Bag a Barra — 23 August 2024

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 shimanofish.com.au.

Ah, this bloke's been fritting for me all week because we're up there a week ago or 2 weeks ago at least, and he's been out doing whatever he does, touring the bottle-os, trying to catch a fish. Watty, g'day. Okay, duck. actually not a bad life when you put it like that, is it?

Sounds good. Anyway. Yeah, it was Dundee, mate. And how did your account end up at the pub last week?

Yeah, actually, I got the invoice through today. I probably should pay that bugger, but yeah, no, it was good. Of course, we had some really beautiful weather. We're just probably ticking over into this sort of start a build-up sort of period now.

So, yeah, it means that the, the ocean's nice and flat for us, the water's clean and, and the water tips are probably coming up a little bit, so the fish have been really busy and, and showing themselves to the anglers, which is, um, you know, mate, that's all part of the, part of the fun of it around here is, is sight casting a few of those barre that, that get in that nice clean shallow water and um, and see if you can get a hook in front of them. Yeah, absolutely mate. And it is all we're getting towards the end of August. Um, I guess now is when it starts to drop off in regards to people travelling.

I see where we are here at Cobble Gorge. It's not exactly packed here. Geez, you'd love it here. You'd be big here.

What? got a pool bar. It's got an infinity pool. So you think you're actually swimming in the lagoon.

People walk past it. You think they're actually walking through the water. It's quite amazing, but it has a bar with bar stools under the water, Watty. Yeah, bloody hell.

That's the go, isn't it? Infinity pool bar, yeah. Especially when it's 3540 degrees here and it's on a cattle station. What a top place.

It is awesome. Yeah, yeah, I would love that. Yeah, I haven't, um, the old swim up bar. We did one in Spain one time, me and me, mate, Cooper.

Yeah, we've got a few yards from that keeper another time. Yeah, yeah, probably off air. Yeah, probably is. Like that trip across another boy, you did many years ago, anyway. which we haven't touched on here a few times, but anyway.

So, yeah, but it is, I guess now. I mean, when is the buildups to begin for the wet season and I mean, you talk about the weather, the weather's just in the northern part of the country's good all the time, but when does that sort of begin and what does that do to the fishing? Yeah, well, I suppose officially, um, we'd probably say buildup starts in September. So, yeah, we're as good as there now, I guess.

And um, yeah, we'll, we'll have our, uh, predominant winds will probably swing around from, from that sort of southeasterly dry season pattern to a bit more northerly, um, less winds, so, you know, the blue water options come back into play a bit more easily for people with smaller boats and, and water temps increase as well. So, that, that starts to, um, you know, get the breeding pattern going, and then probably some stage in September, we'll probably expect our 1st storm or 2, um, which will then really trigger the, um, particularly the barra, ready to, to start, um, thinking about their spawning patterns as well once we get a bit more rain. So, there's an exciting time and and now's um, probably when a lot of the local keen barofishers are looking for some really nice, clean, neat water tides, um, to, to go and do some barrow fishing, or if you like me, you know, you're picking those tides for, for the flat fishing in Bynoe Harbour and Dale and Harvest. So, yeah, it's all, um, the, the options really come all back on the table this time.

It's great. Yeah, unbelievable and obviously different species. Fishing at Dundee, I know we spoke a bit about it last week. I shouldn't be surprised, but it was just amazed at the amount of boats going in and out, just, you know, recreational fishermen and people just out there, locals having a go and people travelling from other parts of Darwin to go out there.

Um, it's, it's obviously one of the more popular spots. The big ramp. Yeah, absolutely. Dundee really is probably the most popular pop, popular spot for locals to head to for a weekend fish, because you can go and do some barrow fishing and you can, and you can do your blue water fishing sort of at, at the same time from the same launching place.

So, it's, uh, it's really good and yeah, of course, all those new facilities down there, make it so much more desirable for people to head down as well. Yeah, absolutely. It's only going to get better and better as time goes on. So yeah, it's pretty, pretty happy in place at the moment, old Dundee. Yeah, good stuff.

All right, mate. Well, I know you're tying flies now, whatever that means. I mean, you're doing a bit of fly fishing with us, which I certainly was never going to have a go at that because, you know, it would have happened. They would have had line over everybody in the boat.

So I just left that to you. All right, mate, well done. We'll let you get back to that as you get prepped for another week of fishing next week and we'll catch up and find out where you've been up to then, eh? Yep, beautiful, mate.

That sounds good. I'll be looking forward to that again. All right, mate. There he is.

That's Watty, Angling Adventures. Jump onto that. Angling adventures or jump onto Barefoot Fishing Safaris. If you want that big fishing trip, whether it's a big one or just a small one, you need to jump onto angling adventures.

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