Bag a Barra — 17 January 2025

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 shimanofish.com.au.

Well, we head up to the Top End in Darwin, our man, Glenn. What do you what? You can find in Barefoot Fishing Safaris, or, of course, angling adventures, and he is our man in the Top End when it comes to barrow fishing. hes on the line.

Watty, g'day. Oh, g'day, duck. How you going down there? Going all right, mate.

and we've had some wild weather down here through the week and they tell me that the monsoon's not too far away for the Top End and you're part of the world. Yeah, that's right. They reckon next couple of days, which is a bit of a relief. We're sort of heading for the, one of the later appearances of the monsoon, um, which is perhaps a bit of a, uh, well, I wouldn't say it's a worry, I suppose, uh, it'll be fine, sufficient.

Um, it'll just perhaps push our best fishing back back a few weeks. So, people that are planning might, might look to, instead of coming in April, might, might get the best fishing in, in May or something like that. Still a bit hard to predict, but we, we have been getting plenty of rain, but just not that proper monsoon where, where it rains and rains and rains for weeks of things. So, yeah, it's ready to go but just need a little top up.

Yeah, that fair enough. Now, last week you went down to Catherine. to a station down there. How did that go?

Yeah, that's right. I've got a few mates scattered around the place on station still, which is good. We can get right away from it, mate. And we're right up the top.

We actually went out to the west of Catherine, out to some private country out there, and um, played around it, um, up the top of the Flora River, around the floor River National Park, which is, uh, essentially, it's the upper daily. The floor flows into the Catherine and becomes the Daly River right around that area and it's absolutely gorgeous country. You start getting into that bit more Kimberly, gorgy, sort of rocky escarpment country once you're that far west and um, and absolutely beautiful little water hole scatted around the place and and we were, we were still able to get right to the river's edge. We didn't actually have a fish, but there's a couple of springs there that um pump out 1000s and 1000s of litres of water every minute and make unreal little swimming holes.

So, We cleared a couple of them out for the local people and um, and had a bit of a swim and made some plans to get back there with some tourist groups later on in the year once things dry out a bit. So that's very exciting. Yeah, they absolutely. Not a bad.

What's it like? Like, say, Catherine obviously cops the rain as well this time of year. Yeah, Catherine tends to be a bit more extreme with it, whether right through the year. It does get colder than Darwin and it does get hotter than Darwin. Um, it perhaps doesn't get as much, as much rain as, as we do here in Dale, but they'll, they'll cop a couple of big systems that go, go through like these monsoons and stuff that'll push um, down south, or ones that'll build up and, and come up from the south, and hopefully flood that river, will, well, perhaps not flood it into the town, but get it up, you know, get it right up and flow in so that it really fills the Daly and all that stuff up for the good fishing later on, only starting in a few weeks.

Really. It's only about 6 weeks until I start going season. So it's coming up pretty quick. Yeah, it gets around quick, doesn't it?

And what about up in the Top End at the moment with the fishing, mate. You got any latest up there? Yeah, someone was telling me the other day. Of course, everyone still keeps it a little bit on the down low at the moment, but the south alligator's been fishing pretty well for some big fish up around the boat ramp, and I know from when I was there that I thought it was about to really start to fire, and that was a few weeks ago now, so it doesn't surprise me at all.

Um, there'd be some nice flat water out the front of um, perhaps Shady Camp and the Daly where they'd be getting some nice conditions where you'd get, you'd have a runoff colour change coming out of the mouth of the river on those neck tides and there'd be 3Ds and barrow around there for sure as well. So, yeah, it doesn't. The fishing doesn't really stop for us up here, mate. It's just a matter of how many tourists we've got to compete with and if we're busy working or not.

So, yeah, it's definitely been good. And actually, I did hear a Bluewater report yesterday. I was in the boat shop getting some stuff, um, that the Golden Snapper and the Jewies are running pretty hot at the moment too. So, a great way to go out and get a feed of fish at this time of year if you don't want to travel too far for a barrow. Yep, sounds fantastic, mate. I say, we're almost getting blown away down. You talk about monsoons and stuff here.

We've certainly got a bit of wind happening right here now where we are, mate, on the coast of central coast of New South Wales and big southerlies and rain, and there's been a fair weather event all up and down the coast over the last few days. So we're actually copying it here at the moment. And that's all part of it this time of year. You can get a bit volatile all over the place, can't it?

Yeah, it does tend to do that. And yeah, we've got it's Lioness's birthday in a couple of days, so we've got a few visitors flying up for that and they've been having a bit of trouble getting in out of the airports down south because of the storms. So, yeah, there you go, tattling all over. Yeah, it certainly is, mate.

That is for sure. All right, mate. Well, well done. It sounds like you've had a, uh, had a good time down in Catherine and, and did all of that and obviously getting ready for another, what it'll be, probably another cracking year of fishing up there and doing what you do.

What about that? But just to let you know, too, mate, the Oz-offraid TV show will be airing soon. Which you will make an appearance on the last episode. As I mentioned last week, the best to last, Watty.

Yeah, beautiful. So when do we expect to get that paycheque for that? And that was Watty, and... Yeah, no, all very, very good out there on out there at Corrobory, which is a place that we absolutely love is, you know? And you'll certainly be out there and other places throughout the year as well, but anyway, but no, all good, mate.

Well, it sounds like it's all happening up there in the Top End, and as the monsoon, as we expect, we'll be hitting soon, and a bit of rain. all just part of the system, mate, isn't it? Yeah, bloody, oh, fingers crossed. I mean, everything's pretty wet.

We just need that little bit of a top up now and um, she'll be on like Donkey Kong, that's when everyone starts getting really excited about it. So yeah, I keep getting messages from everyone down south. How's the rain out in the rain? How's the rain?

And um, yeah, that's sort of what life revolves around, whether you're fishing on the, in the water or working on the land or, or trying to build a house or whatever, we all need the rain, so we keep an eye on it. Yeah, absolutely mate. Plenty of people already booked their spots. They're fishing for this year or I guess I have already, I guess.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think I've got 2 spots available in November is a bit, is all I've got left in the calendar. That's unbelievable. At the moment, yeah, next year starting to fill up already as well.

And once we get fishing, It's the same groups every year where we rebook their same dates virtually, so it does close up pretty good. I do have, actually, one thing that's going on is I've got a couple of spots left. There's still some chances to go in the drawer to win a 4 day fishing trip with me up here in right at the end of February.

So people jump on the Barefoot website, they'll be able to suss that out. You can buy yourself a couple of online courses for as little as a 100 bucks and get yourself in a draw. There's only a 100 entry, so you're in with a good chance. All right.

So if people just go to Barefoot Fishing Safaris.com. is it dot com dot com dotau? Dot com.au, mate. Yeah, and it's on the front home page there.

You'll see, you can get some more details on it. Cheers to win a 4 day fishing trip in Kakadoo. Oh, well done. How good is that?

So jump on there now. airfootfishingsafaris.com.au for your chance to win that 4 day fishing trip with Watty. Well done, mate. All right, we'll we'll send people to that.

And check that out and who knows? They might be just, they might be lucky enough or unlucky enough to win. Depends how you look at it. Well, that's right.

You can win and if you decide that you don't want to go with me because I'm too much of a turkey swallowed for a bit of cash too. All the details on the website. You'd be pretty right. All right, well done, I'll let you get back to it, mate, and we'll talk to you next week.

Right, mate. Good on you. There he is. Glenn, what do you want?

Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Go onto the website now. Have a look at the details there, and you could win a 4 day fishing trip with Watty. How good would that be?

And so you need to go to the website. barefootfishing safaris.com.au for your chance to win. So go and check all the details out there. He's a good man, and he'll get you up there and do a little bit of fishing in the Top End.

I think just about everyone wants to do that. These are chance. Barefoot Fishing Safaris.