Bag a Barra — 19 January 2024

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 shamanofish.com.au.

Well, he's the man behind angling adventures, Barefoot Fishing Safaris, recently just toured property in Guinea, where he survived. You're wearing your gum boots up there with the brawly out, eh, Watty? Not much point wearing the gumboots, mate. It's a bit wet for that even. We've got bare feet around here, actually.

Yeah, I know. Well, it's well, these Barefoot Fishing Safaris. That's right, yeah. No, I think you'd end up with the gum boots full of water.

raining that heavy up here at the moment. Yeah, so I've seen some stuff saying the monsoon and it's in full swing. What's it like? I mean you love it.

What is it like? Yeah, it is a really spectacular time of year. It's... generally hits around Christmas time, um, but it's, I think it probably started on about the, uh, maybe the 12th or 13th or so just before we got back and, um, yeah, I mean, it continues.

So, it just, it just rains and rains and rains. It actually been a pretty windy one too. Quite often it's not real windy, but it has been, has been quite windy this, um, this monsoon, uh, up, um, some gusts up to sort of category one cyclone conditions that sort of 90 to 100 kilometres an hour around Darwin. So, yeah, it's, that's um, that's a bit different than normal, but yeah, I mean, it's just so wet and uh, I mean, the country loves it and of course, if you jump on the um, the river height markers around the territory at the moment, you'll see that the Daly River um, is well and truly up into the township.

I think at the moment it might be sitting at about 12.6 metres or something like that. What does that do with the crocs? They're giving an extra bit of weight for the crocs because they'd be on the move, wouldn't they? Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Last time the river flooded a couple of years ago, they had to bring in some, some special, special task forced coppers to, uh, keep an eye on the crocs, because they swim around on the airport at the, um, at, uh, at Nayu at the local community at Daly River there. get right up into people's houses, if you're not careful where, yeah. What about what does this do for fishing, mate? Does it bring on more?

Is it better? worse or what's the game? Yeah, well, we don't go out generally in it. And especially, say, down the Daly, in the south and eastern stuff at the moment, it'll be flooded and quite dangerous, because you've got to imagine all that, all the fallen timber and, you know, dead trees and stuff starts floating, floating down the river.

So we do wait for it a bit. But yeah, I mean, it's uh, once it breaks the banks, which it has done on the Daly, uh, you know, it just really fills up all those billabong systems and, and floodplains and, and it just really kickstarts that, that sort of circle of life up here. And yeah, won't, won't take long and it'll settle down and, and the fishing will become pretty red hot, uh, thanks, thanks to a flood like this for sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely mate. Well, it's it is big ambulance rain, you're telling me how much rain you had?

Yeah, we've had over 400 mils since Christmas at our place here at Beast Creek, yeah. I think it was about 450 Probably closer to 500 since we've had a bit more today. but yeah.

Unbelievable. All right, mate. Well, you do your best. I know you love it.

Stay dry. Stay safe and stay out of the bottle, though, okay? We talk to you next week. Well, maybe not out of the, maybe not, maybe not out of the bottle.

I knew that. I knew that. We sitting around inside getting all the fishing gear ready, mate, because yeah, as soon as it settles down a bit, we'll be out there and she'll be on like doggy comb.