Bag a Barra — 4 April 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.com.au. Oh, yeah, man, he's been bumped up the order to the top of the show this week. He's on the line up there from the Top End. Glen, Watty, what?

How are you, son? I'm going well, mate. This is a bit of an honour. I get a little badge or something to go with it?

No. No, nothing. Well, normally we've got we've been dribbling along at this time of day, and but unfortunately for Victor, he's over in New Zealand doing some four-wheel drive wrought, and he's actually running a tour over there, but we couldn't get hold of him. The time wasn't working out, and so, but we'll try and catch him next week, which means you've been bumped up to number one.

We might leave you here for a while actually to punish him. No, that would be good. They would just leave you here and say, look, Vic, you've been bumped down. You knock down the order now, Fino, for not making yourself available, but now he's a good man. He's actually been on this show longer than you, and you've been on this particular show since we started it, but he was on other shows prior to that.

So there you go. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, and he's been coming on for a long, long time. I'll be trying to move him on, mate, you reckon? Listen, mate, listen, just quickly before we talk about what's doing up there.

Al McGlashan, you'd be familiar with that name, wouldn't you? Yeah, I know, Al. You know, Al, he's coming on this week as well. Oh, Ripper, yeah.

Particularly he's underwater for photography, mate. He's a man. Oh, unbelievable, mate. swims with sharks.

Eh? He's off his head. Oh, mate, he's kind. And he swims, he gets him in the water with sharks and puts a camera in their face.

I mean, fed income. Anyway. his stuff, it's done real. Yeah, well, you can.

He's actually got a show on 9, which you can catch up on 9 now, but he's also, and he's another one that used to join us on the radio long ago, and I called him the other day because I watched his program on 9. I rang him to say, mate, how good is this? I mean, he was, and I said, why don't you come back on the radio for a bit of a yarn, so he'll join us a bit later as well. A good bloke.

You can be a bit loose, Al. He can be a bit loose. Yeah, you got to have the, you got to have the, what is it, the delay filter for him. Mm, I know.

I know, he can be loose anyway, but he's a very good bloke and knock about laid back and nosey stuff and with so many people beach camping and might get a few tips off him, actually, because we're going to be on Fraser Island where it's alive with sharks and so, man, you got any tips about swimming with them. Yeah that's right. Not my tip is, don't you? Yeah, stay out of the way.

Yeah, I was funny, you know, because as you know, I do a show with John Stanley. Well, I joined John Stanley's show. I'd do a show with him. I joined his show every week for about an hour or so. and we were talking about corrobory Billabong. and he said, what's your best advice you can give for people in regards to crocodiles when you're out or something like that?

I said, stay in the boat. It's pretty simple, mate, really. thing, you know? Yeah, that's all you need to do.

Stay in the boat. No need to get out for a swim. Don't chance your arm. Don't just do anything.

anyway. Mate, we'll be up in your part of the world soon, but maybe not quite in right in your part of the world, but we'll be doing some filming around Cananara and that as we make our way to the Gib River Road in a few months. We've been planning that now. Might bump into you somewhere, hopefully.

Yeah, who knows? Anyway, mate, what's doing up there? How's the fishing? How's the rain? All of that.

I know there's a lot of rain in Queensland at the moment. What's doing up there with rain and the like? and what affects that having on fishing and what will that mean for the tourists that will be heading up there in another couple of months? Wow, they'd all be pretty excited, mate. Yeah, we've had a big long monsoon there.

Probably ran for about 10 days, rained every day in town. I think we're, we're well up over a metre and a half. Of rain at our place here since sort of late September. Uh, and yeah, of course, out there where I was in Kakadu, fishing the South Alligator River, it rained every day there as well, mostly in the afternoons, and, and that, that did make it a bit tricky for us at times. We had, we had some amazing fishing last week, uh, but we also had some tough periods there because of the rain.

Um, but that's just the way it goes. You take me good with the bad out there. But um, it's gonna be unreal for everyone coming up later on in the year with this late rain, especially late big rain. Uh, you, I mean, you can just imagine how good the waterfalls and, you know, places like Berry Springs and all those thrubbery tours, uh, Billabong tours and stuff, they're just going to be absolutely prime.

So, yeah, well, it was annoying for us for a few days, it's, um, it sets us up for a really good, good year, and, and, and I'm saying that, I mean, the group fished for 6 days, that, they caught a heap of fish, that, I think the biggest barrel they got was a metre 10, one of those sort of fish of a lifetime jobs, and, uh, yeah, pretty, pretty special to be part of that, and providing the memories for those guys. So, they'll be back again next year, I suppose, and hopefully do it again. Mate that sounds fantastic. I mean, they must have absolutely loving it.

I mean, when you're out there, I mean, the thing is, it's still warm, isn't it? So, if you're out there and it's raining, it's not that bad. I mean, it's, I mean, you're used to it. I mean, most people up in the Top End when it rains, they just stand in it, don't they? That has walk along.

go running to get out of it, do they? Exactly, like it's still only 20, I think as low as it gets, perhaps if it's raining for most of the day might be 24 or 25 degrees, you know, and the rain is warm when it's hitting you. So, yeah, you don't get, you don't get sort of cold and miserable, but it can be a bit of a soggy old day if you're sitting out in the boat in it all day.

Yeah. But, you know, like you take, you take that every 2nd day because every other day is um stinking bloody hot. So, you know, balances out, I suppose. Does it have an effect if you're on the boat, it's raining in regards to catching the fish? Do they hide a bit or? It does depend.

Threads, which will catch a lot of last week. They don't like the fresh water, so they'll push up in the tidal water underneath the fresh in the rivers at this time of year. Um, so it'll, it'll push them back down if they're up at high feeding, um, at, at heavy rain, we, we'll push them down a bit. Um but they'll still buy.

The thing that becomes problematic for what we're trying to do is, If the tide has run out a little bit already. So the banks are exposed, and then you get a big downpour of rain, it washes muddy water into the creeks and rivers. So that just makes it harder to catch the fish. If it rains on the high tide, no big deal, you know, because the sort of flood water is covering those banks, so might drop the water temperature a little bit, which can slow them down, but, you know, usually in these conditions, the fissure pretty actively feeding and they're, they're sort of less fussy than they would be, you know, later in the year in that, in that middle of the year in the dry season sort of thing.

So, yeah, it is a bit forgiving, but, you know, big range does slow it down for sure for a few days. Yeah, no good stuff, mate. All right. So it's all happening up there.

Plenty of rain, plenty of activity, nature working, doing what it does, and setting yourself up for a big year again. Yeah, that's right. It's great to be part of it. I mean, we get to see some awesome stuff on the water, particularly at this time of year, big crocodile quarter.

Fred bin salmon right beside the boat the other day, not that, not on the line, but we caught it himself and then, you know, it takes him up on the bank and crunches it all to pieces and stuff. So, yeah, we're pretty lucky to spend the, the amount of time I do particularly out in the wilderness of Kakadu and you get to see some amazing stuff and it, you know, it'll continue for the rest of the year, so it's going to be awesome. Good stuff, mate. All right. And they're in April now, which means you'll probably be going to your 1st Christmas party soon, wouldn't you?

Well, we'll try to wait till the end of financial year, mate, just to check the budget, eh? Yeah. You don't worry about that mate. You'll be up there writing checks while the banks are bouncing around, Darwin.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they're flying. They're flying. They're onto you a bit these days.

Like us all, mate. Don worry. All right. Well, good stuff, mate.

You enjoy up there. It sounds like a great place to be. And hopefully we might, we're heading in that direction. Not sure whether we'll bump into you up there in the end of May, early June.

But we'll be in Cananurra, I think, at the very start of June. So who knows? You might want to do this. Yeah, unreal. God, what a... I know, I was chatting to a couple of people the other day that are ducking down their cunningar of their Easter from Darwin here.

You know, it's only about 700 K drive. So you do that in a day from Darwin, and yeah, it's a pretty different part of the world to hear you get into that Kimberley sort of escarpment country. Beautiful. That's where we're heading to, mate.

that is where we're going to end up in Broome and north of Broome. We can't wait for all of that. Anyway, a lot to do before we get to there. but anyway.

All right, mate. Well, we'll have a arm with you next week, see what's doing and see how things are abiding and what else is happening? OK? Good on you, mate.

Good on you. There he is. Glenn, what do you want? Barefoot Fishing Safaris, and of course, angling adventures.

Be sure to check him out. Just go to the website, go to the social media pages as well. Barefoot Fishing Safaris if you're going fishing in the Top End. Well, you need to catch up with our man, Watty.