Bag a Barra — 7 July 2023

It's time to head to the Top End and Bagabara with Glenn Watty Watts. Thanks to Shimano. Remember to buy local and fish local. visit shamanofish.com.au.

You would have been out around a place like Wolf Creek today, running, driving through town, looking for fish. I actually have been to Wolf Creek towing a boat too, Doc, not many people would be able to say that, but yeah, we drove up through the tanamai a long time ago, yeah, well over 15 years ago up to Broom. Yeah, right. So, yeah, good run. and yeah, really, oh, that's an amazing place, that Wolf Creek crater. If anyone hasn't ever been there.

You want to put that on the list as well. Yeah, man, you know what? I've actually seen photos. people telling me about that. I think Mel Whaler might have touched on that once.

It's massive, isn't it? The crater? Oh, yeah, it is massive. I think it sort of gets getting it's silly, so it's getting filled in these days, but it used to be a bit deeper, of course, but over time it does a road in there, but it's still, it'd be 80 or 100 metres down into the bottom of the crater from up on the top of the rim. Yeah, this beautiful, perfect round.

You can see like you can just imagine a big rock slamming into it and scaring the hell out of everyone sitting under a tree or whatever was going on around there. Oh, you could imagine that. was that? You'd imagine us sitting around, imagine us sitting around now, you know, around the fire with a couple of cans and, and one of them creators laying in the Simpson.

We'd be going, what the hell was that? Hey, what, was that you? Mate, what's happening? You're knocking around Darwin and throwing in a line, but you're telling me you had a, you've been talking of it to me fishing over in New Guinea.

I mean, getting onto the big ones. Oh, yeah, I mean, we think we've got good fishing here in Darwin. Well, and we do, probably the best of the country, but you know, you go, just jump over the, over the water there to New Guinea, which actually used to be part of Australia, if you would know that being a bit of a history buff duck. But, um, yeah, we've got groups over there at the moment, uh, through angling adventures and um, fishing for Black Bass at Lake Murray and uh, Big Barrow at Ben's back and yeah, the numbers and the size of fish coming back are just extraordinary.

The last 3 groups in a row at Ben's back, they do 6 days of fishing, they've caught around 800 to a 1000 bar, in a week between a group of 6 or 9 and an over 20 metre bar, bar over a metre, um, each group as well. Some blokes are getting 10 metres themselves for a week. Um, just absolutely unheard of, just for what we get in Australia and probably anywhere else in the world, that particular river is just, it's a, it's a real anomaly. The amount of big fish in there is extraordinary.

Yeah, it's certainly not. And really, not a lot of, you know, people listening, this will ever really go fishing there, although there might be a few. It's still good to know that, you know, there's fish getting caught all over the place and you reckon up there, it's pretty big. What's been cat?

been on the bite around your neck of the woods this week? Have you been out? Oh, yeah, I have been out. I've had a wedding in the middle of last week.

It wasn't another dog wedding was. Remember the dog wedding you went to? No, actually a human wedding, this one, so we try and mix it up a bit up here, of course, but yeah, that was in the middle of the week when I'd normally do a long trip, so I just did half a dozen, sort of one day and half day trips, last set of tides, and yeah, it was going really well, 1st few days, and then we had that sort of cool push, pushed a bit of cold and windy weather up, and it did slow the fish down for a few days later that swing, which did make it hard. We did a day on the hardwood, a bit windy.

We still got plenty of fish, but sort of, you know, you're hiding around the wind and that sort of stuff, but I guess we're lucky because those sort of, those sort of bursts, they last 3 or 4 days at the most, and then we're back to a 10 days or 2 weeks of nice calm weather again. So, um, if people have got a bit of flexibility, we try and shuffle those trips around and and work around that weather in the wind or, well, like I did on one of the days, we go into your favourite place for Robbery Billabong and catch heap of burger and tarpon and all sorts of other things. A few barr, the barrack, it'd be cranky with you like that too. But yeah, we're lucky we'd have got all different options.

Yeah, absolutely. You've certainly got plenty of them up there and I've been I'm talking to some people here in Birdsville who are heading up to Darwin from here and they're going to go out there and hit all those springs. I mean, to be honest, it's you're blessed up there, you know, fishing aside. Some of those natural swimming holes and places like in Litchfield and they're like, oh, I'm a bit of a fan of that berry spring. It's not far from your place really.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, Berry Springs is a 15 minute drive from our join. It's going to be one of the best places I think I've ever had a swim, I reckon. Yeah, I reckon.

Yeah, yeah. It's so close to Darwin, even from the city of Darwin, it's less than... And yeah, heaps of room there. It can be pretty busy, but there's always plenty of room. And then, yeah, I mean, not much further down the road.

All the Litchfield waterfalls were all open and fairly pumping at this time of year. Jim, Jim Falls is just open and then, of course, I was chatting to people who are heading back down South next week as well, the other day on the boat. They're, of course, stopping in at the Mataranca Hot Springs, which is, that's got to be one, that's probably my favourite out of the whole lot. That's just amazing out there.

Well, mate, talking to, well, that one got to mention this morning, and it's obviously pretty popular, and that's your favourite, is it? Yeah, we usually use that as our 1st big 1st stop when we drive up from set. We've driven up a lot of times. We'll sort of turn and burn from Western Victoria and do that 1st 2000 K's pretty well non-stop, just rotating through drivers, and then that usually puts us at Mataranchor Hot Springs just after lunch on the 2nd day, and that's when we'll, you know, take a breath, have a swim, have a nice sleep, and then you just roll into Darwin, what is it, six, 700 K's the following day. Pretty easy running there.

But yeah, matter anchor, just the, the, the clarity of the water and the amount of water that just pumps out of the, out of the ground there. It's so warm and of course blows straight into the Roper River, right in the middle of, of what is the true um never never country, um after the, after the book, where the never never. Exactly. A good stuff.

Alright, mate. Well, it all sounds good. You'd have a few people around now. Tourists would be tend to be buzzing, wouldn't it?

Oh, yeah, I just, buddy, um, rubbing my hands together, hoping I might be able to get my hands on one of these secondhand caravans that might come on the market in a few years times. Is there some flash ones getting around? All over the place. Yeah, mate, there's a lot of caravans here at the moment.

There have to be at least 5000 caravans in here. Yeah, 4 or 5000. I mean, you think about there's 12,000 people in here. And there's that many caravans, but there's a lot of campers as well, and tents and swags, but 1000s of ants.

Oh, just unbearable. He's Shane Howard playing in the background here, can you? I can hear him. Yeah, bloody hell, yeah. I'm going out.

Yeah. Like you're about to launch. I think he's about to launch into his one of his hits here. Didgeridoo playing in the background.

You can hear that happening and I think he's about to launch right into it. Well, they got that song? Southern Rock. I think this could be the start.

This could be the big intro. Anyway, good stuff, which you were here. to bring it up to bring it down here next time. Yeah, we might try and line it up.

It's a good time for a year for us to have a holiday. We're actually heading over to Brisbane for a week shortly, so that'll be nice. Most of the rest of the family's heading up to Brisbane to get warm and... I think I was right, Watty. I think I was right.

I think I was right. Yeah, listen to this. You hear that? Yeah, I can hear that.

Yeah. She's a good party by the end of it. Oh, mate, there's a lot of people here enjoying this and the sounds of the band going on with Shane Howard up there singing now, which is fantastic. All right, well, good stuff, mate.

All happening up there in the top bend, fish wise, and people swimming in waterholes and people holidaying and camping up there right now, taking advantage of that warmer weather. Mate, we'll have a chat with you next week, eh? That'll be the go, mate, for sure. Good on you, Watty.

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