Bag a Barra — 23 June 2023

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.

Well, the other day I was looking at a social media page, Barefoot Fishing Safaris, and I saw the ugliest barrel girl you have ever seen giving away some sort of a prize spinning some little wheel or barrel of something drawing out prizes. Watty, can you explain? Yeah, someone said I would have looked better if I was in the pluck of duck costume. Mate, can you employ a barrel girl instead of you trying to impersonate one?

Well, maybe I'll get Lonest. Do the next one. dressed up and that could that could work. The lioness.

I don't know how you get away with that, but anyway. Oh, very good. Now, Watty, what was the prize, by the way, what were you giving away? Uh, yes, a bit of a promotion for our, um, like the online learning stuff and as part of, um, purchasing one of the packages.

You got a free entry into um a drawer to win a 5 day fishing charter for 2 people up here um later on in the year. So, it was a pretty big deal. There was only a 100 entries available too, so everyone have pretty good odds. It's pretty fun.

Yeah, good. That's good, good. Now, mate, you've just come back from a 6 day fishing trip. Where were you?

Yeah, that's right. It's one of the sort of showpieces of what we do during the dry season, I suppose, and right through the buildup. Um, sort of uh, working our way, starting off in Darwin Harbour, um, through a couple of other saltwater destinations and finishing with 3 days fishing in Kakadu. So, um, we get to fish all the, I guess, hot spots at the right times and and for all those really cool target species that we got up here at this time of year, which is, which is heaps of fun, and um, people really enjoy getting out and seeing stuff that they wouldn't normally do if you just sort of went to one destination and stayed there for the few days.

So, yeah, there'd been... do there? What do you camp along the way, do you? How does that work?

No, I planned the day so that we've got we only shift accommodation once. So we spend the 1st 3 days fishing within sort of an hour's drive, Darwin, and then and then we shift camp out to out to Kakadu and fish the last 3 or 4 days out there, and when I say camp, we're staying at, where are we doing? Club Tropical is the 1st couple of nights. Buffalo Creek. Hang on, hang on.

Harry, you could take up fishing here. Staying at Club Tropical. Tell us a bit about Club Tropical. What is that?

Club Tropical's a huge joint. They've got a couple of 100 rooms out at Lee Point. and yeah, there's a couple of swimming pools, big, beautiful restaurant there and really nice um apartment style rooms as well. I've got some regular hotel rooms, but I'll put the boys up in the apartment rooms, so I've got a bit of room and what are you staying in the presidential suite? Are you in the presidential suite?

Yeah, well yeah, I am. I come back home those 1st couple of nights, so I got they still got a bit of washing cooking and cleaning around here for the family. And then when we get, we get out to Kakadu, and we stay at Ambinic, which is a really awesome Aboriginal owned um, hotel sort of set up out there. And I tell you, they've got the best Chinese feed in Kakadu out there, and they'll cook, cook our fish for us every night if we want to, too, in some awesome different styles which you've never ever had before. That's all right, isn't it?

So you catch the fish through the day, and even though they sell food, they'll cook your fish for you. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we just, I just filling them up and chuck them in the esky and bring them home nice and cold and ready to cook and drop them off there. We go and get our stuff sorted and come back, have a swim and then rock up for dinner and there we go.

some sorts of different flavoured and style. Yeah, that's right. I mean, feeding. I mean, and when you say, so what were some of the styles? That is what knocked them up in a, what, in all different... Yeah, the ones I remember from last week.

Yeah. So we had those sort of deep fried in salt and pepper, salt and pepper barra, and then we had ginger and shallots one night. Um, yeah, uh, like lemon, uh, what do they call it, like, um, uh, I can't remember. Lemongrass.

I can't remember mate. It might be lemongrass type thing. Well, I've actually got a bush of lemongrass here at home. It's great.

Great for fish with. Yeah, we use it to um, there's sort of like a long grass. It can grow up to sort of shoulder height, it will cook the fish on the barbeque or in the fryer or whatever, and then you sort of bunch, grab, grab a heap of lemongrass, scruff it all up, tight into a big knot, and get the, it really smells like lemon, and then you can sort of rest the fish on it, and it sort of infuse it with a better lemon smell. Yeah, it's really nice.

Harry, yeah, you go there. A little bit beckish. This sounds so good. I'm starving. I'm pretty much...

Just listen to this. This is unbelievable. Now, what about, so they were on the bike, were they, when you everywhere you went? Yeah, yeah, they really were.

We fished, oh, actually, Darwin Harbour was a bit of a slow day, 1st day. It was a bit windy that day, so we sort of couldn't get out where we sort of, um, really wanted to, but, um, you know, that's, that's the way it goes sometimes, but, um, yeah, then into Shoal Bay, sort of dozen barrow in there, on the flats and a few other things. Um, Who'd we fish after that? Oh, 4 mile hole, um, right in the middle of, or, sort of in the, yeah, in the middle of Cacadillo, I suppose. Um, any amount of barramundi in there, it's a really sort of popular and famous spot up here for most, mostly smaller barrow, but some good ones in there.

I think we've got a couple of 65s and some, some nice Saratoga and then next day was East Alligator fresh water up in the escarpment country and around all the beautiful clean sandbars. That was another really good day fishing. And then what did we do? Home billabong.

Um, which is at the back of Kawinda and Yellow Waters, really great Saratoga fishing spot, and um, I think if you had a look at my social media there last week, there was one particular spot. I said, if we don't catch a fishy, we're going home because it just looked so good and yeah, luckily enough, the boys did, so that worked out. be nice. All right. Sounds good, mate.

It sounds a great, great, great 6 days. Yeah, and we finished off actually on the last day. We still have one day. We skipped a day in the salt early in that trip because it was a bit windy.

So we did the last day. Your favourite spot made it corroborate and it was fishing really well, caught a heap of fish that day. Oh, mate, I love it out there. That was good there. I got it on, mate.

Well, next year, what do I think next year, I think we're probably going to plan a trip up there, so you can take me back out there. I'll be on time, OK? All right, it's quite important. All right.

I got to go now, Watty. Right, mate. Good on you. Enjoy the rest your week.

You're a good man. There he is. What a great report and what a great, fantastic trip. That sounded like.

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