Bag a Barra — 29 May 2026

It's time 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 radio communications. Explore the extract series at uniden.com.au. Well, not only have we got him on the boat, but let me tell you this much. He is 1st off the rank, the 1st guest on the new name, Oz off-road radio.

Watty? I bet you feel privileged, son. I expect an invoice in the mail, son, if I was you. Yeah, that's right.

No, I was clinging on to top spot, mate, and they'll probably get a certificate or something for the 1st episode of the new show, I suppose, won't I? Well, it's the same show, do you name? But no, you won't get a certificate, mate. In fact, you'll get nothing.

Maybe an invoice, an invoice for you, you know, from my time. for my time. Where are you on the boat, eh? Top End.

Yeah, yeah, good on you, mate. Well done. Well, now, listen. You're on the boat.

Where are you? We're on the boat. Yeah, we're up. We're about halfway up New Angie Creek on South Alligator River, upstream of the boat ramp.

It's been a bit slow so far today. We had some pretty cool mornings, the last few mornings, mate, down to about 16 degrees as we drove out this morning, so let's drop the water temperature of the, or the, the temperature of the water coming off the floodplains and cooled things down. So, they're a bit hard in the morning at the moment, but we've been getting them in the afternoon. So we sort of just chip away at a few, throughout the morning and hopefully they'll do their thing in the afternoon once that sun warms them up a bit and the low tide change comes for us.

They don't like the cold water, do they? I remember when we were at Mission Beach a couple of years ago and we went to a Barra farm where you could basically fish them out of these dams and I thought, mate, we're going to get on here. The trouble was it was the coldest day in the history of Mission Beach. We caught nothing.

And the bloke has, when it gets cold, they go, they go MIA. Yeah, they get a bit sulkier. I mean, it's no different to us, mate. We don't want to get out of bed on a cold morning and the fissure a bit the same.

I think so. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how it goes over the course of this weekend. Got the biggest event for the year happening in Jabberoo, mate. the Jabberoo biathlon.

So, you do one day of fishing in one day of golf and and your Barramundi that you catch on the 1st day, say, you'd catch a 60 centimetre, one duck, then you'd have a 6 handicap for your round of golf on the Sunday. So, um, there's a pretty big weekend here in Jaburu, and I'll be, um, I'll call in and see how all the proceedings go at the golf club after I get off the water, of course. I mean, only up there in the territory do they come up with these sort of events and it's all about basically just an excuse. I mean come on.

To get on the drink, isn't it? Oh, you just had one then, did you give one? Here we go. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, one very important thing that we know about barrow fishing and golf duck is that you don't want to get dehydrated.

So, um, you've got to be very mindful of that, and it's the dry season, so you, you're not really as sweaty as you were, but you're still dehydrating. So, you know, make sure you keep the esky full and um, and yeah, do your best to get a bit of moisture in the body. Yep, no, fair enough, mate. And so how many people will enter this event.

So what, they all camp out there? Well, how does it work? Yeah, that's right. So you can start fishing.

Well, actually, last night you could start fishing Friday, Arvo, and it goes through till Saturday afternoon is the end of the fishing and then Sundays, golf day. So, yeah, Jabber will be pretty chockers, um, throughout this weekend and everyone will be down at the golf club. There'll be, oh, there's sort of 40 or 50 teams of 3 or four. So, yeah, it's um, it's a big influx of people, a lot of locals, but also um, plenty of, um, I guess, regular tourist teams that will come up from down south each year, um, and and have a bit of a fish and and play around a golf.

It's like you say, it's a pretty unique event, so a bit of fun. There's always an event happening there. That is for sure. There's things going on all the time, especially this time of year. Mate, just on there, you're talking about some of those tourist groups.

Have you seen a little bit of activity around town? I know I've got my mate of mine up there at the moment. He reckons it's a bit quiet, but he probably wouldn't know. My old mate's shocked, but you're the local.

What do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely quieter than normal. We're still not seeing that drive market. turn up yet and they may not.

I mean, there's a lot of minds made up back at Easter time, wasn't there, when there was really high fuel prices, so people sort of might have already planned to do other things, but, uh, yeah, noticing a decent amount of, um, you know, the Winnebago type hire campers driving around. So, yeah, maybe that's an alternative that people are looking at, just flying up and driving around for a week or 2 rather than doing the big drive up from south. So, um, yeah, it'll be interesting to see as as the dry season really kicks into gear with the bigger, major events, just how many people are actually turned up as genuine tourists. They've got the Darwin Festival programs out now and um that's, that's, of course, one of the biggest um sort of events that Darwin has runs for a couple of weeks. So that, that's probably a really good test of, of how many people are coming up.

Yeah, for, for that um big festival through August. That sounds all right. So tell me, the Darwin, Darwin Festival. When's that on in August?

Yeah, that's right. It's our sort of performing arts and fringe, I suppose, festival. There's, um, you know, there's raunchy cabaret and and, you know, old school bands, tism is coming up to play. one of those cool old old rock old bunk bands from the 80s and 90s.

So, yeah, there's um, there's a, it's sort of 2 week long program of um, pretty interesting events scattered right, right across through Darwin and Palmerston. Really fun time of the year for us who live up here. You can go on date night every night for 2 weeks. Date night every night.

Okay. Well, I've got some, well, I could be there in August. Yeah, well, I think you want to get some tickets to them, mate. That'll be fun.

The Duck Festival. Ducks, Ducks Darwin Festival. Yeah, you could do a bit of stand-up comedy or something one night, yeah. Oh, I'm sure I'm going to go with that, mate.

I mean, tomato and tomato throwing competition, I'd be the target, I'd reckon. Oh, actually, sorry, then all the teddies Darwin, so they'll be getting beer cans straight at me. Lucky for me, they'd all be empty. They wouldn't be wasting too many up there throwing full ones.

No that's true. That's true. What about, yeah, what about anything else? hearing anything in regards to what's being caught around the place?

So, I mean, obviously some colder mornings and stuff like that. But you're hearing of any good catches and where it's busy now at the minute? Yeah, it is starting to change around now. Of course, um, you know, you, you, one of your favourite places, Corbery Billabong's been open for a couple of weeks and it, it was pretty high there at the start, of course, but I did get a few photos, flick through to me from a mate yesterday who's um, been getting some nice fish out there and, and it sort of par for the course once it starts to really drop away off the floodplain there, um, which is generally sort of late May and into June.

That's when the drains and the lily pads and stuff will start to fire and those, you can get those bigger numbers of Barramundi in that billabong, as well as those really cool ones, my favourites, the Saratoga. Yes, I know you do love it. All right. Well done, mate.

Well, you enjoy your day on the boat, as I know you do, and um, hopefully you get hold of a few and um, mate, let me know how you go of the golf, eh? Yeah, that's right. I might I'll grab jump in a buggy and just go around, make sure everyone's following the rules and staying hydrated for the golf.

Towing the beer trolly. Yeah, the beer waggon. There you go, wouldn't I? Maybe I'll get a hot dog van or something out there and drive around the golf course, yeah.

I went to a big golf day on the mid-north coast a few years ago and that's what I did. I looked after the big buggy and that little trailer. Yeah, yeah, well, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, Mr. Hospitality. Yeah, yeah, you'd be good at that as long as they had a pretty good count of what went out and what came back in.

Exactly, mate. All right, mate, were you enjoyed up there in the Top End? You're living the dream, on the boat out there, mate. Get into them and we'll talk to you next week, eh?

Yeah, mate, we'll do that. It's beautiful dry season day here. So once these fish come on the bike properly. will be good to go.

Good stuff, mate. All right, mate. There he is. That's our man, Watty, on the boat, on the river.

How good is it? He doesn't get any more real than that. I know when we catch him on the boat, a fair bid these days, which is fantastic. It's his busy time.

People up there going fishing and you could do that as well. All you need to do is get onto Barefoot Fishing Safaris and you could be out there on the boat with body. Who knows? You might even end up on the boat with him one day and we're talking to him on the phone.

He knows how to catch them, that is for sure. And so if you want to get up there and bag yourself a barra, Well, you need to get on to Barefoot Fishing Safaris. He's our man in the Top End.

He's not just on the, he's got his fing on the pulse and everything, not just the fishing, but obviously all the festivals and activities that happen in the Top End this time of year. We absolutely love it. It's a great way of life up there all year round, but geez, this time of year, it just goes to another level, doesn't it? Festivals and all these little things that are happening there.

And of course, you've got the Mindle Beach markets. Oh, how good is that? If you've ever been there, you've got to go and experience that. And everything else that happens in the Top End right out towards Dundee Beach as well.

Wadi will cover all of that for us here on the radio, that is for sure. He's certainly got his finger on the pulse in the Top End. Barefoot Fishing Safaris.