Bag a Barra — 5 June 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. Oh, he's our man in the top in. Glenn Watty, Watty, is on the line.

What do you g'day? No, good day, duck. yeah How you going today?

Well, what I'm going, okay, mate. What about you? I mean, like, I thought we would have had you on the boat today, but what are you at the bottle or something, waiting for that to open. Wow, yeah, sitting on the front step of the pub, mate.

Yeah, no, actually, um, I do do other things other, other than go fishing and sitting at the pub, but, um, no, I actually, I, I've just finished up there, I'll run off, um, seasoning out in Jabberoo yesterday, so, yeah, just got back into town last night and, um, trying to get everything organised back in town here, so, um, yeah, woke up in a pretty cool morning up here again this morning, we've had um, 5 or 6, uh, overnight lows under 20 degrees, and in fact, out, out in Jabberoo, uh, down to 14 and 15 degrees. So, dry seasons well and truly here, mate. Harden up, cupcake.

I mean, fair deacum. I mean, where I am at this morning, I think it was about three. Yeah, in Deepwater, New South Wales, very cool. Yeah, well, exactly right, mate.

Exactly. Mate, you mentioned last week on the show about the golf, the fishing and golf tournament at Kakadu. How did that go? Do you got any mail on that or no idea?

Yeah, I do have a bit of mail. The fishing, like I suggested, um, around that time it was pretty hard and people struggled to get um, to get many fish at all, um, and most of them were pretty small. I think the biggest one was about 85 or so for that particular comp, but then, of course, there's some pretty handy golfers around there. So they had a good time and I, I, I was in the caravan uh only a few, uh, 500 metres down the road and um, yeah, the band was fairly going off and stuff like.

I actually didn't go down there for fear of perhaps getting a bit distracted and staying up too late when I had to go fishing, doke some goldfishing the next day. So, um, yeah, but it was about 140 competitors there and 40 odd teams. So it's a big show and I'm going to try and line up um line up to get some days off when it's happening next year. I was going to find myself a decent golfer and then we might be in with a shot.

Yeah, well you know, well, let me tell you, you're talking to the wrong bloke here. Yeah, I've got all the gear and I've got all the gear and I'm a better fisherman than I am a golfer. That's telling you something. That's a worry.

Mate, just a quick one. You mentioned the barrel down to 85. For people that don't know, what's the legal size to keep a barrow? Yeah, so the legal size to keep one for a feed is 55 centimetres.

and then there's, that's the minimum course, and then there's a maximum size of 90 centimetres, uh, uh, but you're allowed, the, the exception to that rule is that you're allowed to keep, have one over 90, um, if, say you caught a big one and, and it, uh, you know, it was bleeding or whatever, and, uh, and it wasn't going to survive the release. Uh, then you, you, you can keep it um, to take home and eat, which is, which is just a good sort of a sensible rule. Um, and, um, I mean, I, I, I really don't keep fish over about 75 on the boat, uh, because, uh, well, probably most people don't know, but Barramundi actually changed sex. They're all born male and then uh, about 95% of them change sex at a certain weight, but um, to make it easy for people to sort of manage it on the boat, they, you know, around 90, 85 to 90 centimetres is, is sort of the understanding.

So, I tend to let anything over 75 go because I sort of figure they've, you know, they've done a pretty good job to get there and and the more females we have in the system, the better, as well as some practical reasons, you know, like uh, once the fillets get over, over that size, they're a bit trickier to sort of fit neatly into a freezer bag and, and, um, and that sort of thing as well. So, um yeah, that's the way we roll, mate. And um, you know, there's pretty abundant barramundi stocks up here, so we're obviously doing the right thing in the territory, which is great. Yeah, absolutely.

and it is good. I mean, you're very responsible. The most, and I guess most of the fishing guides and people in the general industry in the Top End would be the same, wouldn't they? Oh, absolutely.

I mean, especially fishing guides. I mean, that's our livelihood and everyone that you take, take out of the system makes it harder the following day because there's one less fish, so, uh, as well as, you know, you, you'd be in big strife if you got caught breaking the rules. And I think general population these days as well is much more, you know, mindful of that sort of thing and understands that everyone plays a role. And if you look across the country, you know, Western Australia, just shut down a massive area of their demersal fishery because of, um, you know, overfishing concerns and South Australia's really been struggling with their snapper fishery for a long time.

So, it goes to show that, you know, some of these places are sort of teetering on the edge. We're facing our own problems up here with our snapper and dewfish as well. So, yeah, just try and be really mindful of that sort of thing when you go out on the water is really important. If you want your kids to be able to enjoy the things that you're doing right now, you've got to think about that.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, just a personal question for you. With the, um, with fish, what's your favourite species, one to catch and what's your, and and secondly, what's your favourite one to eat? I know mine, not so much catch because I just don't catch anything, but I love snapper.

Yeah, okay, so that's the pink snapper, east coast sort of cold water snapper. Yeah, mate. Yeah, yeah. Well, they get out in the ocean here.

Yeah, yeah, nice. I know. Well, I mean, we're pretty spoiled for good eating fish up here, of course. So we probably tend to get a bit fussy.

I think it's, um, for me, it'd be a toss-up, um, between, for a territory fish between the Fred Finsammon and Golden Snapper, you know, it's a real, you, you'd never, you'd never get a bad one type thing, but if I'm back down on the farm in Victoria, it's pretty hard to go past a feed of Redfin and anyone who's sort of grown up, um, fishing for Reddis would know, that's probably the best freshwater, um, fish to eat in Australia. As far as catching fish goes, I'm probably less fussy than anyone with that. I mean, Barramundi, Fantastic, of course. Saratoga are one of my favourites because they eat on the surface a lot, but, you know, any fish really, I mean, fishing's a vehicle for me to go and see beautiful places and hang out with fun people, so I'm perhaps not too fussy about what fish it is.

But yeah, I mean, of course, we've got some amazing sport fish here in the territory. And then all around the world, you know, you go to Costa Rica for those giant tarp on and then PNG for the black bass, like I've probably got a top 50 rather than top one. So yeah, they're all attached to different memories, which is the important part. I'll tell you what else you're not fussy about, is who you hang around with because there's a big chance you could be hanging around with me in a couple of months. Yeah, I'm trying to work on that, mate.

So, yeah, we'll see how that... Here we go to Costa Rico, are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all. For God's sake, for God's sake, he's on his way. Somebody drive you to the airport.

Yeah, get us out of here. Lock that gate. Oh, mate. All right.

Well, mate, obviously, they dry season, the fish are biting all up around the Top End of the northern territory, we absolutely love it, mate. And what you're in town, you didn't actually quite tell me what you were doing, but I'm sure it's something very important, but anyway, we'll chat to you next week, see what you're up to, eh? Well, yeah, that's right. I'm actually, I'm actually just, I'm on my way to go and pick up a new bike for myself.

We're getting into our dry season activity. So a bit of camping and riding the bike around the scrub and that sort of thing. So I'm looking forward to that. I've never owned a brand new bike.

They've always been the old 2nd handies from a tip shop, so it's a big deal for me getting a new one. What is it, an old Mal, what is it, a Melbourne star or a Huffy from Kmart? Oh, no. Remember the Mountains? They still make them?

Yeah, they do. Me, little helpers. I mean, mate's daughter's out in Joe Rule got them little ones, but no, I don't know what brand one is, but yeah, I did lash out a bit, so I'm looking forward to hopefully not having to find a new one for a long time. Yeah.

Okay, it's probably got one of those little levers on it, has it? Like electric? Yeah, it's got a little pedal assist. That's what I need that.

I need that. Yeah, that's right. The battery, why not? I just have to make sure it's got a drink holder that'll fit a VB long neck in it, mate.

so that we can enjoy the best of both worlds. I'm sure your customise one, mate. All right, we'll talk to you next week, eh? Righto, good on you.

There he is. See you, mate. That's our man. Glenn, what do you want?

Barefoot Fishing Safaris. If you want to get up there and enjoy that Top End lifestyle, which we love to talk about here on the radio, and we love everything, Northern Territory, don't we? But she's in particular that Top End. I love that.

Central Australia too, and we love going there, and we're going to talk about Central Australia with Vic Woodman a little bit later on, but certainly it is a great part of the world. And if you want to get up there and catch yourself one of those Barramundys or Saratoga's or all those other fish that what he's talking about, you go with Barefoot Fishing Safaris, check out the website, check him out on his social media pages as well.