Bag a Barra — 14 March 2025

It's time now to head to the Top End and Bagabara with Glenn Watty Watt, thanks to Barefoot Fishing Safaris and Uniden. For the best in UHF communications, explore the extract series at Uniden. d.com.au. Well, our man, Wadi, of course, is in the Top End, and we've got him up there somewhere in the middle of somewhere. Where are you, sir?

That's right, mate. Yeah, I'm out on the river again this week. We're on the South Alligator River, cutting a few barras, sweating it up and catching some barras. Sweating it up.

How hot is it? Oh, it probably, but yeah, we've got some sort of gray cloud overhead and she's pretty steamy. We're working up a bit of a sweat. They're biting pretty good, so it's keeping me busy.

Yep, that's good, which maybe we should have went there when you took us up there. Oh, well, yeah, I got to take you to the appropriate places, mate. The beginners go to the beginners. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, how good is it? So they're on the, so you're out, so you're out on the boat at the moment and what, this is another, what, another one of these trips where you're away for a few days? Yeah, that's right. This is the last day of three.

off knocking off now and um and get the crew back to Darwin so they can catch a plane home and back to Melbourne and think about the fun they just had, I suppose. So, yeah, we're going pretty hard this morning and um, yeah, the fish are playing the game, which is really good. Yep, so you've been getting into some good sized barramundi up there. Yeah, what have we got?

Today we cracked an 80 today. 82 today, a couple of 70s and lots of 60 centimetre ones, so yeah, they're pretty feisty. They're coming out of this little creek. We're sitting in front of all um hungry and fired up and even the little ones are really fighting good, so it's lots of fun.

Yeah, actually, and obviously you've got hooks on the lures for these people, not unlike me, when I went, when I was just throwing out plastic with no hooks. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well, again, you know, the people we keep throwing them in the trees, you got them to get it up. in the trees and around everybody else's rods, you know, anyway.

So, all right. So they're catching they're biting there and you're catching them. What's the mood around the Top End in general, mate? Have you got any news there?

Ah, yeah, it's all really starting to happen now. I think everyone's getting out in amongst and now, so the people that were keeping it a bit secret on the download of, um, the, they don't have many secrets to hide now. Everyone's out and about and it's really firing up. Looks like we might get a bit more rain next week here too, which will keep things going um ticking along really nicely.

When does the wet season sort of end up there? I mean, would it be coming towards the end of it soon or? Ah, yeah, it'll slow down. February is usually our wettest month and then it'll tailor off from then.

We'll get a bit more rain, usually late April, and that, that'll be the end of it, and most of that grass that you see as you're driving around out the, the bush here will start drying off by the end of May, and um, and then we're in that um, sort of true dry season period when everyone can get back up here and into the waterfalls and that sort of stuff as well. So, yeah, it, it, it should be, it should set up the, um, particularly the Kakadu and Litchfield waterfalls for a really good little season if, if we get this next dump of rain. Yeah, absolutely. And then that's when the territory's at its best and then obviously the tourists will start flocking up there, say June, you'll start getting busy.

July will be full noise, and it's a great time to be up in the northern territory then, isn't it? Even if you're not India fishing. There's just so much to see and do up there. It's, especially around the Top End. And, uh, and, and that's, which is why it's so popular, which is why so many people go up there.

I mean, in this wet and it's all just one big system up there, isn't it? The better the wet, the bigger the wet, the better it'll be for the tourists later. Yeah, for everyone. That's right.

Yeah, keep those water holes blowing, the waterfall's nice and strong and keeps that water cool too, for everyone rather than it being all heated up, shallow and heated up in the sun. So, yeah, the more rain, the better, essentially, for us here, we could have taken some of that Queensland rain often that they didn't tend to want. Yep. Yeah, no, well that certainly did a bit of damage, yeah, which was not, you know, not ideal.

What about Dundee Beach, mate? Have you been out there or heard anything? I haven't been, but I, yeah, it'll be, it's fishing well again. You know, we get these monsoon break periods between the rain, so the ocean will be nice and flat.

They would have been getting out there in amongst the Deweys and Snapper for sure. Tuna probably out a little bit wider and maybe a few mackerel ride out to down to the parents there, but the bar fishing in the river would be going really well right now, mate, they've had some good rain out there, so, yeah, the, the boys I haven't spoken to any of the charter guys down there, but you know, that, that was my home ground for a long time, so I know it'd be fishing really well when, when it's fishing well out here. All right, good stuff. So plenty of barramundi to eat over the next few nights.

And how do the people, they take this fish home? How do they do that? Or they just, what happens? Yeah, there's been a few fish go home this year?

Probably only half a dozen or so. Most people these days tend to just let most of them go. We've killed a few this morning to take home 3 fish and you know, that gives everyone a bit of a taste and you can sort of look through your photos, have a bit of a memory session when you get home, but yeah, going to the days when everyone took 20 kilos home and I think, uh, you know, having fishing like we're having today is a result of that, you know, the more you put back today, the more they're still in the water for tomorrow. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's no good taking, man, for the sake of it. I mean, like I say, it's, no, it is good, mate. All right, you're a good man and you are on the boat, out on the river, which is fantastic.

It doesn't get any more real than that, does it? No, that's right. Everyone's got smiles on their face, apart from when they lose a decent sized fish, which has happened a couple of times. Chaz has had a couple of stomping tantrums this morning, haven't you, mate?

I know how I know how they feel. Tell him I know how he feels. Well, it does actually, she's probably caught definitely the most amount of fish in the group. Have you got the biggest one?

Someone else got the big one. Someone's got the 80, yeah. I reckon Chaz lost a, he lost probably a 90 something just before. So, yeah, he's a little bit in the face. Like the one I lost on Oz Afraid TV when we're at a corroborate, eh?

Yeah, yeah, that right. I think this one probably would have eaten that one actually. Yeah, no fair enough. All right.

I'll let you go. and have fun. Righto, mate. Good on you.

The things you do to build up a thirst, Watty out there in the steam. That date, mate. Yeah, I understand that. The Northern territory, we absolutely love it.

All right, you're a good man. Talk to you next week if we can find Jay. Good on you, mate. Yeah, we'll do that.

There he is, Glenn, what do you want? And he is the man in the Top End, if you want to go up there fishing. Get onto him. Barefoot Fishing Safaris and you can get out to places where they're into the barrow today on the boat.

How good is it? It doesn't get any better than this, does it? when we can talk to him out there while they're actually reeling them in and out there on the river. And as you said, the fish are biting all over the Top End at the moment.