Bag a Barra — 10 April 2026

It's time now to head to the Top End and Baga 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, what are these, the man, we bumped him up the order this week, right up the top. First cab off the rank. Watty, g'day.

G'day, Doc. That's good. Yeah, back where I belong, mate. Should get me here each week.

Yeah, you know what? We might, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You keep the listeners happy. Hey, Watty, last week.

Well, at least a weekend. We went out to Naramine in Western New South Wales and we were we were out there. It was a family thing and we were out there. So we went fishing for Murray Cod.

You ready for this? We were using cheese for bait. I've always wanted to do the 1st bloke was that put a lump of cheese on the hook and caught a Murray cod with, but yeah, that's a well-known, very successful bait, and good because if you don't catch a fish for dinner, you can always eat the bait. Well, what happens?

So how it's supposed to work is that the abbeys go for the cheese? Yeah, the Murray, and the Murray Cod, go for the Abbeys. The combo deal. Anyway, you're not going to believe it.

We caught 2 turtles. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the old turtles don't mind it, too. a bit of a problem, but you know, they're not too bad to eat a traditional tuck of the old turtle.

So, I mean, I don't know what the bag limit is on him out there. You probably have to let him go. No, we let them go mate. I got surprised by the size of one of them.

was huge. And they actually felt sorry for them and they didn't like it. But anyway, we got the hook out of their mouths and off they went. But the Murray cod, yeah, but they were happening out there, Macquarie River, and fishing there, and you'd have been proud of me, son.

Good on you. Had the cheese on. Was that those? I thought it was a G. fishing, yeah. Double pluggers up on the gunnel and kicking back with a can with a lump of cheese on the bottom.

It sounds very relaxing. Yeah absolutely. Now, you spent you spent Easter down on the farm. How was that?

Yeah, it was unreal, actually. Yeah, spent down there on the Glenelg River, just below Rockland's wall, and, you know, the river's flowing nicely there, and yeah, we got stuck into a few feeds of some nice local red fin, and a couple of Australian bass caught in the river as well, which is good to see. It was beautiful weather. We did have a one little bit of rain overnight, one night, but yeah, absolute crack in weather and good to catch up with the 50 or 60 other watts that were down there for the sort of traditional Easter camp.

So that was really nice. Yep, yep, that absolutely. That was down on the farm in Victoria. So yeah, mate, the Top End, what's doing a lot of water still up in that region, mate.

Yeah, well, period of fairly dry weather over the last weekend at Easter weekend, which is nice, and the East efficient reports from when we were away are just pretty amazing. So it's only the start of what's to come, I think, for the rest of April and then right through into May, we'll probably still have really good runoff fishing into June until we get that really cold snap middle of June, I reckon. So, yeah, I'm really keen to get back into it in a couple of days time, got a big plumbing group coming up from Melbourne, uh, group of 12 that's been coming up for a long time. So, that'll be really fun and, uh, yeah, fingers crossed. They're still biting as we get into that trip.

Yeah, absolutely mate. And some of the water started to go down because I know there was a lot of rain up there, you had, you know, massive, big wet, and then you had that cyclone that came across the top of the country and went through your way, and they're flooding, and there was flooding in Catherine's flooding everywhere. How's all that going? Yeah, that's right.

Narell came through and we just got the rain from that, which I mean, it caused a bit more flooding and stuff, but for the environment, it's going to be really good going forward. But yeah, all the roads are open now. We had a nicer of neat tides pretty shortly after that rain event. So it did drain away pretty quickly, and then Easter tides back it up a bit and sort of hold it up in the system a little bit more, and then, yeah, by the time we get stuck into this next trip, it'll be nicely settled, and all that rainwater.

Once it really warms up nicely on the floodplains and all those frogs and tadpoles and rainbow fish have another little breeding cycle over that full moon, we've just gone through, that sort of doubles that bait biomass again on the floodplain. So the amount of bait that's that's coming off into those main river systems now is just phenomenal. And and of course, that's what the, brings the big barrel fishing in um, and Red Hot this time of year. So yeah, it all goes around in circles, mate, as we keep saying, and it's a bloody good thing. Yeah, absolutely mate.

Mate, just during that, like it's a quiet period now, though, well, we hope it'll pick up. Um, you get any vibe about what people are thinking about the fuel situation up there. I mean, you're in the tourism business. I mean, he's worried that this, are you seeing any effects yet or do you, are there concerns or discussions happening about how we get around this if people start cancelling their caravan trip to the Northern territory?

Yeah, uh, there is a, there's plenty of chat, um, and I think there's some real concern from that, uh, that sort of genuine tourism and and one day half day market where you, you do have those sort of um, drive and self-guided tours and grain nomads and that sort of stuff. I know, just from chatting to, you know, half a dozen sort of uncles and nannies of mine down in Vic that they're, um, they're very likely not going to make the trip up north this year, which they normally wouldn't stay for 3 or 4 months. uh particularly in places like Daly River and that sort of thing which has essentially been washed away. So, yeah, that's, um, that's something to be mindful of. But my, uh, you know, trying to read a bit of a crystal ball from the business point of view, I, I think the one day in sort of half day market will probably really struggle.

But I, I also think that uh people who are offering good experiences for 2 or 3 days or more might, might even pick up a bit more and, and I think the, instead of doing a lot more, that dry, traditional driving holidays, there might be um, more sort of fly and stay for a week and then fly back and maybe do that a couple of times in different places across Australia. So, yeah, I feel sorry for the Caribbean parks and that sort of thing that rely on the drive market. But, um, yeah, it'd be interesting to see how it balances out with the fly in fly out market. Yeah, absolutely.

It's a bit of a worry. It's funny though. I mentioned earlier that I was surprised at how many caravans I saw just out Western New South Wales on the road. Obviously, it was the Easter weekend, but still, there was still a lot of vans on the road.

I actually, there was a bloke where we were who was sort of trying to wait it out. He was on his way back to WA. So, um, and waiting it out. The one thing I did see out there, though, was all the fuel stations, well, there was none there without anything.

They just all had all their prizes up, albeit very, very expensive. The price variations just blew me away. I mean, fair Dingham. You know, I mean, you have one survey, a 20 cent, uh, cheaper than the one, you know, 30, 40 metres away. That's across the road.

I don't understand how it works. And I mean, makes it hard. I mean, that one's got any confidence in any of this stuff for obvious reasons. And that was, and that's been going on way before this current problem where you drive past a servo and the fuel would be one price and the next one would be up another 20 or ¢30 You think, well, how does that work?

You know, you don't go and buy a bottle of milk at somewhere and it's, you know, massive big difference at the next milk bar. I mean, anyway. But anyway. All right.

So yeah, well, hopefully, I mean, we don't want. I mean, we want to see people travelling up into the Northern territory this year. It's a great place to visit. I mean, and you know, what worries me about all this, Watty, is that we've had so much water out in the Outback, and, you know, especially around the Channel country and in Queensland, and all these, all these places.

Um, the thing that worries me is because people are going to pull out from going because of the fuel, they're going to miss out on what it's going to look like because it's going to look amazing. You know, what a, you know, so, you know, and that's, that's a real, real shame, you know, because, you know, I mean, how many years we've travelled out through the outback of Queensland to get into the territory, and it's as dry as chips and dusty and red, and, but now, the last couple years it's been okay. this year it will be lush green, the colours and the problem is that people aren't going to go because they're going to think, well, we can't afford to go at these fuel prices and they're going to miss out. And so are the businesses out there.

That's a real shame. Yeah, that is a real shame. I also think it'd be interesting, you know, I'd encourage people to really do some maths on it before they do pull out of their sort of plan trips because a lot of these big trucks these days. Uh, particularly those American made stuff and, you know, you've got the V8 missing patrol that's a petrol.

You know, petrol actually hasn't gone up that much. So as far as the percentage increase goes, you know, we've, we're sort of paying prices now that are similar to what we're paying in COVID and people were still doing plenty of travelling just then, apart, apart from diesel, that is. I mean, diesels there is the big killer, but yeah, it'd be interesting to see as far as if you owned a big petrol truck or the patrol, just see how much difference it actually makes. I mean, it's a big scary ghost story to tell and intimidating to think about, but the actual dollars, it's going to make a difference on your trip, it'd be interesting to actually do some real mass on that and see if you can actually make those trips because like you say, you're going to, you're going to be one of the few people out there and um, and seeing some amazing, um, you know, all that native flowers and and the countryside looking as healthy as ever been as well as supporting regional towns that really needed at the moment.

Yeah, absolutely, mate. All right. Well, well done. And look, who knows?

I mean, it may settle down by June, July, and prices will come down and people are still going, and that's what we're, and that's what we're hoping. So that might not, it might not even, it might not even matter if all this stuff can get resolved. And fuel can go. I don't one thing, it won't come down as quick as it went up.

But if it can come down, and people will still go and keep on keeping on, that's what we're hoping for. All right, mate, we'll let you go, no, you're busy, and mate, we'll find out what's biting up there in the Top End next week, eh? That's right. We'll be back into the bar shortly and let you all know next week.

Good stuff, try and get you on the boat. Good stuff. There he is. That's our man. Barefoot Fishing Safaris.

That's who you've got to get onto. If you go to the Top End, you want the full on Top End experience out there, bagging those bears. Well, you've got to do it with our me and Glenn, what do you what? And you can do that by checking him out Barefoot Fishing Safaris.