Bag a Barra — 18 September 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. OK, we've crossed to some pretty remote places on this show over the years.

In fact, we've gone just about everywhere in Australia, but this is a bit different. Our man, Watty. Now you've got to excuse this. There's a bit of a delay in the line, is in, I mean, in Mongolia or somewhere on the Russian border, I don't know what he's doing there, but let's find out.

Watty? Can you hear me, son? Well, I can hear you, duck. Yep.

Funnily enough, for the 1st time in a few days, we've turned the old phone on this morning and got a bit of mobile phone service here. Yeah. It's a bit dodgy, but I'm very in Mongolia. And um, right up, right up near the Russian border.

It's freezing cold I can tell you right now, although the boys are saying it's not cold enough for the fish to be biting properly, um but absolutely spectacular landscape and amazing trip so far. So, see, there's fishing there. I mean what are you fishing for?

Fish. Yeah, we're fishing here. I mean, the landscape is big. Sort of up above a snow line type thing here.

It'll, um, it'll, rain, it will starts. Big, big, wide rivers and we're fishing for the biggest trout species in the world called Taman. Okay, there's apologies for the, because the line's dropping in and out. You are very, very remote, yeah?

Very remote, mate. We drove out of Ullambatar a few days ago, took 12 hours to get to the river and then we have floated down the river for 3 days. So yeah, we're well out in the middle of nowhere. Unbelievable.

So this is angling adventures. you've got customers with you. obviously. And this is this is taking your fishing adventure to another level, isn't it?

Ah, absolutely dead set. This is um about as uh about as adventurous. Although we are in a fairly luxurious um arrangement here, the, the staff on the, that are running the trip, they, um, they pack up the camp every morning and uh, put it onto the rafts, about 6 rafts and they float down to the next camp spot for that night, set it all up again and, um, and we sort of fish our way and get down there, just on dark and you've got nice warm stretch of beds and, and, um, you know, toilets and showers that they move every single day. So we've got about a dozen staff here for 4 anglers, which is amazing.

Unbelievable. I was about to ask you how many people are with you. So there's you and 3 customers, yeah? Yeah, that's right.

The lionesses here with me. She's still rugged up in bed. It's only about 7 o'clock in the morning here. So we're having a bit of a lay day today, do some washing and um, and have a relax off the river a little bit.

We might go for a walk up into the hills view. One of the boys when setting up the camp yesterday, saw a wolverine, um wandering around and um on the side of the river, there's been big camels. We've seen yaks, um, lots of sheepherders, goats and um, and all sorts of interesting critters, mate. So, yeah, we're really lucky to be supported by a really professional crew of local Mongolian people, super friendly and can't do enough for you.

So, even though we are truly remote in the, in the most truest sense of the word, it's, it's actually, so, it's probably more comfortable than, um, the camp and we do at home. So amazing setup. Incredible. So how does a trip like this take place? So you've found this location, or you knew of it, and then you put together the trip and and fly to where?

What to Mongolia? Yeah, that's right. So one of the boys that's here with us fishing, Alex. He's been over here 3 other times already.

And we use the same guiding operation each time, Mongolia River outfitters, and we've got a long-standing relationship with them, and they've got, uh, it's a, it's a really unique sort of, or very different than Australia where to run a guiding operation on any of these rivers, here, you go into an auction next year, and you buy the spots. Um you bid for the spot. So there's no other um anglers on the water here in the in our 60 kilometre stretch of water that we're fishing over the next few days and Um, yeah, so the trip just starts at, uh, Alex says I don't want to go back to Mongolia. I go, okay, well, I'm coming for sure, and I'll bring Louise along, and we find a couple of others, and then off we go.

So we just flew straight from Darwin, Singapore, and Hong Kong and then straight to Ulan Batar, only 43 flights about 4 hours long. We had 2 nights in Ulambatar said that we could do some tourist activities in there and that was absolutely unbelievable, a whole nother story. And yeah, then the guys picked us up in the um, a couple of land cruises on the um, early morning of the next day, we drove, once you're 20 minutes out of Ulham, Batar, the big city. It is remote and dirt roads.

It's absolutely amazing. No land ownership out here. Everyone's just nomadic herdsman and it's a, it's a very, very different um structure of community than we have in Australia. So, these guys, once it starts getting a bit colder in the next week or 2, we'll move their, um, their herds of yaks and camels, goats and sheep, cows, um, down further south, off the, off these mountain ranges, um, away from the heavy, heavy snow and bad weather, and spend the wintertime down there, and then once it, you know, once the snow melts, they come back up and they, they spend spring and summer up here.

So, it's a beautiful, interesting and simple life. I'd love to spend a lot more time here. But, you know, this is the 1st time. We've still got another 12 days of fishing left on the trip. So, yeah, we've got a lot of very interesting things to see coming up, that's for sure.

Incredible, mate. It really is. I just can't believe it. So how far from the Russian border are you?

Uh, I'd have to, I'd have to look, but we'd only be a 100 kilometres to the south of it at the moment. We, we, we finished on this particular river, uh in another 6 days or so, and then we drive, We've got about a 15 hour drive to another river, uh where we will be staying in a lodge, which is a really flash lodge, uh and we go out in jet boats each day up and down the rivers to do the fishing, like you would see in New Zealand. And that lodge is only about 30 kilometres by river from the Russian border.

So, yeah, essentially, compared to everywhere else in the world, we might as well be standing on the border. But, um, you know, these, these guys have got a pretty good, um, relationship with Russia, these days, they, they got their independence from the Soviet Union in 1994 or 6 somewhere around there, and they've really got their national identity, um, you know, back to what it used to be in the, in the days of Genghis Khan, and they, and they, they really hold a strong pride in, in, um, in their national culture, and, um, the way they still live now is, it hasn't changed for 100s of years. So.

Amazing experience and um yeah. Well, it's really hard to describe. actually, it's just uh overwhelming some of the stuff that you see, it's like nothing else anyone in Australia's ever seen. Just spectacular.

I know we say that, you know, do you want to take your fishing adventure to another level? Get onto angling adventures, but mate, this is another level. This is more than that. I mean, this is unbelievable.

What's the attraction? To go to somewhere like that just to go fishing. Well, I mean, honestly, the, it's the most spectacular landscape I've ever been in by far. Uh, you know, it's, it truly is, um, you know, it's wilderness. There's, there's no fences here, duck.

No roads, there's, we heard a tractor yesterday. There's a little single cylinder tractor that we heard. That's the 1st engine we've heard in uh 3 days of floating down the river. There's just nothing out here.

So, as far as wilderness and cultural experience goes, it'd be fairly hard to beat, but also the fishing is, it's really comfortable and easy really. I mean, we're floating down the river in these beautiful rafts, the same thing you'd do if you were floating down a trout stream in Australia, New Zealand or America, and um, Well, it goes to, you know, metre and a half metre 80 long and 50 kilos. So, it's a, it's, you know, it's an all round spectacular journey.

There's not on this particular river, but um, a different river that they fish on these trips, um, you, you spend time riding from spot to spot on horses with your fly rods as well, mate. So, you know, it's um, it's really unique and uh, yeah, just because it's so different to anything we've ever seen. I think that's part of the part of the draw for it. Unbelievable.

Mate, now just a quick one and I'll let you go. Are they biting? is a long way to go if they go off the bite. They actually, right now they're not biting.

Oh no. Dying weather here. the 1st few days, about 23, 24 degrees, bright sunny days, and, you know, we're just loving it because it's not, you know, we, we thought we were coming into snow and ice and freezing cold weather. But um the fish actually don't love the warm weather.

The water temp in the, in the river is about 13 degrees and the, the, the guides say they're waiting for about 10 degrees, so that triggers their real heavy feeding activity before the, because this river will have 2 foot of ice over the top of it in a few weeks time. So, um, the tame and as that water temp drops quickly. They really feed up before the wintertime. So that's sort of what we're hoping for, mate.

But it's beautiful holiday weather, if nothing else. We have caught a few fish, but uh, I think with the, the quality of the river uh, that we're floating over, we, we should be catching more if the conditions were quite right. So, we're having this strategic day today where we'll um, you know, do some washing and charge up some batteries and stuff with the solar panels and um, sort of wait for the cold weather that's supposed to be coming tomorrow, and then we've got, we've still got another uh, 40 or 60 kilometres of river to float down and hopefully um, get stuck into them a bit more there, mate. So, yeah, but one thing that people know that come on these trips. I mean, if you're going to spend the amount of uh time and money to come on this trip.

You already know that fish and fishing and they don't always bite, but yeah, I mean, the, it happens in a lot of places where you go fishing. I mean, Kakadu, Corroboree, all those places that we love. The fish is what gets you there, but you know, it's the experience as a whole and the scenery and and for us, the culture and the food and stuff that we're experiencing as well. So, the fish will come at some point or maybe they won't, but still, so perhaps the most, you know, fulfilling travel experience of my life so far.

I've been here for only 4 or 5 days and I've travelled to point, I've caught fish in 20 different countries and um yeah, this would, this would be right at the top of the list, I reckon. Unbelievable. Now, now, what about beer? They have really good beer here.

Oh, do they? Yeah, yeah. which is good. I know what you like. Yeah, yeah.

half leader cans and... No we haven't had a bad one. Yeah, yeah, they're crackers and you don't need to worry about ice, mate. You just hang the bag of beers over into the river and get old enough, though.

Oh, it's about jobs right there. We've been, yeah, we get stuck into the Genghis Genghis gold vodka as well and that's a bit of a tradition warm. Hang on, he's gone. I think he's gone.

Yeah, they're carrying all this stuff down the river for us every day in the rafts, beers and, you know, we had, um, Oh, he's dropping out here. You still there, Watty? Oh, I think, yeah, man, what he might be gone.

Look, apologies for the phone line. You could imagine how hard it was to get him on the phone where he was, but certainly that is something different, isn't it? Anyway. As I say, if you want to take your fishing adventure to another level, well, get on to what?

hang on, I think he's still on the line there somewhere. Um, I think he might be got. Are you there, Watty? I think what he's gone.

As I say, if you want to take your fishing adventure to another level, angling adventure. So you've got your Barefoot Fishing Safaris in the Top End, but if you want to go somewhere like that. And look, and apologies again. I mean, it's been a very dodgy line. We're actually talking to him.

You're ready for this through Facebook. So we aren't speaking through Facebook and I'm Facebook Messenger and it was the only way we could get hold of him and he's only because he's got a little bit of service there, which gives him access to his data. So anyway. Well done.

There you go. That's what he, in Mongolia, 100 kilometres south of the Russian border. Just paddling or not even paddling, just drifting down a river fishing.