Bag a Barra — 20 October 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, he's the guru behind Barefoot Fishing Safaris up there in the Top End and angling adventures and everything else that's going on. He's been out and about, he's been fishing, he's been, you know, pulling up for little sly, sneaky off, smoko brakes on the water somewhere, and someone this week jagged a big fish in the $1000000 fish competition. Watty, was it you? No, I wish it was me, Duck.

wasn't me, mate. Another Darwin local. Yeah, jagged... Actually, it's a bit of an interesting story.

It actually, it's obviously a bit of a sucker for punishment, but that fish had it being tagged in a previous season and not recaptured. And then re-tagged, recaptured and tagged again last year or this year for this season. Uh, and it had moved about 5 kilometres away over to the other side of the harbour. Actually, where I'm looking at right now, over in Woods Inlet.

So this thing had 2 red tags in it. And one from a previous year and one from this year. So pretty interesting yarn for that, Barry, but that was the last move that he made. He's got his throat cut and he's probably been eaten by now, I reckon.

So what happens when you catch the fish and it's got the tag on it, what do you do then? You got to take the tag to some to somewhere and so here's either tag or what happens? Yeah, there's a there's a certain set of photos that you need to get. and and measure the fish and you and you do need to kill the fish and and bring it back to sort of prove that it's the right one.

Um, and yeah, and obviously the, uh, tags have got um, numbers on them and they, they match it up to their database and, and you're away. So you never know sort of what you've got until they scan it, yeah, which is all part of the excitement, I suppose. Oh, I reckon, imagine that, you'll be going to manage this a million. Well, I mean, for the next few days, you'd be bloody, you'd be wondering whether you had 10 grand or the 1000000, you know, it's a real, real ninth edge thing to be thinking about it for a couple of days until you got back to town.

wouldn't want to go spending it before you knew, would you? It'd be good if you could put it down. There are deposits on the house or something there, mate. Yeah, it's worth a 100 bucks.

How much do you reckon of the 10,000 of it gets drank? Oh, well, I mean, people are normally fishing with a few mates, of course, so quite often everyone will agree on the boat to split it and this and that and the other, and you can actually get if you jump on the ABC tales from the Tinny Facebook page or website. I think you can download what they're calling a piscatorial prenuptial agreement that everyone can fill in and sign and sort out how the money gets divvied up if you ever do get the 1000000s. Yeah, well, prenuptial agreement.

I mean, you in the territory, seriously. May, how is it up there? Because obviously the weather would be on the turn now, which will bring a few fish on and change a few the way things are done. Oh, yeah, it actually it's absolutely beautiful.

I'm actually I'm on the esplanade right now. Uh, and yeah, I'm looking out over the harbour. It's absolute glass. There's not a breath of wind.

It's probably, oh, it'll be low 30s at the moment. It will get a bit hotter than that by the end of the day, but just beautiful buildup sort of weather. I mean, it'd be nice if we got a rain this afternoon, but um, it's just, like, this is the time of year that we really look forward to when we're getting a bit of windy weather in sort of June, July, in August, and we think, oh, I can't wait for buildup to get these glass offs, and then you can go way out wide, or, you know, the colour changes in Darwin Harbour, pull really nicely out of the drains, the barrel fishing and stuff. There's actually a couple of people riding around on jet skis out there at the moment too.

So, yeah, it's bloody beautiful in the Esplanade Park. You would have driven along the Esplanade, of course, massive big rain trees and stuff. It's just, it's a lovely place to pull up and have a break. We can bring the kids in here to play on the big playgrounds and kick the footy and stuff pretty regularly.

It awesome with you. Yeah, sounds fantastic. Yeah, right, right. The glassy water has pulled the jet skis out out of hibernation, wouldn't it?

Yeah, yeah, there's actually a jet ski tour that you can do, which is what these guys are. about half a dozen of them out there roaring around, but yeah, I don't know whether they prefer a bit of bumps or flatware, but anyway, they have a bit of fun out there by look of it. Are the Jet Skis popular up there? Actually, there's a few people that fish out of them.

I was, what was it, day one of our, no, day 3 of our 6 day trip that I just finished a couple of days ago. We were back in Darwin Harbour fishing for mackerel and uh Trevally and queenfish and stuff and there was a couple of fellows out there chasing um bait schools around on jet skis and having a good time. I think there's actually the workers on this tour. Yeah.

You wouldn't want to fall off. No, well, out there, there's, you know, like a lot of places that get a lot of attention. There is a few sharks out there that you probably wouldn't want to fall off. Um, I don't know what their public liability insurance is like, um, driving around Darren Harbour with crocodiles in it on a jet ski, but it's probably not something I'd be putting my hand up to do too much, although I don't think, out in the middle there, they'll be fine, but yeah, you would, you'd want to stay out of the creek something.

There are a lot of crocs in the harbour? I mean, I know there's crocs in all the rivers and that and places, but what about in the actual harbour itself? spot many in there? We don't see too many.

The ones that are in there are pretty cagey, and they do, they've got set traps right through Darwin Harbour and Shoal Bay, um, that they were, that sort of the parks and wildlife mob actively remove crocodiles from Darwin Harbour and Shoal Bay throughout the year up to about 300 a year sometimes. It's usually high, high 250 or high 200s. Yeah, yeah, every year. And it's this time of year when they perhaps do start moving around again and thinking about where they're going to do their breeding and stuff for the wet season.

So, yeah, sort of the end of the year, and then the start of the year again when you probably see more. Um, but yeah, you, you, it's pretty easy to tell if they're around if you, you know, leave your crab pots out overnight. They often get chewed up or the floats get chewed up and even if you haven't seen a crop there for a month, there's obviously one there. Just being pretty sneaky, you know?

Yeah, you just, yeah, just presume they're there, I'd say. Now, I saw that, not if you know anything about this. This is a bit of a thing about notice, but the old mate who's got the tour boat that hand feeds the crocs. I saw his closing down.

Now, whether crocodiles jump out of the water. Did you know anything about that? Uh, yeah, I did see a news item about that in um, uh, well, I mean, I was, I've been fishing all week, of course, I don't have much contact with the real world, but yeah, there's not only, there isn't just one of the operators, there's about 4 of them, I think, or at least 3 Uh, yeah.

So if it's, um, it might just come to the end of his working life and wants to sell up or whatever. I not too sure. I should have read the story. I thought it was something to do with the government or something or license. I can't remember.

I saw something. I quickly bruised through it, but he wasn't too happy. I don't think. Yeah, like all these things, I guess the, you know, the licensing and risk assessments and stuff that get, um, those sort of businesses get put through would be pretty stringent and they might just had enough of it.

But it's actually the only place, definitely in the northern territory that you can hand that you're allowed to like interact with crocodiles in the wild. Um, other than that, you're, you're really um, not, not supposed to sort of interact with them at all. So, it's, um, it's really quite illegal and, and it makes it really unique as well. So it'd be a shame for it all to go um to get closed, which I'm sure it won't.

It's a pretty big demand from general tourism for it. Yeah, well, the tourists love it, don't they? especially people that, you know, aren't used to seeing, never seen a crocodile or whatever they see when up close, jumping out of the water, and I mean, you're not feeding them. I mean, he's doing it, but it's in a control.

It's in a controlled environment. and I mean, I guess it's a strangly difference in the reptile parks when they feed them. It's just this thing's jumping out of the water and you're sitting in the boat. Yeah, that's right. And it, like as much as anything, it gives people a really good appreciation for actually how fast they can move and what they can do if they decide they want to do something.

You know, we, we see them on the river all the time, just sort of sleeping around and you can slide the boat up close enough to them and take a few photos and you, and so they're, um, plaster cast mould of a, of a crocodile and they don't even bat an eyelid. But if they actually decide they want to get old or something, they've got pretty explosive speed and power, of course, over a short distance. So it's a good, It's good education tool as much as anything.

They can leap out of the water, can't they? That's amazing how high they can actually leap out of the deep water. Yeah, absolutely. The small ones sort of that under 2.5 metres size.

They get their whole body, yeah, out of the water. So they've probably got 2 metres of the, of animal out of the water. Yeah, so, and that's assume pretty much a standing start. The big fellows with a lot more weight, um, they don't get out as high, but, yeah, um, you'd sort of, you, when you go on those boats, you think, oh, geez, I wouldn't want to, um, have one of those things inside, he wants to get into my fishing boat. You don't want to fall out either, that's for sure.

snapped up pretty quickly. Yeah, all right. So, um, it's all right. So for locals up there, they're catching fish is a bit biting at the moment, so you can more or less guarantee yourself a feed at the minute.

Oh yeah, for sure. This is a real prime time for locals specifically, especially to be going fishing because tourism numbers are dropping right back to sort of the diehard Fishers. and, you know, the weather is just absolutely perfect for Barramundi to be buying really well as well as all the um the blue water fish that snap are come in shallow to spawn this time of year and and and the dewies as well. So the reef guys really love it and the Barrafishos, of course. Right, this time of year.

Um, yeah, this is, um, this is, especially in the harbour, in Darwin Harbour and Biner Harbour is probably the best time for you to be fishing for Barrow. Sounds good, mate. All right, we'll let you go. You can get out, see if you can't jag yourself at 10 K or even a mill.

Yeah, that'd be nice. I might go for a fish. I got another trip starting next week on Tuesday or something, I think, so. I'm going to try and go the day before, see if I can have a bit of a fish for myself, which would be lovely.

Yeah, why not, mate? And who knows, you could pull that red tag and way you go. That's right. I'd be able to get hold of the next week.

Oh, because you know what? I mean, hard to get hold of now. I mean, imagine if you won 10 grand or even a million. I mean, we'd never get hold of you then.

Yeah that's right. I might come down and buy one of those flash caravans you're talking about. Yeah, well, do your deal, mate. No problem.

Okay. All good. All right, mate, you enjoy. Stay out of travel and see if you can get yourself a tag fish, okay?

Yeah, I do that. Thanks, duck. There he is. That's Watty.

Barefoot Fishing Safaris. You can check out check him out on the website, or you can check out the social media pages, Barefoot Fishing Safaris, and of course, angling adventures, and no one knows their way around the waterways up in the Top End where the fish are hiding, where they're swimming, more than what he does. He certainly, yeah, he's right across it, and that's why he comes on here. He knows his stuff and I mean, imagine, I didn't know that.

So you got to wait. So you catch your fish, you tag fish, you go and drop it off, then you don't know whether you've got a $10,000 check coming or a million. Jeez, you would be. anticipation it gets you, wouldn't it?

Still a good feeling, even the 10 grand is good, isn't it? Anyway, Barefoot Fishing Safaris. If you want to get up there and do a bit of fishing, you can get on with the Watty and mate, he's got plenty of plenty of spots for next year. I think he has anyway.

He does book in advance, but he certainly knows where to go, catch them. So if you're ever heading up there for a bit of a break or want to go for a fishing weekend, or a week, rather, get on to, uh, what do you mean? And, uh, you'll find him barefootfishingsafaris.com. use a website, check out the social pages, as I say.