Bag a Barra — 12 July 2024

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 Shimanofish.com.au.

Well, he's been MIA for the last few weeks, yeah, man, Watty? Because he's been in puppy New Guinea over there, pretending he's working, doing a bit of fishing. God knows what he does there. But I know he runs some trips over there.

He does all this stuff. But he's back. He's back in the land of the living in the Top End and he's on the line. What do you g'day?

G'day, duck. Yeah, how you going? We've been away for 3 weeks or so and just back for a quick week or 10 days and then back off. I go for another couple of weeks, so it was a bit hard to get hold of the last few weeks, but we'll see how we go next trip.

Yeah, I know, you're pretty good at doing that. When you go away to some of these places, here's a number you'll get me on. I mean, fair income. I mean, I mean, seriously.

I mean, your miles will just write down one, two, three, four, 5, 6, 7, 8. Because we're a bigger chance to get you just ringing that. It's true. It's actually amazing. There is any phone service down there at Lake Mario.

an hour and a half flight from from the closest airstrip and there's no roads that go into it. The only way you can get there is by plane or boat, mate, so, someone means to put up a phone tower down there, but, um, yeah, sometimes I've got better things to do than talk to you, so funnily enough. No, mate, you've got to be kidding, haven't you? It's a highlight of your week.

Now, now, what happens? Oh, obviously with Barefoot Fishing Safaris and your and WhatsApp, so while you're over there, obviously there's no bookings here and fishing around. Yeah, that's right. Barefoot's having a bit of a spell for a couple of months and um I got all these overseas stuff to get under control. And in the meantime, you know, keeping a finger on the pulse about what's going on around the place and and getting all my stuff booked in, well, not booked in, but sort of really finalised for, for later on in the year, making some plans and checking the weather and how, how it's all gonna look.

Next trip is um is in late August there. So I'm actually looking forward to that. The winds will have dropped dropped down a bit by then and water temps start increasing. There's been some really good fishing trips.

Oh, fishing reports coming out of the Top End in the last few weeks, um, in between some windy periods, which is a bit unusual. You would have had that, um, was a sort of a 2nd highest um, high pressure system ever recorded go across the southern half of Australia there a while back and that gave the Top End about 10 days of extremely windy weather, which, of course, upsets the fish in and um, and makes a bit too rough to fish in all the places we like to go at this time of year. So, yeah, it's not a bad time to have off and um, get some of these international stuff done. Yeah, absolutely.

Why not, mate? And it's great for your business and the fact that you're out there expanding and doing these things, but they're still biding around the territory. And what hearing reports of what's going off at the moment. I'm tipping there'd be a lot of people up there throwing in a line, trying to get out of that barrow right now and all of the favourite water spots and fishing spots in Darwin and around Kakadu and south of, you know, down the Daly and all that.

Yeah, exactly. the Daly continues to fish really well. I think it, it'll probably hold on right throughout the year, particularly on the knee for tides when you get a bit of clarity up around the S bends and rock bars and stuff, so that's good. Um, your favourite corroborates, fishing really well, now that the water's dropping out, um, in between those cool, cool periods

of course, they don't really like that cold overnight loads, but there's a lot of sort of smaller barrier in there and plenty of Saratoga around the lily pads. All the billabongs at Kakadoo are open now, so, yeah, some good cricket score, sort of tallies coming out of, particularly 4 mile and 2 mile hole, red, red lily, bucket billabong, all those sort of remote, Kakadoo billabongs. So, yeah, there's plenty of options, and then, of course, when you get those, um, those karma days in between the blows, the harbours and and offshore at Dundee, it'll be fishing really well for tuna and mackerel and that sort of stuff as well, the pelagic stuff. I actually did get a chance to get out a couple of days ago, had some fly clients um flew in.

They'd just done a week at Melv Island Lodge and they wanted to come out with me for a day, so we went out around Vernon Island on a really nice weather day and got stuck right into a heap of big queenfish and Trevally, uh on some uh on flag gear, which was, um, yeah, heaps of fun and yeah, it reminded me how lucky we've got it here in Dunne. We've got such a variety of fishing targets. we can do, and of course, um, different areas to go explore too, that Vernon Island system is um, really stunning on the right day. Yep, sounds fantastic, mate.

Now, just on a, on the tourist front, you're still seeing plenty of people um, in and around Darwin and the, the gray amads and the, plenty of am parks full. Yeah, I'd say they are pretty full. It's probably a word on the street is that it's probably down a bit. Um, and I guess our metric of that is probably a bit skewed because we remember how crazy it was um, coming out of COVID, but yeah, there's certainly plenty of people around and I'm about to walk into the movies with the kids here now and it's pretty chockers as well.

So, yeah, plenty of tourism going on and of course, this is absolute prime time for general tourism up here in the Top End with the beautiful weather we've got compared to down south. So, there's actually, I heard some pretty cheap flights up definitely from Adelaide, so people want to have a look at that. You might be able to get up here for a long weekend. What movie are we seeing?

Oh, I think it's called Inside Out. Uh, it's a kids movie, and it's about feelings and emotions apparently, so I might be able to get a bit out of it. I got to remember when my missus took the kids to a movie. What she thought was a kid's movie.

Ted. You seen the movie Ted, the little teddy bear that talks? Oh, Ted. Yeah, okay, I haven't seen it, but I remember his, yeah,

Hey, hey, it's Saturday appearances and stuff back in the day. No, no, no. Ted, it was, it was, it was, Yeah, Mark Wahlberg and Ted.

Yeah there we go. I do remember that movie, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so she took the kids to see Ted.

And anyway, she wasn't the, well, Ted was more than a rat bag, but the thing was, she wasn't the only one. There was a stack of other mothers in there and parents with all their kids ready to watch this movie about Ted the teddy bear and anyone who's seen Ted. We'll know what we're talking about. But they sat there, but she said everyone just sat there, no one said a word.

No one was offended or anything. They just. Hey, want to Mrs. Duck's best sweat and took the kids to see Ted researches everything. as they say, what do you?

that's right. Anyway, very good mate. All right. Well, well done.

What don't you get it? What the movie called again? Inside out. Yeah, I think so.

Is that a kids' movie? I've made no idea. Harry knows. Harry watches all the kids' movies.

It's a kid's movie. No worry. It should be good. Harry, it's already himself.

Harry, it's already himself the other day with his dad. So there you go. All right, mate. Well done.

We'll let you get in there. They've obviously got obviously it must be a special, that's obviously gold class with the bees, is it, and all that? I don't think so. I think we're smuggling a box of barbeque.

Okay, go and enjoy inside out. We want a movie review next week when we talk to you about, all right? We'll do that. make it a regular thing.

No worries. Yeah, no worries mate. Okay. We might send off to see Ted yourself, all right?

All right, see you later. See you, mate. There he is. That's Watty, Barefoot Fishing Safaris.

He's doing some great stuff, which is fantastic, and it's good to see that his business is expanding, and running these trips overseas, which I think is great, and he's obviously preparing for all of that, and we're a bit of fun with Watty. But he works very, very hard at this stuff and he puts in and he's got his, he mentioned, keeping his finger on the pulse. I've got to say, he certainly does that. He's got his finger on the pulse with what's biting and what isn't and what's happening all around.

Um, in in particular around, you know, the northern territory fishing. But the fact that he's now expanded overseas and doing these things and running these fishing trips, I think it's fantastic. Good luck to him. I think it's great.

Anyway, he's a good man. Barefoot fishing safarias or angling adventures.