Bag a Barra — 21 July 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.

And of course, Glenn, what is the main we call Watty, who is from Barefoot Fishing Safaris, angling adventures, um, topend.com. the next the next chiefminister.com.au. He's the man up there in Darwin, all over the Top End, and he's on the line. Watty, g'day, mate.

How are you? G'day, Doc. How you going? Yeah, there's probably an election coming up soon.

Probably should start that campaign again, eh? Well, I'm happy to roll. Well, happy to roll the dies here, mate. Not a problem at all.

You get our endorsement. You know what? You'll never get in. No, never get in.

We've got no sway there. We're not that type of show. Now listen. One of the places up there, which is very popular, is a place called Kale's Crossing.

Now, if you've never seen it, or if you've never, I mean, obviously some people listening to us may have been there, some may not have, you may not have even heard of it, but it is a place that basically, you come out of Kakadu, across Carl's Crossing, and it's like an entry into Arnland, but it's got, it's got a very unique feature. Tell us all about it for those that I've been across it. I actually take the van across there. But tell us all about it because, mate, you can actually catch a, catch a fish there. If you're smart, your wits about you and you really want to be experienced.

Yeah, that's right. All those things are pretty important around kale's crossing largely due to the number of bloody big crocodiles that hang around that area. It's the, um, it's, there's a natural rock bar there on the East Alligator River. It's in the sort of upper reaches,

I suppose. It's about 100 kilometres downstream to the mouth of the river. Um so there's a, there's a natural rock bar there. It's been, um, built up to become a, a crossing for vehicles heading across into Arnham Land and it, and it divides.

It's sort of the dividing line between the freshwater section of the, of the East Alligator and the tidal section. There's a, there's a few days, a fortnight, I suppose, probably 5 days, a fortnight where the tides get big enough. Um, even at this time of year when the water level's really low to push the salt water, up, up, backwards, upstream, and up over into the freshwater system, and um, and of course, that really stirs the fish up, stirs the crocodiles up, and they've actually just, um, this year opened a beautiful big new, um, viewing platform there for everyone to come down and check out the action when it all happened. It's pretty cool thing to see.

You really want to be on that platform, don't you? I mean, I've seen videos of people standing in knee deep water, um, which is just absolute ludicrous, um, because there are a lot of crocs there, and you'll, and people may have seen videos on social media and on YouTube are four-wheel drives trying to get across the crossing, but there are crocodiles in their way. And the reason they are there, what is it fair to say is because it's a good feed there? Oh, absolutely.

I mean, we, uh, I fish there reasonably regularly these days now that I've got permits to guide in Kakadu, and it's always one of the red hot spots, if you can time that um particular period, and you run the sounder over, especially this new tech we've got with our active target and stuff, um, through the water around that area, uh, it really is just loaded with fish and all, all different fish. You've got catfish, tarpon, mullet, barra, all those um regular history fish and and the crocodiles are all there because they know it's such an easy feed and particularly as the tide pushes up over the barrage there. Basically right on the edge of the rocks. Yeah.

And you'd be silly to be anywhere near the water at that time, for sure, even though it can be a good fishing time, if you're going to throw a line off the bank, you want to be well up the bank, up the rocks and out of harm's way, but it's a really great um place to fish from a boat, particularly, either on the fresh side or the salt side. You get a couple hours window there, and you can catch some nice big salty, angry salty barrow there, um, in a, in an area that's, well, I mean, you can see the boat ramp from, from where you're actually fishing, so you're not having to travel too far at all. Yeah, absolutely. I bet you drive the boat onto the trailer, do you?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There's not too much wading around by me. Everyone always asks me if I've ever had any problems with crocodiles and that sort of stuff and I've been lucky enough not to.

Well, I mean, I say lucky enough, but, and, and the reason is because I don't get him with them, you know, and, and that's pretty much all you got to do is not do stupid things and, um, and stay out of the water. But, yeah, the crossing's an interesting one because, cars get washed off at every year, um, you know, going across at the wrong times of the tide and this and that, um, you might think that crossing it at low tide might be the best, but it's actually, that's when the current is the strongest and and more likely to, perhaps wash your car off than when it's on dead high tide, when the water might be a bit deeper, but there's no flow, right? So you can just idle or cross there without any worries. So, it pays to chat to a few locals in the ranges and the info centre if you plan on driving across those crossings because it, you know, it can be one sort of fatal mistake.

I mean, imagine being in a vehicle getting washed off that. Oh, terrible. Yeah, kidding, aren't you? Yeah, within that, within that crossing there, within 50 metres of it, or definitely 100 metres of it, there'd be 20 or 30 crocodiles any given time, especially on that high tide, and they're all there because they're hungry and ready for a feed. They're not there for sightseeing.

So yeah, you want to stay well out of their way. Do you ever worry, like when you're fishing in that, in an area that's populated with so many crocodiles. Have you ever had any come near the boat or have you ever worried or it's always pretty safe within the boat? Yeah, no, you're pretty safe.

Like within the boat, you're fine. You don't want to be splashing around over the edge too much, and that sort of thing, you know, we use the landing net with a nice long handle to land our fish, and when we release fish, we'd sort of drop them off and spear them into the water, um, so we're not spending too much time in there. You can, you know, quickly um, dip your hands in and and rinse a bit of fish slime off, but that's about as far as you'd get. When you're in a boat, you're generally much bigger and more intimidating than a crocodile is willing to, I guess, take on as a challenge.

So you're pretty right. You wouldn't want to be getting around there in a canoe, I think. Um, and yeah, um, even, you know, standing in that water on the crossing, a lot of people will fish in, ankle deep water on the crossing there, but what they don't realise there's a drops, drops off to a couple of metres deep, straight, straight off the edge there, and and those crocs can launch out pretty hard and fast if they decide that they want to have a crack at, yes. So definitely something that I wouldn't be that one.

There's no way in the world I'd do that. There's just no way. I mean, yeah, he's a go to the fish shop and buy one. I mean, if you're that hungry for a bar of money.

I mean, honestly, there is no way in the world, anywhere up there, and in North Queensland, fishing on the, standing in the water fishing, it's just not, I mean, mate, I mean, fishing is good fun, but I don't know if it's worth that. But yeah, I've just often wondered, you know, but I guess when you think about it, when we were, you know, I know you took us over for a bit of a close look at a couple of crocs. They scarper pretty quickly, don't they?

When the boat goes near them, they'll they'll scarper and go underwater. Yeah, that's right. I mean, they, they're into, they, they need to protect themselves as, as much as um, look for a feed as well. Um, and I think that, you know, when, when you're in a boat, um, that's, you're going to be longer and bigger than the crocodile, they see that as a threat and, and off they go, it becomes a totally different story when you're on the bank and you, and you look a bit like a wallaby ready to be eaten.

Absolutely. Anyway, so, um, so, so you'll get, you've, you've obviously bag a few fishing in that particular region, like, like you say, it's just up on the boat ramp. What would you catch be there? you get a few.

Yeah, there's always plenty of fishery around those areas. The same at Shady, the barrage of Daly River, the low-level crossing as well. There's always lots of, um, sort of resident, um, smaller barre, those rat barrers that we call under 55 centimetres sort of thing, those under legal fish, and they're, they're good fun for people to throw around a small soft plastic and catch a few of them for a bit of fun, but what, when I like to be there with, with clients, particularly, is just before that tide pushes up and, and backs that fresh water up, and, and that's when the, um, the bigger fish that are in that fresh water part of the system will, will come down and really activate into the, into a sort of a feeding mode, as well as fish that are in the saltwater side, will push up over the barrage and jump into the fresh for a couple of hours to have a feed on some mullet or catfish that are up there.

So, you know, we sat there for an hour waiting for it to come up the other day, catching a few smaller fish, and then on, on the smaller lures, and, and once it did, did push, you know, we change up to some, sort of 6 inch long, um, big uh, soft plastic uh, paddle tail lures, and, and got a couple of bar over 75 centimetres in that, in that little window that happens there, and, you know, they're beautiful salty fish, and, and straight into the, Ambini, um, Chinese restaurants, for, for dinner for the next couple of nights, they went and Disney were good too. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. All right mate. You also did a little bit in Darwin Harvard this week.

How's that going? Yeah, so I mean, Darwin Harvey continues to fish really well this year. So we did the last day of the 3 day trip in there to try and get a few more salty barras and and some more pelagic sort of style fish that we hadn't been getting in the billabongs. So, yeah, we got into some um, Trevalian queenfish in the harbour as well as um, taking the boys in, as the tide falls out below, and you can um, you can get in around the mangroves and, and spot those barrier that are sort of hunt and bait in the shallows, and um, it becomes a real challenge to cast accurately into the trees and their little hidey holes, and then um, try and get them out when they eat your lure too.

So, I think we probably, we probably cast it 25 barrow there on the flats there the other day and the boys might have hooked 2 or 3 um fish as well as um probably 30 trees and um and they might have only landed one or 2 but it's all part of the challenges and heaps, oh, you're doing it too. So that was really a good thing to be able to show them at the end of the trip and yeah, they'll be back next year for more of it. So it's good. Good stuff, mate.

All right. Well, I got some breaking news for you. We're planning on coming up there next year. so this time next year could be there mate.

Yeah, well, that'd be bloody good. It's good timing. We're just coming out of that sort of windy period and into what we might start to expect a bit of um increased water tents and stuff again. So yeah, they're really starting to switch back on again.

Yeah, sounds like the game, mate. All right, Watty, well good stuff, mate. and Carl's crossing. Anyone heads that direction?

Yeah, common sense is the key. And if you want to have a good look, use that new viewing platform, mate, go standing on the bank, especially not in the water, you'll understand on that, you'll find there'll be a lot of people there. People just flock there just to see this, don't they? Yeah, that's right.

Over the high tide, there'd probably be at least 50 people there, every day when there's a high tide, and yeah, I mean, the view, and the view that you get and experience you get from up on that viewing platform is heaps better than stand down there on a rock, on the, on the low side. You can see a lot more crocodiles and a lot more of the action of what's going on. So yeah, definitely well worth it. If anyone's got any questions about, just give us a call.

I mean, I'm out there every now and then, but I can, um, I can definitely tell them when it's going to happen, so it's easy. Yeah, good stuff mate. All right, then they can do that. They can message you too on Barefoot Fishing Safaris, go to the website, send an email, all that stuff as well.

You're a good man, Watty. We'll let you get back to whatever it is you're doing today, which I'm tipping would involve beer, I'd reckon, would it, somewhere? At some stage, yeah, definitely. It's a beautiful warm day up here, mate.

Of course, it's about 31 degrees, so I think I've you snickering at me every time I walk past, which is frustrating. Teach him a lesson later on. Yeah, 31. All right, leave you with that thing.

All right, mate. Talk to you next week. Good on you, mate. See you.

Good on you. There he is. Of course, that is our man, Watty, Glenn, Watty, what? You'll find him Barefoot Fishing Safaris and of course, angling adventures and you can jump on.

You can actually go fishing with him. So you need to check it out and he puts a fair bit back into the industry as well. So check him out there and if you want to book some trips. So if you want to book some bigger trips, he's got trips overseas and everything now.

That's what happens. He comes on this show and he grows and we get nothing out of it. But anyway, we'll go fishing with him next year and I just learnt my lesson after last time, be on time.