Bag a Barra — 26 September 2025

It's time now to head to the Top End and Bagger Barra 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. Well, Barefoot Fishing Safaris is the place to head to, if you want to go to the Top End and catch yourself a barr, or if you want to take your fishing adventures to another level. You can certainly check out angling adventures as well. And the one man who's behind all of this great stuff in there, up there in the Top End is our man, Watty, and he is on the line.

A milkfish? What the hell's that? Milkfish duck? Yeah, they're a bit of an unknown unless you're into your, well, sport fishing here in Darwin as well as the fly fishing mean, or fly fishing community around the world, uh, rate milkfish fairly highly as a sport fish.

It's also, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, very often consumed fish uh, through Asia. I haven't tried it, although we did kill one the other day for one of my friends whose carers are Filipinos and they love eating milk fish. So we'll see how it goes. I'm going to try it myself one day.

Do they taste like milk or we don't know? So, like, why not? What about a chocolate, a chocolate milk fish, a strawberry milk fish? I mean, like, I've got to say, when I was talking to you off air, and you said, oh, these milkfish.

And I thought, I've never heard. Look, as you know, I mean, I know as much about fishing as I do flying, you know, spacecrafts, but maybe a little bit more, but not much. But I'd never heard. I've never heard of a milkfish.

I mean, every, you think up there, you think Barramundi straight up and snapper and all those other great big, you know, species of fish you have up there in the Top End, but a milkfish. I've never heard of it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean, they're only, they're a tropical warm water fish, so that's probably part of the reason also, they're not.

They're definitely not high on the list for, um, most people for eating, but, uh, yeah, of course, the Asian um, recipes allow them to make something, uh, a, a really popular and abundant fish really um, tasty to eat, apparently. So, we'll check it out. You be able to find jars of milk fish inside any Asian supermarket as well, but the reason we try and catch them, and the reason that we can catch them around Darwin, because they, actually plankton feeders, mate, which makes them very hard to catch any other way. Uh, but for the last 50 years in Darwin Harbour, there's been uh, a uh, almost daily feeding of these fish.

Uh, they feed them bread at doctor's gully. So we can burly them up with bread, that gets them to the boat, and then you can use a piece of bread on a hook, or we um, I tie up artificial sort of imitations of it using some deer hair or some other white fluffy stuff out of a kid's toy or a pillow, and they think that's a piece of bread, and then off they go, and they're an amazing sport fish. Anyone who's ever caught one on my boat says it's the hardest fighting fish they've ever caught, particularly on a fly ride. They'll burn off 100 or 200 metres of line in 3 or 4 seconds flat, absolutely rocket fast and super strong.

Yeah, and they do go pretty big. The ones that we were catching the other day, range from about 2 or 3 kilos up to 6 or 7 kilos. So yeah, they're a bit of a handful. They probably take 10 minutes or so to get in, which is actually a really long time in fishing, so they are a great sport fish and right at Darwin Harbour there, right at the esplanade, 5 minute drive from the boat ramp.

So it's a great fun thing to do. Yeah, I was about to ask you how big do they grow and you've just answered that. And you mentioned that daily feeding there. Well, this is at a place what, called aqua scene, where you can go there and watch, and what's these fish being fed?

I mean, obviously you look like there's plenty of them. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great little tourist attraction that everyone should check out when they're in Darwin. You can actually, you just pay a small entry fee and you go in there, they schedule the feeding times around the high tie. And they've got a heap of, um, day old or leftover bread from here, there and everywhere, and you grab a bit of bread out of the basket and and walk down into the water, it's edged up to you about your ankles, and you can hand feed these Milkfish as well as golden travelly go in there, uh, diamond scale mullet.

There's a few mangrove jacks last time we were there. It's a really great little um great little sort of 3 or 4 hour morning or evening activity to do in Darwin. Yeah, fantastic, mate. And you mentioned before, like, about the, and we'll get onto the, um, what, what else is biting, but you mentioned before how they, they use these fish for a lot of Asian cooking.

The one thing I found when we were in Darwin was the Marcus, at Mindelmark, Mindel Beach markets, with the amount of different foods on offer there. Unbelievable. that ends soon, doesn't it? Is that closed for the wet season?

Yeah, Mindle will win for the wet season. I should look that up, but it's probably no October, end of October, maybe, once it starts sort of raining pretty consistently. That'll, that'll shut up for the year, but yeah, we're very lucky in Darwin, such a multicultural place that, you know, we've got uh hand cooked food by, by, you know, authentic chefs from all around the world at the markets and all through the restaurants in Darwin, so it is a pretty good place to come for a bit of a food journey. Yeah, absolutely, mate, just back on the fish.

When we were in the Kimberley, we went on this boat. And there were these fish. I can't remember the name of them, but you'll probably rattle it off here that spit the water in your face. Yeah, that's the archer fish.

That's it? That's it? What about them? Fun little tourist attraction in the, uh, in any of the, um, crocodile parts and that sort of stuff that we've got around here, you can hand feed archer fish, little meal worms. They, they actually spit water at insects in the wild to knock them out of branches and that sort of thing, and you very often see it out at, uh, corrobery billabong.

You'll be going along the lily line and little spits of water, shooting up from here, there and everywhere, and that's the archerfish. We catch a few of them when we're fly fishing, and they're actually not too bad to eat as well, even though they're only quite small. I've eaten them a couple of times, back in the cattle station days, mate, and they've got a nice white flesh to eat, and of course, they're very abundant, so they would have been, um, on the menu for the TOs back in the day before, before supermarkets made it a bit easier. Yeah, no, well, when we were in the Kimberly, one of the gorge tours, and I mean, they threw these little little pellets out, and the things just came from everywhere, and then they spitting the water up at you, and it was actually, yeah, a little bit different.

Mate, what else is happening up there? Obviously getting closer and closer now with a big buildup and getting to that time of year. I'm tipping the, a lot of the tourists have cleared out now and gone back south, and you're probably getting the place back to your, back to yourselves. That'd be a good feeling, wouldn't it?

Because obviously, I mean, everybody up there relies on that big tourist season of all the caravaners and campers who are heading up there for the tourist season. But when it gets, when it drops off, it must be good to have the place back to yourself. Well, I suppose there is that, yeah. I mean, it's nice to be able to go out to a waterfall and there's not 300 people there, I suppose, but yeah, like you say, it's a pretty important part of the economy.

So, um, I, I think the, the tourist parks and hotels and and genuine sort of tourist attractions probably wish that they could stretch it out a little bit longer, and that's why they um, have all these different marketing campaigns each year. But but for fishing, specifically. It's actually one of our busiest times. We'll go, we'll be busy right through until the end of November now, uh, and, um, you know, because we're taking advantage of this warmer, calmer weather that's on the way, and we, we've got a bit of a cool burst at the moment, but we did have,

There's this little anomaly that seems to happen every year, mate, around the 20th of September. They call the mango showers, so it, it was right on time this, this year a few days ago when we got some nice rain right around the 20th September, you know, washes the dust off the leaves from the dry season and starts to kick everything back into gear again. So, you know, we're on track at the moment for a, a nice wet buildup and hopefully a big monsoon season as well. We got a bit with that, mate.

All right. So you've told us today about the milk fish. What are they bringing out the beer fish? Or is that just beer batter? Well, yeah, that's right.

The beer battered fish. We had a bit of that out of Dundee during the week as well. pretty nice. But, yeah, we've actually seen a, you know, an increased level of activity from our Barramundi when we're sightcasting the last few days as we get this nice steamy weather as well.

So, yeah, it bodes well for, you know, the next few trips that are coming up, and of course, we all know that the Golden Snapper and Dewey's coming closer at this time of year making them a bit easier to catch, and of course, it's, I don't think there's ever been a bad golden snapper served up on a plate, mate. So, that's good as well. My favourite. That's my favourite.

Unbelievable. I don't need to have a lot of fish but let me say this to you. I'm a big fan of the snapper. like it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our snapper species are, uh, are all good to eat and mangrave jacks is perhaps the best one, but, uh, different to gun snapper where, who are reasonably slow growing, but a mangrove jack, mate, they take 16 years to reach maturity. So, uh, it's, it's the only fish that I'll refuse to kill in my boat because everyone wants to catch a jack and if you keep killing them, there's none left for anyone to catch. So, we've actually been catching a fair few jacks the last couple of trips as well, which, which is really good and it shows that people are perhaps a bit mindful, more mindful of it these days.

So, um, it's nice to be able to catch a Mangrove Jack in Darwin Harbour or Bynoe Harbour. Even though there's um there's plenty efficient pressure. Um, you're perhaps better off to keep their 1st cousin, the golden snapper or the Spanish flag, the stripe is just as good to eat as well. All right.

Well, it all sounds good to me, mate. I bet I bet the Dundee Beach Tavern was happy to see the back end of you when you left there after performing. Did you? Just before I let you go, did you end up performing your songs at the pub?

No. No, I'm still, I'm still figuring out the three-thought riffs to play the new... Reverse engineered a band here, so I've got to put a band together so we can play them now, mate. I'm having a bit of fun sharing it around and that's all it does.

Brings a few smiles to people so that's good. That's all you want. All right, mate. Well done.

We'll leave you in there. You're in the, uh, mate, you are in the crown, the jewel of the crown of the country made up there in the Top End. It must be good there this time of year. The weather's changing, the fish, the fish abiding still and things are a bit more relaxed.

I think, you know, obviously you're going to be busy, but G's even a good part of the world. I was actually asked a question yesterday. We did a story for a current affair, and they said to me, what's your favourite part of the country? And I had to say, Watty, the Top End, mate?

Northern territory. Love it, yeah. Yeah, there you go. I'd slide in there.

I'd sleep in there, mate. I would just, I reckon I would adapt there to take me around about an hour and a half. Yeah, I reckon you'd probably be right out. It'd be interesting to see how you go in November, mate, when, you know, the rain clouds build up out there in the east, and they never quite make it to Darwin, that can get a bit frustrating, but like you say, you know, all the pubs have got aircon and cold beer, and we're actually off to the Leannia water parks that are slipping slide this afternoon with the kids as part of school holiday fun, so you can always you can always find a way to get cool.

Oh, the old slip and slide. How good are they? Slip and slide. Actually, I'll have to get Danny Simpson back on.

She's had a few weeks off. She's a slip and slide champion, can go down a slip and slide with a dark and stormy rum in a glass and not spill a drop at the bottom. I mean, that's how good she is. Yeah, that's the real skill.

That is a skill. All right, mate, we'll talk to you next week if we can find you. Right, eh, good on you. Thank you.

There he is. That's it. man, the milkfish man. How good is it?

I've never heard of milkfish, no view? Oh, now I get inundated with emails and messages saying, yeah, you got to be joking. Duck, what do you live under a rock, but I'd never heard of them, but there you go. They're up there in the Top End, and you can, anyway, you want more information on any fishing up there.

Well, you've got to get onto my man. Barefoot Fishing Safaris, as Watty, and he can certainly sort you out and get you out there. Um, he can get a rod in your hand and a fish in your esky. That's how good he goes.

And certainly has always got bookings and people going up there. Those fishing safaris that he does when he goes away for a week and stuff like that. I mean how good would that be? It doesn't matter Kakadu.

He was at a Dundee last week and he's always got something going on. As I mentioned earlier, if you'd like to take your fishing trip to the next level. He also has angling adventures where they go to some exotic fishing locations overseas, which is great, and he's spoken about that before, but he's the man in the Top End, Barefoot Fishing Safaris.