he's left home from the pub.com. Yeah, on, yeah, yeah, on the push. on the pushy.

Not the courtesy bus. No, fair enough. I'll start that one again, yeah. Yeah, why not?

Now, mate, it's Kakadu. You were there recently. What's doing? A biting?

Yeah, yeah. Kakadu's fishing really well, actually. Um, it's luckily enough to get um, to get permits to go, to be able to run my guided fishing in Kakadu uh, through COVID, actually. There's only 4 operators allowed to guiding Takadoo, which probably a lot of people don't know.

It's a world heritage list area. Okay, so hang on, just what was that? Sorry, mate. What was that about the guide, the guide's going into Kakadu? There's only 4 of us that have got permits to guide inside Kakadu.

So, who's speaking there themselves? Yeah, but you need to meet some fairly specific criteria to be allowed to run guided fishing tours in there. I didn't know that. Yeah, so there's only 4 of you and you're one of them.

So you're one of the you're one of the top four. Well, I mean, it depends how you read it, I suppose, but yeah, you got to jump through a fair few hoops to get the permit. So, I suppose there's a bit of value attached to it, and I guess you get away from a lot of the crowd too, because there is only a few guides, and, um, and, you know, it's a bit further out of town than, say, Shady Camp or some of the other close-up spots. So, yeah, the rivers tend to be a bit less congested, and um, and the fission's good, and the, through cacaduna scenery is beautiful as well.

It's big part of the trip. Yeah, and it's one of those places I think that everybody wants to head to on any Top End trip. They want to go into Kakadu. So you fished in there and where were some of the places and how did you go?

Yeah, well, we had a look. It was the 1st trip I'd done in there this season. So we went to both the major rivers, which is the East Alligator and the South Alligator. South Alligator is the one that you cross over, sort of on the way into Kakadu, um, which you were driven over, Big Muddy River, and um, yeah, it fished really well.

We did a couple of days in there. Lots and lots of barrier there. They've had plenty of rain. There are seats of water up in a flight plane, so it's, it's going well and it, it'll fish really well.

Right through until the end of May, I suspect, or until it gets a bit too cold. uh for those barren there and then I'll go back up into the billabongs and um and settle into their dry season pattern. We had a go at the East Alligator as well, which is another place. I know you like the Kale's Crossing where you see all the crops there in the dry season.

Yes. Yeah, and it's a beautiful, beautiful spot, of course, upper. You get a gorgeous country up, upstream of the boat ram there and the crossing and um, plenty of, like, heaps and heaps of smaller barrow, those, sort of 50 to 60 centimetre ones, up there, which you can catch all day, and and then the bigger fish come on the bike, with the tide changes, and that sort of thing. So, that's a really fun and, and spectacular place to spend a day. You know, whether you're fishing or not, really. Uh, you know, you go there on a sight scene or cultural tour as well, and um, and, and see some really spectacular landscape.

It's almost that Kimberly style landscape, you know, with the gorges and escarpments and stuff, which we don't have. How good is that? Yeah, exactly. How good's that?

I mean, well, I mean, you have Catherine Gorge down further down, but you are, look, look, I just think any anyone who goes up there, you've got to go with you or one of the other guys, obviously you're our preference, but if you're, you know, but to get that experience, because you can miss it, it's a long way to go to miss out on those sort of experiences and going fishing in somewhere like East Alligator River, because you really need that someone who understands the water there and where and and just the lay of the land. I tipping there was a few crocodiles about as well. Oh, yeah, there's plenty of crocs.

That's one of the best things about the east alligators, the crocodiles, they really do creep up. They tolerate each other in their own sort of personal bubbles a bit more along that spot and they make for an awesome photo opportunity. Of course, it, being in the boat, you get a really good vantage point on the, on the crossing itself, you can sort of go right down there where they're all sort of sunbaking in, in the water as it trickles over and, and then, and then, you know, when the tide comes up, you can jump down to the saltwater boat ramp and, and blast down into the saltwater section. big long river, that one.

It's about 90 out to the mouth of the river. Was it 90 was it 90 K's? Yeah, yeah, from the from the boat ramp? Yeah.

Yeah, that's unbelievable. Plenty of room for everyone to spread out and plenty of fish throughout it. So, yeah, it's a great opportunity to, to, I guess, I, I did some guiding there years and years ago and uh, when I worked with someone else who had the permits, but I, I've only been there sort of a few times recreationally, since, but it's great to get back out there with some clients and show them some, some new spots. You know, these are the clients of mine that have been coming with me for 10 years and and it's great to be able to take them to a new area.

Yeah, unbelievable, mate. That's that's fantastic. And of course, as we say, any, uh, everyone who travels that far to get to the territory, do that Top End trip, you want to go to Kakidu, but you don't want to miss out on players like that. So you need to get onto people like you to get out there in the boat and just, oh, and I think, I guess, when you just said that, even if you're not fishing.

There's nothing long burnt on the water up there, mate. I, mate, I just think it's, it's just so natural, mate, that environment. It's the real deal, I reckon. I was just, that's Australia.

Yeah, yeah, it really is. I mean, you know, like, when you think of the northern territory, you think of those, um, you know, those scenes from Crocodile Dundee and, and all that sort of stuff and, and Kakadu really provides those and, um, yeah, it's a great experience, something, I recommend everyone should come up and have a crack at. Yep, all right, mate. So plenty of barrel on the bike.

All right. So obviously you've got a, you've got a full, a full season coming up, but you've got a couple of spots left on a new guinea trip. quickly tell us about that. Yeah, that's right.

You know, we've got this um, the black back, the Barramundi's lifestyle, still with a few spots over in New Guinea there, Lake Murray. There's a pretty awesome promo video that we've just released out on the Angling Adventures website. So if anyone, you can search up Black Bass, Lake Murray, and come straight into a video that we put together in that trip we did there last September, getting smashed up by Big Black Bass, and having a few nice cold beers with the local boys, it was good fun. Oh, shit, you've won me.

So there are spots there. And if people want to jump on and check it out on a website. Where do they do that? Yeah, anglingadventures.com.au, that one.

And you'll be, you'll, uh, it comes up front and centre on the website at the moment, the Lake Mario promo video. One of the many, many websites and companies at what he's in, what he's fingering up there. Unbelievable. He's the, uh, you know, he's, he's the, he's the man about town in the Top End and uh, big spender as well in the bottle-os.

Serial fishing pest and long neck spender. That's all right. Long neck drinker. You love them.

I definitely do. Yeah, he doesn't. All right, mate, you're a good man, Watty. And hopefully we'll be able to jag you next week.

Where are you next week? Fishing somewhere? Yeah, I'll be out of Shady Camp next week. We've got a big group of 8 guys going out there, a couple of boats for 5 days, so we might see if we can get on the sat phone job, but otherwise we'll get hold of you again next week.

Yeah, good stuff mate. All right. Well, you have fun, and mate, and thanks, Takaki, you're paying a picture, and I think that's what I think everybody who heads to the Top End. They really want to get to Kakadoo, it's just one of those places. It's, and it's like, look, look, they're all iconic up there.

I love. Not too many dub places up there. But if you want to go and check out Kakadu, we'll make sure you go and do that. Get on a boat and go and check out the East Alligator River, you won't regret doing that.

That's for sure, guys, all like, what? You might even go home with a big barrel on the barbeque that night. Watty, you're a good man. Talk to you next week.

Good on you, Doc. No worries. Thank you. There he is, the best in the business when it comes to catching Barramundi, our number one guide up there in the northern territory, Barefoot Fishing Safaris or angling adventures.

Take your pick. There's another 50 companies involved too here somewhere. We just don't have the time to go through all of them. But look, that new guinea trip sounds good too.

So jump onto that, if that, you think that's you? Well, why not jump on and mate, he knows where to get them. I can tell you that firsthand. So, um, make sure if you are heading to the northern territory, give you, I mean, what do you shout? and he'll take you out, and as I said, you'll be barbecuing, um, barbecuing that big bar in the afternoon and washing it down with a nice cold long leg.

That's what he loves to do, Barefoot Fishing Safaris is a good man, Watty.