Bag a Barra — 6 September 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, I'm meant to believe my man Watty up there in the Top End. The Barramundi guru is out on the water somewhere. Watty, where are you, son? Oh, yeah, g'day, duck.

Yeah, we're actually out on Darwin Harbour at the moment. I'm throwing a few flies at Sambarra. Throwing a few flies at Sambarra. You got to be happy with that. Just remind us, because I remember you told me this years ago.

When people think harbours, they think Sydney Harbour. How much bigger is Darwin Harbour than Sydney Harbour? Oh, Darwin Harbour is huge compared to Sydney Harbour. Darwin Harbour is around about 800 square kilometres.

I think multiple times the size of Sydney Harbour, 4 or 5 times. That's unbelievable. Huge area and plenty of fish right at the doorstep of the city. We caught a barrel before when we could see the city.

So it's a pretty nice place to fish and of course you're not too far away from the drive-thru bottle shop when you're doing that. Yes, exactly right. Yeah, back onto the boat, ramp, boat on the car, straight to the bottle, O. You got to be happy with that.

You are an idiot. Fan Eagum. Now, I sent you some a little video clip last night about a Oz off-raid TV show rule that we're playing here at the four-wheel drive show. You make an appearance mate.

Yeah, that's right. It's a bit of a worry when I make it onto TV, mate, but they come up pretty good, and of course it was a good day out on the billabong, and a bit of a road trip home too. So, yeah, it's an easy one to make look good that place. Yeah, oh, mate.

Look, you know, as you know, when we were, when I told you we were coming up there filming, I said to you, we definitely want to go to corroborate Billabong, and certainly it ticks all the boxes when it comes to filming. Um, mate, how is it up there? I'm tipping like it's getting warmer here where we are. I can only imagine what's happening with the weather there.

Yeah, well, it's definitely got warm. It's still a bit unsettled though. We've seen them getting a bit of a lake push of this southeasterly wind, which is hampered our fishing efforts a little bit this week, but we have had our 1st range. So Dundee, your new favourite spot got up to 10 mil in places a couple of nights ago.

So that's the start of it and the humidity is up and the daytime highs, of course, and the lows are up a few degrees up to 38 in some places. All the crocs are up and about in the rivers and the billabongs. So yeah, it's um, the switch has been flicked. We just need to wait for this winter to nick off and we'll be in those true buildup conditions hopefully by the end of next week. I guess up there when you talk, they talk about the humidity and all of that.

When it rains, is that just like a huge sigh of relief? Yeah, the 1st range is always a bit of a relief, I suppose. It can wash a bit of dust off the leaves of the trees and sort of pressures everything up and and just it sort of does start a bit of a cycle of things happening, you know, once you get a bit of rain on the ground, then you get that, the, the, the clouds sort of steaming up again in the afternoon and and can start to create that cycle of the afternoon storms. But the very 1st rains in the in the rivers and billdogs can actually be a problem for the fish for a little while and they wash a bit of um try leaf litter and that sort of stuff in, but once it starts to happen, everything settles down again, you know, with the change of seasons and off we go in a wet season, hopefully a big one.

It's funny, you know, you talk to locals like yourself, and I remember a few weeks back chatting to you, mate, at the Dundee Tavern, he just Dundee Beach Tavern there. He said that he loves the wet season. just absolutely loves it. Yeah, well that's right.

I mean, and we were sitting at the Dundee Tavern the other night with Popey, you mate, and having a couple of beers there, and you can imagine what it looks like when you have got a big monsoon or storm brewing up out in the west there, as the sun's setting, and then it comes across and just cools everyone down. So, yeah, it's certainly something we look forward to, especially if we get along and hot sort of build up. But with this early rain that we're getting now, Perhaps it'll, it'll start nice and early for us this year and and just be nice, sort of stable, steady rain right through until the end of April.

Yeah, sounds great, mate. All right. So obviously, and then that changes fishing behaviour and the fish reactor things and species you go chasing. So, exciting times, mate, over the next, little while at least as the buildup continues and then we get full on into it.

Yeah, absolutely. It definitely changes the way we have to fish, particularly in the harbours and stuff. We've noticed that even today, probably especially out of the last week, the jelly prawns are back in the system and that can be a bit of a blessing and a curse is that it does group up all the fish, but they can get their eyes only on one prize and can be a bit hard to pull out from a big ball of jelly prawn, but it does bring other fish species in as well. We'll get gold, Trevellis come into Darwin Harbour and starts to really change things around into this sort of build up pattern, which is pretty exciting for us here in the Top End.

Yeah, good stuff mate. All right. Well, mate, I've been looking at some of the stuff we filmed up there. And I'm glad you took my advice about tidying yourself up before we arrive with the camera on.

Well done. Three or 4 appointments later. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple of grinding, you know?

beauty consultants. All right, well done. No, good. I look forward to all of that's going to be great.

We've got a teaser that we've got running at the moment, but even the teaser looks good. So I think it's going to be, it'll all be good that you can't go wrong up there, mate. Well, we'll let you get backwards so you can get the last fish for the day and get yourself to that bottle, though, okay? Yeah, good idea.

We'll do that. Otherwise, the boys here will get a bit angry with me, I think. Yeah, right, we'll talk to you next week. All right, mate.

Talk to you after. Right, good on you, mate. See you, mate. There he is.

Thats our man. Watty, Glenn, what do you want? You can catch him. Angling adventures.

That's the website, anglingadventures.com.au, as well as Barefoot Fishing Safaris. But look, if you want to go on a fishing adventure with a difference, something that's on, you know, basically fishing on steroids, go to angling adventures, and have a look at it. Unbelievable. I was actually quite surprised talking to Watty up there.

Just what goes on with angling adventures, and it's huge. So you need to look right into that if you love your fishing and you want to get out there on a fishing adventure.