Bag a Barra — 9 January 2026

It's time now to head to the Top End and Bag a 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. Ah, the main... The mayor of the Top End. Glenn, what do you want?

Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Watty? Hello. Uh, g'day, duck.

Yeah, I don't know about the mayor. Oh, hang on, hang on. What's happened to your phone? Oh, nothing.

I'm just right here, mate. Oh, okay, all right. There seems to be a bit of delay creeping in the line, mate. What's doing in the Top End, son?

Oh, plenty of rain, plenty of sunshine. It's uh, yeah, it's fair income, uh, monsoon conditions here at the moment, mate. It's raining a hell of a lot. Yeah, right, okay.

So obviously not too many people out fishing at the moment or they just get it in brave elements. Yeah, not too many at the moment, although, if we get a day or 2 sort of reprieve from a bit of fairly windy weather, it'll, it'll be all go, the Daly River jumped up to over 7 metres there the other day from, from running at only a couple of metres um the day before, sort of thing after a big rain. So, that, um, once it gets to 7, it starts actually backfilling all the creeks and billabongs that are adjacent to the main river, and, and that's when the fish, um, obviously from the river, the title section can push out into those billabongs, and then I, I'd be tipping that that river will probably drop again below that sort of, um, 6 or 7 metres pretty soon if we don't keep getting lots of rain, and, and that's when you can get a big flush of fish out into the main river, and, um, you know, people that are keeping an eye on that river hike can, sort of be there at the right time and and really have some amazing fishing, you know, over 100 fish sessions, there's all those freshwater barrow, um keen to come out into the main river and get a bit of salt in their gills again.

So, um, if we can get this bloody boat trailer reassembled at home here, mate, we'll probably be, um, we might duck down in the Daly ourselves the next couple of days. What about places like say corroborate at the moment. Can you still get out there this time of year with all the big wet? Yeah, Corroboree still open at the moment as far as I know, although as soon as that river comes up, and so it's flooding into the car park, they'll close it and it'll be close to until probably around about Easter time.

So, yeah, but it depends on the year. Sometimes when you get lots of big early rain out there and it floods, they'll close it early, but they do seem to leave it open as long as they can, which is good, and I know, I saw a fishing report from there the other day saying that people were out there, and they heard a hell of a lot of fish boofing and carrying on, but they couldn't catch them, and that can be what happens at the water rises. They can go right back up into the grass and get a bit tricky to catch for a little while. So, yeah, it's probably not the number one spot to try at the moment.

You'd probably be looking at big rivers or the harbours. But still, of course, if you've got it half a day to spend and don't want to go too far. It's always a good look. Yeah, absolutely.

and you mentioned the harbour. I mean, it's, this time of year, during the wet, is it, is that still popular as like, like Dundee, is it still popular as well this time of year? Yeah, definitely is with the locals. Not so much with interstate people, because it's hard to plan a trip at this time you just don't know what the weather's going to be doing, but, you know, if we if we had the day off or something and you saw the weather was going to be good, you know, you get those really nice glass out conditions and a bit of fresh water pushing out of the big river systems always stirs everything up in the blue water as well.

Plus you've got the deweys and snapper that have come in closer for their breeding cycles as well. So, the blue water certainly can be really good and the harbours can be equally as good. We get really big tides at this time of year. So, if you're out there on those, um, you know, those tides down around one metre and that sort of thing, it really pulls all the bait and the barring to the drains and stuff can be really good fishing, but if you get a bit of rain over that running out tide, it can really dirty the water up really quickly.

So it can be a bit hit and miss in that regard, but, you know, because Darwin Harbour is so close to everyone here. Um, you know, if you go out for a couple of hours and it rains, no big loss sort of thing. So, yeah, there's still be plenty of people trying to catch a bar on the flats at the moment. All right, no worries mate.

And we always ask you this, any multimillionaires? I mean, it's a move court tag. Fish? Is that still happening? No, no new mail on that, mate.

It's all going to be quiet in that way. No, it's probably just because people aren't fishing as much, just right now, still getting back into work and that sort of thing, I suppose. But, um, yeah, once the weather settles a bit, I'd be surprised if a couple don't pop up in next month or so. What about driving around town now and just getting about the place.

I mean, it'd be a fair bit quieter. The caravan parks would be empty and no one really about. Is it? You know, good place to be now.

I mean, it'd be, you know, you get in, you wait too long for a feed or a beer at the pub. do you? Exactly. Yeah.

I mean, especially like on a Sunday morning or something, you go for a drive early, there's virtually no one in town and especially in the city there. It's a bit of a ghost town. Yeah, it does make it easy to get a feed at one of the popular restaurants or whatever if you're going in for date night and that sort of thing. So not the end of the world for us.

date night of course date night. We're a big fan of date night at our house, mate. Don't you do that? No, good on you, no. Oh, mate, it's every night, mate.

There's a date night every night. Yeah, sure it is, yeah. Yeah. The date night at the Nunamar Tavern. How good is it?

We went, we gate crashed one of your date nights, didn't we? Yeah, that's right, yep. You and Gav? Yeah.

That's it. All right. Well, and we'll be great crashing you again this year too, mate. We see you in July.

How good will it be? Yeah, that'll be right. Yeah, you'll have to park up at the Nooney again for a couple of nights. Do that, actually.

All right, mate. All right, will you enjoy, mate? get back to work on that trailer. We'll chat to you next week.

See what's doing, eh? Righto. Good on you, duck. Have a good break.

You too, mate. There he is. That's our man, Watty, Glenn, Barefoot Fishing Safaris. Check him out there or angling adventures and get ready.

And if you want to get up there and catch them fish, well, get ready to catch plenty with Watty. That's what you do, Barefoot Fishing Safaris in the Top End. Now go to when it comes to all life. No, not just fishing.

We talk everything. Top End life. We love it. And I know he does.

What a great, great place to be all year round. Barefoot Fishing Safaris.