The Intermediate Line — Ep 80

This episode of the Intermediate Line is brought to you by Manic Tackle Project, the only company who knows fly fishing as well as you do. And Beast Brushes. Australian made brushes and dubbing, professionally graded natural materials, plus a full shop for all of your flight tying needs at beastbrushes.com. I didn't want it.

I You take the high road down. I'm based around me now. And it ended a background. You could hear you could hear some squealing.

It was really awkward. Like, yeah, dude, you know, I can hear what's going on in the background of the phone call. fucking settle down. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, inappropriate, mate. You can't really do that to gerbils. You know, no matter if you're a flight tire or not, you know? Nah, nah, but there is some pretty skin safe technology clippers you can get these days and you don't have to take their ears off anymore.

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, this guy is selectively bred, ridgeback, wirehead, gerbils. That's not a thing. For fly towing. It is. I bet you if you Google it.

Have you seen a picture? Nah, I don't get it. Did this person, does this person want you to hold money in escrow for a Nigerian prince by any chance? No.

No, no, not Nigerian prince, just the regular, you know, Albanian, you know, ransom. That's legit. Yeah, that's true. Sounds very legit. I would imagine it wouldn't surprise me that an Algerian would find you a person to trust given the way you farm your own bodysuit there.

An Algerian. You've got Nigerian, to Algeria, to Albania. You can go to Algeria. Yeah. We'll go, man.

Yeah. Obviously, I'm not as geographically gifted as some people. Would it be good to be geographically gifted, you know? Tell me about it.

Where would you go if you go anywhere for nothing? Uh, right now. COVID opened up, you go wherever you want, but only one place. Macus or something?

KFC? All right. Where would you go? Hungry Jack's fan, are you?

That's a good question. When it comes to, it comes to fast food. If I had to choose one, one I could do without would be Maccas. Just don't like it, mate.

Um, Hungary's got the best breakfast and KFC's got the best chalk, obviously, so... Oh, this is the Vipersen podcast, dude. Yeah, true. The fast food. What am we doing next week after the Maggie, the Maggie? What have you been up to, man?

folks to the most disappointing podcast. What have I been up to? That's a great question, boss. I wish I had some prepared.

However, let me tell you. Let me tell you, all I've really got to report back. I did go fishing. It wasn't awesome, but I do, I did, while I was fishing, I got a new toy and I was been trying to think of ways to test this new toy and, you know, what I ended up with.

I ended up getting, I was iron off one of the new Sims lightweight flyweight jackets and I got a flyweight shell jackets, just like, I live in Queensland, so I can't have the really thick stuff. I don't really like the really fixed up and I get the shell because I can wear it in winter under a hoodie over a hoodie and stuff like that, you know. So what is it like a spray, like a waterproof spray jacket? Yeah, just a shell.

It's a, you know, it's flyaway's a pretty good name for it. super light. It's one of those ones that you can pack it into its own pocket, stuff like that as well. Holy shit, really?

That's small. Yeah, like you just, you just stuff it in, keep stuffing it into the pocket and you just got this little bag, you just put in your fishing bag, so... right. Yep. Well, I'm looking at it.

I'm like, 0 man, it's a pretty nice workmanship in it. I just want to sort of test it out. And I started to think of ways I could do that because, you know, it's raining. It's not so it's not raining, so I don't get to wear it till it rains.

Yeah, that posts a little bit of a problem. Um, one way I thought about doing it was, um, you know, just getting someone standing on the beach and getting someone to back the boat up and just trim it up and just hitting that full noise and just just got the rooster tail. Yep. I thought that's not very realistic.

And then, um, I thought about tuna training. You know about tuna, a lot of people who fish fish for tuna know about tuna training, right? You know what training. Yeah, yeah. We referred it. We've referred about it in our, in our 1st, oh, one of our early podcasts where you jump up and down a trampoline while someone hits you with a hose whilst trying to cast.

Yeah, someone else yells at you. someone yelling at you. Looks like a good cast only shorter. Anyway, and um, anyway, um, no, so I, I, what I did was, we did get an afternoon shower once and I grabbed the bike and I put the bike.

I used the trailing and I rode the road down a big hill in the rain, wearing the jacket just to see what it was like. And it was, it was impressive. It's, uh, you know, I've had, I've always been, I was, it looked fully sick while I was doing skids. It was pretty rad.

I was doing monos and stuff and I didn't get wet at all. But it was pretty good, man. It's a pretty well, mate. You can see what all the hype's about.

But I mean, all Sims gear is pretty good, but that was pretty impressive. Like, I've always got shells and jackets and, you know, occasionally, like, you know, like I might just wear one out and stuff and it was sort of around the time I need a new one. But one of the things I noticed in that in that jacket was something I've never seen before, and it's got like vents in the back of the hood. In the back of the wood.

Yeah, in the back of the, not the wood, the hood. The hood, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I got, like, they're like, they're like 2 shark gills, like, but only one slit in the back of the hood, you know, like, it's, uh, I'm like, I'm looking at it going, well, therefore, but I put the hood on while I was riding the treadley, and, um, that's legit.

I did. I went and rode the treadley in the rain and the other two... Down to the skate park. No, the other two. Down to get a boil of milk, mate. Anyway.

Anyway, so no, but the other 2 ways wasn't really a viable option. However, I, you know, I did ride the treadley. And what I did notice with those events was that they let the wind out. you can keep the hood on while you're underway and I guess while you're on a while you're in a boat, you know, like the hood stays on.

It's good, you know? Yeah, it was I was pretty impressed. But even even, like, I'm holding all the hangers and stuff like that. And normally I just, I ride with no hands, but because it was raining, I put my hand on the hangers and stuff. And I was worried that people had seen me, but they couldn't see me because of the jacket real easily.

Gotcha, right. Yeah, it's important to me that people know that I'm Hellman. Yeah, yeah, probably with no hands. Anyway, and even the water that didn't, you know, the water didn't creep up the sleeves or anything like that, it was, and I wasn't wearing anything other than it, I was just wearing a t-shirt.

I should clear that up wearing saying I wasn't wearing anything underneath it while we were riding a bike in public. It wasn't really accurate, you know, it was... I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah.

T-shirt and pants too, yep. Yep. Yep. Fluggers. Mm-hmm.

But yeah. So, yeah. So, no, mate, it was it was pretty good. And so yeah, but but yeah, I got that while I was going fishing and I went fishing for Barramadik or nothing.

But I did notice something else that happened through the week. Like, let me ask you this. scenario, right? Like, do you ever put, like, you know, you pick up a stray who's doing things tough and you're just, like, um, you know, like a fisherman is just, like, just can't get done.

You're like, come on, mate. I'll help you. And you're just like, yeah, you put all this time and effort into someone. And, you know, and you're there along for the ride. And, like, they might bring their curse with them, feel like many, you know, a couple of seasons in a row. Um, and they might just, um, you know, you put your time in, you get the donuts as well as they get the donuts, you fish without them, you don't get the donuts.

you know that's just part of the deal. And you're just there for the journey, hoping that soon you're going to be there to see the look on that person's face and they break that duck. And that's just as important for the person that's showing that stray, you know, how to do that. You know what I mean? Anyway, so I found out on the weekend that one of those strays that was helping out broke their own duck and sort of didn't give a shit about the effort that someone else put in to help them to get that first.

So tell us about your fishing experience, Judas. It's an interesting choice of words you've chosen there, mate. Judas. Yeah, I got, I got a message from, from a listener, and he, uh, he was like, oh, I heard Chris giving you shit about not catching Dewey, so, and I, going to get this guy out there.

So, um, yeah, Shanny Hodges. fucking legend. He'd been at me, you know, gave me a list of options and me being me and being, you know, busy with life and wife. Yeah, eventually sorted out a night that suited and yeah, Ben, you know, he was very confident.

He says, mate, we got it done easy. I'm like, come on, man, do you know you're talking to? I'm sort of like the human banana when it comes to Dewey's. And yeah, yeah, 1st cast.

Well, he was wrong. Got a 2nd cast. Yeah, but congratulations. Thank you very much, mate.

And thank you very much, Shanny. Yeah, you're you're a legend and I was saying it was with your money now. I mean, I'll be fair with the maintenance costs and the... But I think I think that because you took a shortcut to getting it done, I think.

Yeah, man. Yeah, look, you know, hit me up for the hydraulic steering costs on your boat. That's that's true. yeah.

That was at night that it was, it didn't need to bleed. But that's cool, man. It was probably a few times I fished before it might have contributed to that, so I'll let you go. Thanks, man.

Just a few, maybe a little bit of interest. Yeah, so it was sort of weird, but you know, I just, at least, you know, I was pretty sure this guy's taken me to the right spots and obviously was. So, you know, it was all good and um, yeah, had a good time and um, I was glad to get the fish. Um, and uh, like I said, in that text, mate.

I acknowledge all your efforts. It did feel a little bit um, less empty, but uh, that you weren't there. But at the same time, fuck, it was good to be holding Dewey. Well, mate, hopefully come winter, you know, we can both be on the same boat when you get a legal one.

Yeah, yeah, well, that's it. I mean, this thing's, as you told me, mate, they pull bloody hard for their size. But yeah, I'd love to get a, a legal one and I'm, you know, I'm really excited that that skunk's gone so that when Winter comes around. That means we're going to get it done, man, now.

Yeah, that's it. It's going to be PB time. PBs all around, hopefully, yeah. BBs, then BBs.

Yeah, yeah. That's the world. BB, BB, BB. What do you think about that? BB, BB. Yeah, yeah.

Just back it up. Back to back to back. Yeah, B to B to B. BBs for the BBs.

Yeah. Maybe we got a pretty good guest on tonight. Yeah, mate. Yeah.

I'm pretty excited about it We've got any clues for us, mate. Just did. Glenn what?

I told you the clue. Glenn, what? No, mate. I bet you've never heard that one before.

Yeah sure. What's your last name? What? What?

I bet he doesn't find that fucking amusing at all. That's awesome. I know. Let's get it from another angle, you know. But so Glenn, I just want to get this name right.

I know full well where he's from, but I just want to just make sure I say it correctly on this broadcast. But, um, Hang on. Why am I having trouble with my own writing here? You can't. You are?

Here we go. Barefoot Fishing Safaris. So, if you want to get your Instagram ready, folks, and see what Glenn's all about. He's a guide from the Northern Territory, who's an avid fly fisherman and is looking to open up the Northern Territory further to fly fishing clients and all that sort of carry on.

guy's pretty passionate about what he does. And, um, you know, I'm pretty keen to learn about it as well. Because, I mean, Darwin, in particular, is seems to be, um, a great destination from what you hear, but no one, no one is focussing on it, seems to. Well, since the days of Graham Williams anyway. And Glenn seems to be sort of picking up where Graham left off.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is going to be good. I'm keen to hear how he plans to do that and what's involved and what's what species are on offer. And, you know, you, the listener might be listening to this, you know, being restricted by international travel and who knows how long. Um, and you know, you might be looking for Australian destinations and might, this might tick the boxes for you.

Yeah, there's a lot going on up there. I'd love to have a chat. I'm looking forward to having a chat with Glenn about the Northern territory. Darwin in particular and end of fly options.

Yeah. Yep. Exactly, mate. All right. Well, what do you say we get him on?

Let's do it. Okey-doke. So listeners, welcome back. Tonight's guest on Intermediate Line is Glenn Watt from Barefoot Fishing Safaris in Northern Territory of Australia.

How you going, Glenn? Hey, well, it's good, mate. How are you? Yeah, good thanks, mate.

Say good day to Chris. Oh, you're there too, Chris. I thought you were out going something. Yeah, yeah.

Dying in pain, mate. Just because I knew I knew what was going to happen tonight. That's why I was struggling with it. But no, man, I'm back.

I recovered and I composed myself for the show, Glenn. I glad you're on, mate. Welcome to the intermediate line. Yeah, glad to be here.

I'm honoured. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

No, mate. We've been trying to make this happen for a little while now. It was going to be looking like a few months down, but you were able to make a bit of time, which is good. Yeah, that's right.

We're just about to head into our real busy season. So, um, time is short at the moment, but, um, yeah, um, really keen to get into it and it would have been a shame to hold off for so long. So I'm glad to make it happen. Yeah.

So what's it's off season now, so it's wet season up there, yeah? Yeah, that's right. So we, yeah, our guiding season generally, um, would start on about the 1st of March. I get a bit hungry and I'll go the week before, I'll start on the 23rd this year, February. You run the risk of having a bit too much flood water around doing that.

But where I fish down the Daly, you can work around it pretty easily by travelling a bit further coastal. uh and and sort of accessing a bit more tidal influence water, but yeah, I mean, when you got a big wet, like we've got this year, uh, you know, we're having, we've had, you know, 1600 mil of rain in the last sort of 3 months and um, she's all this soggy. So you got to make sure you plan around it.

Yeah, okay. So you've had a good, it's been a good wet season, eh, so far? Yeah, definitely. We're in there.

We're in the, you know, probably the top 10 of wettest years at the moment and and not much to go to sort of be right up there. It's a 10 year anniversary of Cyclone Carlos this year, which was a huge wet season, 2011. And that was the year I 1st started guiding. And, you know, that that, in, in 8 day period over this time in, um, mid-February, uh, in 2011, we had 890 millimetres of rain, you know? It can it can happen.

The Catherine Neva rose 8 metres overnight 10 years ago, about 3 weeks ago. Um, anniversary and flooded the whole, whole of Catherine. So, yeah, it only takes a couple of big rain events to change the whole thing around. Wow, crazy.

Yeah. So what does what does a good wet season mean for the fishing up there? Well, a good wet season is everything for fish recruitment. It's everything for the entire economy. actually, you know, like all the whole of the territory really revolves around it.

Even general tourism and earthworks and building and that sort of stuff. The rain just creates prosper, as it does it, sort of all throughout Australia, of course. But for my style of fishing, the, um, which is, you know, largely barrow focussed. Um, it's the, it's big wet seasons that um, give the fish time up on the floodplains to, um, have good recruitment from the 1000000s of eggs that get laid um, to, to get higher percentage of, of fish getting through that um, 1st couple of months of life and feeding up on the floodplains and then out they go into the big wide world and, and also, you know, all that nutrients that comes out of the rivers, um, you know, flows out to sea and that's when it really influences our inshore history and our

fishing where, you know, even fish like sailfish and Marlin will have better year for them this year because of the nutrients in the water, encouraging the plankton, encouraging the tuna and all the other bait around. And then, you know, the estry fishing gets really good because of the same thing, the mud crabs breed up really well. So, yeah, you know, a big wet really does help kick it along for sure. Yeah, right. So 2011 was a big wet season, I think, right across Northern and Eastern Australia too.

So, um, if you guys having a big one up there this year, maybe that'll come down here as well. I don't know if that bodes well for us, but it's good. Yeah, autumn's, autumn's usually pretty, you know, is when we get the big, big rains in Southeast Queensland. Yeah, yeah, March and April.

Typically. Yeah, well, that's right. Yeah. And it generally does follow through, you know, I'm off the land in Western Victoria, and when we have good seasons up here, they correlate the good seasons down south. And, you know, it goes back as far as we look in September, October, what the wet season's doing in India because it's the same. It's the same weather pattern that pushes down through Indonesia and down onto us and then, and you know, obviously once you get the moisture in the system over Australia as a whole, then it sort of seems to generate its own weather pattern and off we go. So, yeah, I'm a bit of a student of the weather and I'm really fascinated by it.

So I've probably visited the bomb river heights measuring table more than anyone in history, I'd say, probably 20 times a day on mine at the moment, checking out the fluctuation. I'm not excited about it, you know. So Glenn, you're based in Darwin at the moment. How far would you go, like, where's your area of operation, mate?

Uh, it's a pretty big area. Um, compared to a lot of places, uh, that, you know, where guide to fishing is undertaken, I suppose. We'll, I, I do more, all of my uh, run off barra fishing down the Daly River. So from that, um, sort of last week in February through until the end of April, I'll be at the Daly, and it's about a 3 hour drive from Darwin.

So we'll pick up clients. Usually the day before, if I can get them organised, then run them down there and then we'll stay for our 3 or 4 or 5 or 7 days down there. Um, and we go, we do go as far as, so, up into Coburg Peninsula, um, uh, in East in West Arnhamland, and then right over to the, to the Kimberleys as well. as far as, you know, how far we go, but also some of the best fishing that we have is right in Darwin Harbour with Aquantas jets flying over the top and and you can see the city skyline and we're catching me to 20 queenies and Spanish mackerel hand over fist, you know, and we do that on a half day trip.

So we're absolutely spoiled up here and we've got bugger all population for the amount of coastal, um, kilometres we've got. So, yeah, I mean, it's it really is the the untouched sort of area of Australia and probably the world, really. Yeah, right. Many, um, Many fly fishermen call Darwin home, mate.

Yeah, there is. There's a decent amount of us. There's a there's sort of a couple of fraternities, I suppose. Um, but they all um, they all sort of fall under the, under the wand banner and, and we're all seen as a little bit strange up here.

Most people are really focussed on, you know, um, trolling or casting for those real monster barrow, but, you know, us fly fishos. You know, we're happy with the hunt and the take and all these other weird things that the dark side just doesn't understand. I'm okay because I do, I see it from both sides, but, you know, like we target big fish on fly too. Don't worry about that up here. So, uh, you know, that's something that we do definitely for the next couple of months down the Daly River.

Yeah, right. So the Dailies, um, a fly destination, like, uh, for Barra, yeah? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's still, this time of year, it's really hard to get good sight casting because of the amount of fresh in, um, that's sort of coming in through the estuaries.

The flats dirty up, even on the neat tides. It can be tricky to get clean water through until about, say, April. Um, but, you know, they, we're, we're throwing the, throwing our biggest streamers right down to our, the, the little um, rainbow fish imitations that you've seen me post and recently, guys, um, down, down the Daly and we're, it's not so much sight casting, but, but definitely targeting active fish in colour changes and boofing along edges and stuff like that. So, um, yeah, it's still, it's, you know, it's similar to that black bass and peacock bass style fishing that you do overseas, I suppose.

Oh, look, mate, it's definitely, definitely interesting. I mean, I know there's there's people that will sit there and and prefer to side fish and we'd all prefer to side fish, but I mean, we'd all like to catch, or like, I mean, who doesn't like to catch big bar of money, you know? and if that means chucking into a colour change. Um, you know?

Great, you beauty. That's great. I've known people to fish the Daly on fly and seen it and read about it and stuff like that. But, you know, I don't see too many people sort of doing it.

And do you reckon it's more about just the tradition of the area? why it's not happening or for why the way you're talking about it, there's no real reason why it couldn't be someone, you know, you couldn't see someone fishing like a local fishing on flight all the time there, right? No, absolutely. And there's guys that do.

Yeah, definitely. There's probably, you know, within the the, the, the fly club fraternities up here. There's probably, you know, there'd be probably 40, 30 or 40 like hardcore fly anglers. All of us tend to dabble in all of the other styles of fishing as well.

The thing with the Daly is that, yeah, I mean, traditionally it's known as a big Barra, you know, premiere river, and the easiest way to catch fish is by throwing big lures or trolling big lures, and and that's fine, but we can also do that with fly, of course, you know, we're tying up these big hollow flies and big weedless hooks, these new A-Rex hooks, and, you know, the best, um, fish producing lure down there last year was a 5 inch white paddle tail. Um, say Z-Man. There's, I mean, it's very easy to imitate that with a fly, and we're only fishing a mamita down anyway, so you put it on a sink tip with a bit of weight and you're, you're in the game. Happy days, yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's a pretty good option. I mean, like, but the barrow fishing there is pretty tide dependent though, right? Like, I mean, it's not all tide stage.

Yeah, stage the moon, I should say, um, uh, fishery, right? Is that fair enough to say? Yeah, definitely. It varies throughout the year.

Um, for, for now, through until, say, the end of May when we're doing our runoff fishing, I'll, I'll be doing um, mothership trips in, in May, um, mostly to the Moyle rivers and, and some up to um, Coburg in that West Arnham region where it really is site casting. But when we're in the big rivers, say the Daly, it's certainly tie dependent, but you catch them every day. So you just do it a little bit different on the neat tides, they tend to be working the grassy banks and they'll be boofing rainbow fish or they might be slurping up the crabs and tadpoles that are floating out of the creeks on that. You sort of get that run out tide all day.

on the neat tides up the river. But then on, you know, on the spring tides, when the big moon pushes up that big tidal bore up the Daly and the big 6 inch mullet or foot long mullet come up with it, we're really looking at creek mouse and the top of the tide turn for those big fish to float back out off the floodplain. And yeah, you just do it a little bit differently. Once we get into the dry season, that's when it really, you know, you can have big benefit by picking the right tides for your barrow fishing. Um, But, you know, a lot of our guys that come up, particularly for the fly fish and stuff, we're we're doing 7 day trips and and we just target the different and various species um, that are available within, say, Bynoe and Darwin Harbour and in those areas and that mini, mini area up in Coburg Peninsula, targeting specific species on specific tides and the Barrett at best once it springs up a bit.

So once you get that low tide below about 3 metres and you get a bit of movement, you get them coming out of the drains, off the flats, you get that bit better bite time. So that's when I tend to focus on them on the on the flats. As, with the amount of fly customers you get to come in, are they, are they all seem to be focussed on on Vara or is there, um, are they chasing a variety? Yeah, they have been in the past, they've mostly been focussed on Barra.

Um, Oh, Graham Williams is a really good mate of mine and um, and, you know, he sort of, he pioneered the fly fishing up here, particularly in Bynoe Harbour. been fishing in there for the last 20 odd years. Graham really was focussed on that love of sight casting for Barrow because they're, they're a tricky fish, they're inquisitive and, and, you know, he just loves to go and find one and get a roll cast up under a mangrove tree and get that taken. And he's done, you know, he's developed some really great techniques and theories about that over the years. But, you know, as as different species come online, you know, saying in my guiding time in the last 10 years, you know, bigger and bigger is your is your brown bastards and and then all these other sort of flat style fish.

I mean, we mumble about permit. We got the golden Carelli. and then we got all the pelagics as well, of course. So I tend to focus on individual species on their, I guess, what I would call a more appropriate tide. So 1st few tides after the half moon, we'll be out there chasing the long tails and queenfish around up on the reefs where when it's nice and clean. And and then as it as it springs up a bit, that's when we move in onto the flats and start looking for those goldens and and bar and snapper and threads and that sort of stuff on the up on the muddy flats.

Yeah. Do you think that these other species that you just mentioned there are overshadowed because of the popularity of Barra in round Darren? Oh, without doubt. Absolutely.

I mean, you think about barrow fishing. Darwin is the place in the world to do it. Um, and that's, that's, has been how it's always been. Um, through, you know, like, there's been some, there was some really good marketing by tourism, you know, early on. about that, but people will come, you know, I always say you, you come for the Barra and you'll stay for the, you know, £50 Jewfish in the, in the metre 30 mackerel and, and the golden snapper and the mangrove jacks and the cold trout and the emperor and the long tail tuner and everything else.

Like that's what gets you to stay. And what makes you want to fish more and more for that week, you know, like, if all we ever did was go barra fish and we'd have very frustrated lives, man. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, and that's, I guess that's one of the things I wanted to, was important to me to try and highlight on this show tonight because as you, you and I have spoken off the air, Glenn, like about it.

Like there's so many options in that area, that get overlooked, and I think, you know, one of the reasons we want to have you on the show, which I was about to mention was to highlight, you know, the other types of fishing. There's nothing wrong with Barry. In fact, Barrow are fucking great species and, you know, you'd have to be a cold-blooded lizards and not to not be into them. But at the same time, like as we mentioned already, they can be tied, they can be tied specific, um, depending on the way you want to chase them.

But the options, and as we've already mentioned as well, the options, other options about, you know, flat species and plagics are often overlooked, you know, because of the barrow fishing, you know? Oh, yeah. You know... Balty's been up here before. He's seen how Barra focussed, everyone is, but I've also, I know that you chase your tuskies and stuff on the flat steer bolts and your long tails and all that, so fucking the bastards and like, it's all here. And, you know, we'll see half of my best drone shots ever that, you know, blokes, like they can't get enough of, they're half a dozen brown bastards sitting at the mouth of a drain.

They're not barra. They look the same from 30 metres up. There's a lot of them up there too, eh? There's a lot of those mother-in-laws up there.

Yeah. Yeah, yep. that's right I think some of the great, the great, um, you know, saltwater fly fisheries in Australia, you know, the beauty of them, um, is, is there, is in the variety that's available and and Darwin is certainly at the head of the pack.

You know, well, you know, it's equal with a lot of the things there, in terms of what, what's available there, how accessible it is, and, and, um, you know, in that regard, you know, maybe it doesn't get as much attention as it deserves, um, from, from that point of view. And it, you know, it's really good to know that there's, there's a, there's a guide like yourself, Glenn, who's, who's got, got their eyes on, on that sort of, um, fishery just to, to make it, you know, more available. You know, and you pointed out, Tuskies, you spoke about mother-in-laws and or brownies and, um, you know, some, this is slightly off topic, but someone's going to kill me if I don't ask you. I've got a mate who's a blue blue bastard, um, uh, fanboy.

Are they around in Darwin? Mate, or? Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know enough about them to know if they're even different fish. Do you know about that or I imagine that it might be a bit more to do with the sort of country they're living in, you know, we're mostly seeing these, um, they, well, I call them slaties as well.

They're mostly in that, like, like most of Darwin, um, harbour areas are, is that sort of muddy bottom, and I just wonder if it's that, that environment they're living in. Are they a separate species or not? Between blues and browns. Yeah.

Blues, Browns and Greys. Yeah, they're different. I've been, yeah, I believe recently, only like in the last maybe decade that the bluebast has been recognised as a separate species. Yeah right.

Yeah, I mean, I've caught both of them and I reckon they, you know, they just they're a bit like me and you, Chris O, we just got different hair colour. Yeah, well, well, you don't get any hot pink bastards up there, though, do you? Yeah, that's pretty interesting, mate. Like, it's, um, yeah, because, like, I've seen blue bastards before and I've called them for browns and, you know, that, some of them do blend through pretty, pretty, you know, in a big way, that's for sure.

There's some that are hard to tell the difference between, that's for sure. But at the same time, you know, like we've got, we've got some mug on the end of the end of the rod that sometimes that are just making the call, you know, based on what they feel at the same time, but, um, you know, actually, there is a question I'd like to ask in regards to one of, you've observed of the, um, the Tuskies there got yellow chins or blue chins there. Well, you probably know their vaults already, but I just want to know where they sort of blend in. Yeah, um once.

Okay, I've never really paid much attention. Yellow. Hello, yeah. Have you noticed that vault as well?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think this, the, they, they're yellow all away from Shark Bay to Weeper somewhere, somewhere in a, you know, the Eastern Gulf carpenteria and, yeah, yellow all the way through. Don't they get blue chin ones in Cape Gork? Yeah, yeah, somewhere. I've seen blue chin ones.

That's where the changeover is somewhere in there, yeah. Yeah, and I asked this Rass, sort of, a fish biologist who specialises in Rass, and he said, oh, it's such a wide-ranging species. It goes all the way from Japan in the Pacific, you know, through, you know, through to the Indo. And, um, you know, it's, it could be just a, a colour variety. You wouldn't know for sure unless the 2 live side by side.

Now, he could determine if we could get genetic samples and, you know, he had enough money or it was significant for whatever reason or some scientist just wanted to put his name to something, then yeah. But, um, yeah, there's a bit of a job there for someone. Yeah, if you gave a shit. Yeah, they're all fun to catch and they'll pull hard.

Yeah, yeah. And they all good on the chew too, mate. Don't worry about that. The trouble is getting them out half the time, isn't it? Geez, they're aggro.

Oh, mate, the psychos, mate. You know, the other problem, sorry, Chris, is they, um, they're very popular spearfishermen because they taste... Just about to mention that because it wouldn't be, they would have to be a better, a beneficiary up there because I wouldn't imagine Darwin be a high, high target spearfishing destination, right? Well, not for me, that's for sure. But there's certainly blokes that do it, not as many as there is over in Broome and Kimberley, but yeah, oh yeah, there's blokes up here, you know, particularly in Darwin Harbour.

a lot of shallow wrecks. So when we get that good viz on neat toll. blokes going down there spearing £40 Jewies and stuff like that. Yeah, all the time.

Wow, it's not my it's not my bag, baby. Yeah, not mine, baby. Speaking of speaking of Fembots, Glenn, is there... You mentioned those Deweys. Are they a viable target on fly up there, mate?

Yeah, they are. There's, I mean, half the Deweys we catch are in under 5 metres of water. Again, it's not really sight casting. You get them regularly enough.

You'll get them the Jews or the various species of croakers. Um, uh, uh, sort of as a bycatch on the flats in, in, around some rubbly stuff, but some of the best Jewish fishing spots, the black Jew, uh, you know, they're def- they're under 3 metres. Um, I've got hold um the current all tackle length world record for Dewey's and that was caught on a 3 metre bunch of coral about the size of a Hilux.

And they're definitely, I tell you what, my involve, my association with the international game fishing association pricked my ears up to all these sorts of things and it just goes to show. You know, it's a perfect example of how Barra focussed territorians are. You know, Black Jew, there's almost every single line category, definitely on fly, is currently vacant. Um, the oxeye herring, uh, the, our tarpon, um, vacant.

So there's when I 1st became an IGFA captain 2013, I think it was. There was over 80 records, world records. that I could take you out tomorrow, particularly if you're a female angler and and set. So many. and and we just don't, no one cares because they're so focussed on Barra and, you know, empty in the esky, which, you know, like, don't worry about me.

I've got the beer on tap in the new guide boat, mate. But I'll say... Great Northern, mate. Also, I also, I really like, so I, I just love the idea of the cool factor of having world records. I mean, you're in the same book as like all these amazing fly fishers and game fishers from around the world and I've got them on the shelf and I pull my name out and show the kids and there I am, you know, 2 pages over from Steve Hoof.

Well, not Steve Wolf, but his clients. Yeah. Yeah, right Yeah. Yeah, Dewey's definitely.

You got a fishing, you know, big flies, and fast sink, and you, it's always dirty water, of course. But yeah, I mean, there's not many... There's many a slip twixt a hook and a lip with a jewfish, that's for sure. It's a pretty underrated...

Well, I wouldn't say it's an underrated species, but it's a not readily targeted species on fly. And, you know, people rate, you know, silver dew. down, you know, in the southern pass to catch on fly and they'll fish from in much deeper water or or late at night or even, you know, like with with people after someone's already put the yards in to help them get one. But, um, but I mean, don't let him start on that, dog. No, no, he's just butt hurt.

It's all right. I can move on. But like, if you could catch them, if you could, yeah, you could see them on electronics and catch them in 3 metres of water. I mean, fuck, mate, they'd be they'd be a massive target down here if that was the case, but I thought that, you know, that's that's pretty skinny water for black dewfish, though, right?

Like 3 metres or less than 3 metres? Oh, yeah, yeah, nah, you know, like some of the best, most reliable spots. Um, that are really well known. Um, uh, yeah, like 3, you know, I've got, we're bait fishing with them for them a lot of the time.

You know, Mac tuna for bait, on a pad an oster rig, and a lead of knots coming out, coming out of the water. Like your bait, your bait's halfway up the water column. With the with the boat going on the tunes, cranking the boys dancing, and you're getting double hookups on 40 pounders. TC murders from the shore. Yeah.

So no one's coming in under stealth with a glass boat and electric motor and just whispering. just uh just smashing in there, sinking tears. I love the doof.

Yeah, they love the... Do you get a better reaction when, because you get, you got Gangnam style playing a lot in your boat, I've heard, right? Yeah, game name style. That's name of the playlist, but usually, you know, soldier boys in there. Yeah, bit of whop.

Cardi B. She's in there. Of course, very Darwin type music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, but that's in, that's interdispersed with, with Kenny Rogers.

Of course, it's the anniversary of Kenny Rogers' death or something, this is you. Yeah, poor old Kenny. But anyway, yeah, so no, they love a bit of Doroth the Deweys. They've got that big, they're in the drum family, of course, so they understand it.

I see what's going on there, so you're right. You're appealing to their senses with the dwarf. You're talking to him. If you were to design a Black Dewey fly, mate, what would it be?

I just need to be big. Big, yeah, right. Any Any one of their favourite?

Yeah, one of their favourite things to eat in those sort of areas. So there's the areas I've got in mind. They're all down Dundee Bynoe way. Oh, well, I guess it's Shady Camp Point Stuart area as well.

Um, There can be any number of things because, I mean, they're massive, voracious predators, of course. They're the 2nd fastest growing fish in the ocean next to dolphin fish. They grow to a metre in 3 years, these things. So they constantly eat.

So if you put it in front of them, they eat it pretty much. But one of their favourite things to eat is blue salmon. So, um, I guess if you tied up a foot long, um, you know, hollow fly with some white buck tail and a bit of flash in it. Jolly good.

Also, they hang around these shallow reef areas where you get a lot of your Spanish flags, so your reds and oranges, you know, your big long feathers. But yeah, I mean, anything. I mean, anything red and white is, you know, it's proven Top End colours, bit of flash in it and just get it down and, um, you know, yeah. You don't have too much travel.

Yeah. And is that, uh, you know, is that a year-round thing? Is the black Jewish? Yeah, they're better at certain times of the year.

Um, you know, during runoff time, they're really good from, as soon as we get that, um, the wind change, which happens in about the end of March, um, and you stop getting the sort of uh, northerly and westerly surge and it changes to that sort of bit more southeasterly surge. Uh, you, you can, you tend to get them as I, I think that's half to do with conditions and half to do with, because they're there. And then and then again in the buildup. Um, from that about that 2nd set of neps in September.

Um, they'll come in shallow again to spawn and aggregate around all those um well-known spots. So, you know, that's the, the 2 prime times and, and they both coincide with good water conditions and, you know, like um, obviously lifecycle stuff. Wow, what a, what a, I mean, that sounds like a pretty cool fight, so.

I mean, again, it's not, you're not fishing to cruise and fish on the in, you know, needy water. But you've got that there anyway, but I mean, I tell you, there'd be no novelty in playing tuggerball with a black jewfish on an Away, that's for sure. Oh, geez, you don't have a hope on an 8 weight. Um, you, you'd definitely be throwing it on a 10 and and you do it on the, on the 1st day or 2 of the building towards after the neep, you know, when you, you'd be out there throwing for tuna.

Um, you know, when the tide's running, tuna and mackerel, queenfish, Trevelli, and then come in on the chains are low or the change of the high and drop it down over those dewy's nose and you know, that's, yeah, it's all part of this, the evolution of the, of the fly fishing up here where you can target each given species, you know, at the very best time to actually get him to eat. Right. Which, of course, is what they do. You know, you go over to Seychelles and and um, uh, all these other, you know, destinations.

You don't just target bonefish every day or tarp on every day. You, you do, you fish for whites right at, at the time, and, and, you know, we've got a dozen species. Um, world-class premier sport, fish species in Darwin, so why don't, why aren't we doing the same thing? Well, we are.

That's what I'm saying I'm doing. Some people are. Yeah, you're right. Like it's...

And I guess, and again, another another, another main reason for the show is to showcase that. And, you know, here we are. We've got a guide who's actively, you know, living in the area and actively chasing this because, I mean, you know, I mean, great, like you said, Graham Williams, Pioneer, the 5 fishing aspect of it, but still fish a lot for Barra, but I'd imagine every other guide in there is not interested in anything else. Maybe, might, might, might be keen to live bait for a black Jewish or something like that, but everything else is just not on the cards besides Barra, but except, except for, you know, it takes, um, it's a pretty modern way of thinking in the area really, uh, from the standard outside looking in, you know, for what you, what you're doing and trying to showcase these other species that are there.

It only takes 5 minutes on Google Maps for someone who's, you know, a fly fisherman, traveller, slash traveller to look at it and go, holy shit, why is no one doing this? You know? Yeah, I mean, Boino Harbour. You screenshot Sydney Harbour and put it inside Bono Harbour.

It'd be 15 times the size. It's it's fucking huge. Yeah. And it's got everything. There's 17 islands, I think.

Um, it takes, takes over an hour to run in, in my 7.5 metre boat with a 175 at 60 K's an hour. takes over an hour to run from one side to the other. So, you know, it's huge. And it's got everything there.

It's got it's got water 50 metres deep and it's got it's got some of the best shallow sand, flats, you know, in the country. So, yeah, it's an amazing place. And that's why Graham spent his life there and and just carved out, such, such a great, you know, great living and and and has left such great heritage behind him. And, you know, he's Gran's retired now and he's just sort of going fishing for himself.

He sold his boat and his license there a couple of years ago and I've taken on what's what's left of his ageing clientele and and, you know, we we do what he's always done and we use we use all these weird names of all the places that made it one of the best, best spots we love to go do for our threadfin salmon is El McPherson flat. Because, you know, the further you go up, the better it gets. You can tell how old how old Graham is by naming a fishing spot after Elm McPherson. Oh man. Yeah, right.

So, you know, like we're carrying on the legacy, but we're also evolving it, which is what, you know, that's what the whole thing is about. It's what the essence of fly fishing is about and fishing in general is this evolution of knowledge and and and enjoying the the um, the place in the best way that you can at the time. Yeah, that's that's a pretty good way of looking at it. And, you know, if people, if people pick up that, um, that vibe and that challenge, um, it sort of helps, helps everyone move forward, as Chris would say, a rising tide lives all ships, you know? I do say that sometimes. Only the ones without holes in them bolts.

Beat me to it, mate. to the bottom, mate. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, permit, mate. Are they a viable target up that way?

Oh, yeah, I mean, they're viable target. They're there. They're swimming in the water and we see them regularly. I, particularly certain areas, um, certain tides, I see them almost every time I go out there, they'll be either school, big schools of small ones, so they're little, uh, might be 30, 40 centimetre jobs. Um, we'll see them coming out a little bit wider of the flat where we're, you know, looking at where, we're sort of site cast and barra, coming off the mangrove edge and they'll come out.

You know, just to the, just to the outside of the boat, um, and they're moving along pretty quick hunting for crabs and worms and whatever they're doing. Um, and and then you'll see the bigger individuals up on the sandy flats around those islands around the west, western side of Bynoe, and a few other um, sort of sandy spits in, in amongst the harbour itself. But yeah, they're there and they're, you know, some big dogs in there too. Don't worry. Right.

What's the, I mean, every, sorry you go, boss. I was going to say, it sounds like an incredible, incredible challenge for, for dedicated anglers, you know, the ability to, well, the opportunity to score a, you know, a big dog permit in the, in the NT in that Darwin area, it, um, sounds like a really attractive thing to do up there. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, it hasn't really been done yet. So we, we need the right blokes to come up with, with some dedication and some ability as well, you know, like, that's one thing with guided fishing is that, you know, there, there's a, you can't start judging your results or, or, or the success of your day or, um, or your business by how many fish you catch because at the end of the day, it's, it's sort of out of your hands to a certain degree.

Yeah. But, you know, like the fish are there and if there's people that are keen to come and come and catch them, you know, I can put you in front of them. No worries about that. Yeah, what is it as a like as a common... I believe it, I don't know if it's a common saying or maybe someone coined it and if someone coined what I'm about to say and they hear it and they go, I made that up.

Well, I sincerely apologise, sir, but I think guys talk about themselves as mere presenters of opportunity. That's it. Yeah, Graham talks about the, he's a presenter of opportunities and, and, you know, to a certain degree. That's right.

Most floor anglers that are doing guided trips are competent. Um, which is good. The general population of guided stuff that we're doing throughout a year, you know, the lure style fishing. A lot of those guys are inexperienced.

So you don't have the hours on the water that you would if you're in um, in Florida Keys and you're fishing half a dozen blokes for 30 days at a time that that, a gun, you know, we don't have Andy Mills coming down here efficient with me for a month. If we did, we'd rack them up. So, yeah, I mean, it's... And that's why we sort of don't place the hell or haven't placed a hell of a lot of weight in it because at the end of the day, my business is driven by people that are coming up here on holidays that want to have a good time. And that, and that's why we talk about having Kenny Rogers and Cardi B on the boat and the tap beer and, and we're having, we're creating memories and, and, and I'm showing them stuff and places that they've never been and, and, and remembering what it was like for me, you know, like I came up here 1st time when I was 15 and, uh, you know, I, I'd spent my entire childhood watching Bush Tuckerman, Alby Mangles, and,

And and Malcolm Douglas and, uh, uh, Like, I just wanted the adventure of it, you know? So, That for me is the major driving force is this creating memory stuff. Um, I talk about world records, but it truly is in passing. That sort of stuff is cool.

For me, it really is about making the memories for the clients and and everyone searches for those memories in different ways, I guess, you know, some people do want to go and catch a metery or go and catch a permit. And some people just want to go and catch a fish. So that's one of the things about guided fishing is that you do what your clients want to do, not what you want to do, if you're a good guide, that is. Yeah. Well, that's it. It would be pretty limiting.

I mean, if you, you know, you got your job, you ideally want to work, you know, 5 days a week or whatever. And last thing I'd imagine you'd want to do on the other 2 days is get back out in the boat. But, I mean, at the same time, unless you've got someone, you know, like, you can't say to, you know, Ma and Par, who are travelling around Australia, who book a guide to catch a barrel, and they want to just catch a barrel. Hey, guys, ties are good for permit.

They'll just, I would imagine they'd turn around and say, I what, mate? we need a fish permit. This is territory. I'll never, mate, I'll never forget when my very 1st sort of that, that, the idea came through my mind where, um, you know, we were in the Kimberley.

It was my 1st year of guiding, working on Canon Charters, yourself and your brother. Mate, we got we got paid. You know, not very much, but we got paid to have adventures in the Kimberley for 2 months. We lived there and we went fishing with our clients and it was just mind blowing, you know, the fishing over there.

So, um, One day there we're, we're sort of, you know, we caught our nannies in our trout, now deweys or whatever on the bottom for these old fellas and the tide was ripping a bit, so we thought, oh, well, why don't we go out and we'll catch some GTs? There's some 20 kilo ones that sit over on this point where you We got these, bloody, um, we got these poppers that are like half a curtain rod and and these bloody great big 18000 reels to throw them with and stuff and we'll go and catch a couple of 20 kilo GTs after lunch, will we? And old mate turns around to me and he goes, GT's, fuck that.

Pull your arms off and taste like shit. I don't want to catch one of them. Well, he's got a point, I guess. And that's when I realised that guided fishing isn't about me, you know? It's about them.

So you know, if you don't want to catch a fucking GT, we don't go GT fishing. Yeah, yeah. That's that's the thing about being your boss, isn't it? Like, mate, I've been self-employed a fucking way longer in my life than I've ever had a job. And, you know, I always say that.

The thing about being self-employed. The problem with being self-employed is just having so many bosses because you're the last, you know? Your clients come 1st any employees come before you. Fucking tax man comes before you.

Everyone comes before you. The last one to get paid or have any consideration, you know? Next thing you know, you bloody dawn, your pubes at bloody 8 o'clock on a Wednesday night. Yeah, you've got no, and I talk about these strange eggs that don't even drink BB that fucking, you know, turn the story and sit themselves.

Reckon they a big country boys don't drink, drink, please. Oh, mate. Yep. But, you know, I didn't expect this conversation to turn to, you know, going cubes, but if you want to talk about it, that's fine, you know?

Well, I've seen the results, mate, and it does come up pretty nice. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's that's a little bit of column A, column B, column B. It's all about the trimming.

You know. I call I call some of those cuts to the game changer, the trimming. It's all about hydrodynamics. Yeah, yeah, you guys know what I mean, right?

Talk about hydrodynamics. Gonna make the bush bush small to make the rest of it look big type stuff. Chris agreed with that very quickly, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

science behind my success. I love that expression. Yeah, so Glenn, we've covered off permit, bastards to a certain extent. Big GTs are reality.

Can you get them on the on the flats at the right time and place up there or are they just hanging on those point pressure points and stuff? Yeah, not so much on the flats. We don't get them cruising. Or, or, you know, all these things that I'm saying is, is, is my experience in the 10 years that I've been doing it as far as guided fishing goes, and it's probably because, you know, um, I'm not there when the GT's are cruising on the flats because I'm off doing something else.

But to a large degree, you know, the best way we target our Travale, you know, Brassi's makes up 90% of the catch up here. Up to that sort of 20 kilo mark. And then and then the true GTs, uh, There, there's, they're in um, isolated enough patches, I suppose, and they'll buy it at certain times in good conditions and uh, or suitable conditions. And and yeah, I mean, we certainly get them up to 3040 kilos or maybe not get them.

We find them and hook them. Yeah. Yeah, the, the, the true GT, it's a bit of a contentious thing in Darwin. It seems like all around the rest of the world.

Uh, Everyone calls anything that looks like a GT or GT. But yeah, up here, we, we, we tend to talk in brassies and and true GTs. For me, a brassy of the same size pulls harder than a true GT anyway. But yeah, there's there's certainly there's certain features that really give them away as a separate species.

But, um, you know, guys in the Pacific and stuff, they're, they're catching them cruising on the flats, uh, what are those all, that group of islands where they get all those sorts of different species. I'll see them catch one beside each other and they'll have a brassy and a true GT and they're both 20 kilos and they're working together, but they're very different fish. Um, So, yeah, I mean, Travale is a, particularly around the islands, pressure points, um, the rocky reefs, isolated pinnacles, that sort of stuff. We get them busting up on bait balls out wide as well.

Yeah, I mean, they're, they're, and that's what I say. Like, Travelli to someone in Down is a pesky bycatch. But people fly all around the world to catch the bastards. So, you know.

I'm happy to include pesky bycats in my premium fish list. Yeah, right. Tailing Golden's an opportunity up there too, mate. Yeah, definitely.

We catch a lot of goldens on the flat. Um, munching crabs and worms and stuff out of the mud. We get on the sand plats as well. We tend not to fish the sand flats as much because they don't hold the barrow.

Gotcha. And that's probably why we're not encountering the permit as much because we're not on the fucking sandflats as much. But, um, yeah, definitely golden, weird catch, you know, site cast and tides in, in, say, Bynoe Harbour, um, targeting Barry, you'd, you'd catch a couple of goldens a day, um, and if you, if you were to target them, sitting out a bit wider and, and actually looking for them, mudding along. Yeah, you'd you'd rack them up pretty easy. there's a lot of them there.

They're not a they're not as species that anyone really targets. Um, Because everyone's so barrow focussed and and yeah, they're not good to chew. So, well, they make great numbers, of course, but yeah, they tend to be, you know, they fall into that bycatch category. That was Malcolm Douglas had pointed out for me.

I remember seeing him do that as a kid on TV, making numbers out of Golden Travale. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. They, you know, numbus and Luxa, you make an awesome Luxa out of a golden.

They're sort of they're they're a good. they're very forgiving fish to as far as curries and that sort of stuff goes. They hold up really nicely and they taste nice. Queenies are the same, aren't they?

Really, I reckon? Yeah, Queen is my go-to numbus fish for sure. Throughout the year, I've constantly got a box of numbus mix in the esky and, you know, we catch a queen that's bleeding a bit and yeah, he goes straight into it. Or probably put every species of fish through the numbest mix and the Pelagics really are the best.

Everything else gets a bit mushy. Yeah. Hey, you know, like, I'm skating around Google Earth, as I do with most guests while we're talking about the area, so like that, and you're right, like, as you're talking, you know, the species that we're bringing up in conversation, even the way you're talking about, they're overshadowed by Barra, and that's the demands of your clients, and that's, you know, that's fair enough, but you're looking at, um, you know, some great sea spits and and just sandy cays that are just sitting out in the middle of nowhere that I would imagine would just attract fish. I mean, I'm looking at one and I might...

which one you're looking at right now. Dumb entry. Yeah, dummy, dummy Miri is a big sandy island on the western side of Buino Harbour. What about have a look a little bit further to the east of that and a bit north?

There's a big one called Middle Reef. Uh, and on a neat toe, that, the sand, it's, it's a huge, it's not really a reef. It's a huge sandbar and on a neat toad, it's the top of it's exposed at all tides.

So, it, you can, um, yes, I cast Monster Queenies there, big Trevally, tuna coming, cruise the flats every now and then, barracuda, mackerel, and that's another place where we see the permit as well, and certainly goldens as well. But it's in the middle of the harbour and either side of it's water that's 40 metres deep. So. I can see it hasn't got a name on that.

you can see what you're talking about. It just hasn't got a name on Google Maps, but I can see exactly what you're talking about. It looks strange just sitting out in the middle there like that. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't imagine you'd have too many clients have gone, let's sit there all day.

No, you don't. And, and that's what, that's what we're, that's what we're chasing. That's the call out, you know, I guess that's part of part of what we're doing tonight is to call up, you know, anyone who's keen to come and do this multi-specie stuff a bit more. I mean, Barr is a big part of it once we get into the more spring tides, but let's do this other stuff.

Let's focus on this other stuff, a bit more on the 1st 3 or 4 days of our, of our week or 8 days of food fishing at each time. It's just amazing this place doesn't get the focus. It's just, you know, like, because, and it, you know why? I mean, through this, through this show alone, we've learnt that Barra just overshows everything, you know, it's just, it's, it's just because of the tradition of the destination that just gets just overshadowed and how good the barrow fishing is there.

It just overshadows everything. I mean, it'll be, uh, I mean, I could see there'd be a great trip if you use Barrows, just, you know, a species to tick off, not not so much focus on. I'm sure it'd be a great trip to focus on Barrett as well, but, um, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, to sit out there and tailor a trip around the tides where the flats would work around, you know, that dumb and merry and what's that, is that beer eater? Is that how you pronounce that? Yeah, it's beer eater. Yeah, they named that one after me.

Yeah, they've seen me much like BB cans there one day. You're doing it wrong, mate, if you're eating it. You know that, right? When you're keen on the shotgun, mate, you just mention them.

Yeah, right. But yeah, no, you're right. And look, it's funny how you say that Barrow overshadows everything and and it probably is because Darwin is the Barrow destination, but I reckon Volti's about to say, but you catch Barrow on the east coast with Dave Bradley. But they're really permit focussed.

You know, so, you know, like, it depends who got there 1st and what they wanted to catch. Yeah, yeah, it's funny how in some respects. I'll jump in here, mate. They seem to, like fisheries become almost pigeonholed or defined by, you know, the, the, the 1st dude to, to publicise it, basically, you know?

in some, in some regards. Yeah, it's a bit, it's a bit crazy. Is that a duck I can hear? That's a frog, mate.

We've got big frogs up here. Shit, eh? Fucking hell. Yeah. Can't I was there yet, Glenn?

Yeah, the cane toads have largely been and gone. Yeah, they're right across in Broome these days. We don't have a hell of a lot around here. I'm a bit of a warrior on the cane toads and we used to 10, you know, 15 years ago when I 1st moved to Darwin. We could go out with hockey sticks and a backpack full of green cans and be out all night, Beltingham 150 a night.

Yeah. But if you went down the same strip, now, you'd be lucky to find up a dozen. That, yeah, just the, the front, that big, that big front, that, you know, the western front is just moved on. It's moved west and now, you know, she's heading your way, boys.

She's heading south. So, hopefully, the boys, the boys, the white coats, come up with something. Yeah, Haines has have been, mate. golf clubs.

Golf clubs have been a big part of Saturday night since I've been a kid, mate, for Kane Toast. Yeah. Hey, hey, Glenn, there's another species that, you know, holds holds a lot of um, a lure to some of us is threads on the flats. Yep. And on drains, and in fact, one of the most frustrating sessions we've ever had was we found some, um, we found some threadies rolling through jelly prawns on a drain. Not far from that. 6 pack.

Is there a boat ramp called Six? Yeah, yeah, 6 pack. Yep. As funny as that, eh, buddy?

The name of creek in a boat ramp after? No, no, that one after me too, yeah. Oh, did they? Yeah, we're down that way anyway.

and yeah, 6 pack. It was so frustrating, though, these decent sized threadies just rolling through prawns and no interest in anything we threw at them. Is there a way to trip those fish up, but what? Oh, tricky enough, for sure, because it's usually dirty water when they're doing that. It'll be half tied out or just pushing in and usually after a bit of rain, you know, that the, the jelly prawns will hatch up in that, that 6 pack creek area in that bottom of Indian Island is, is, is, yeah, it's, it's that small, it's shallow mangrove flats.

Um, real, lots of small snake drains, and it's just, that is 30 central, and, um, they can be really hard to catch when they're doing that for sure. But one of the really good, um, things to try when you when you're doing that sort of stuff, obviously, being a fly angler, you're twice as likely to catch one, anyone else for a start because you can throw small stuff. Um, so, uh, you know, you, a lot of the time you'd be throwing your white and shut truce plouses and stuff like that in those areas, but anything with a bit of orange on it, a bit of orange, orange fluff. Yeah, get Chris to send you a bag.

I was going to say, it sounds like, you know, Chris's undy dogs. Yeah, but... So go through Chris's laundry. Get the link thing out of his buddy dryer. and a toy bit of ginge on there.

Yep, yep. They love a bit of orange and I think, you know, like Easter with that UV. I'm a guest and a customer too, Chris, remember? That's right. Yes, sir, you are correct.

But they love, I think they're, they're really keyed into the UV, so, you know, that orange and green, particularly orange, though, because that, that prawny sort of stuff. Um, you know, that, you, you, You go best throwing oranges and pinks when the, when the threads are around for sure. And it really is, like, unless they're, in that situation when they're, when they're rolling on jelly prawns in the mouth of a drain, they're, they're motherfuckers and you, you, for me, old fishing for 10 minutes, if you can't figure them out, you go and find some that are eating mullet or you go and find a cleaner flat or something like that. Like, you tend to just won't burn up time trying to catch them.

Right. Um, you know, the ultimate way to catch them is with a 4 inch gulf minnow on a really light jighead and just jumping around in there and they'll eat it. But it's not something we tend to do on, it's not something we tend to do when we're throwing floor. So, yeah. Golfs just bake in it, really, you know?

Oh, well, I mean, it's an amazing product for sure. So, but that's, that's when, you know, if you, if you're, if you're really chasing stuff, if you really want to catch stuff on fly, that, on that tide. So I can tell you right now when that happens, it's going to be on a tide that's less than 2.5 metres. And it's generally in the buildup or wet season is going to be a bit of rain around for those jelly pawns to hatch. So you got big movement and you got and you got weather, but you also, you know, at the same time as you've got those things happening, you've got glass outs happening out wide. So, you know, that's when you, you, you're going out to Roach Reef and Dumbing Mirion and fishing those, those pressure points and spits for that last bit of push and the 1st incoming for those bigger Trevelli, the, the tune of the Queenies. And, and you might, you know, if, if you're permit focus, you go out to the, those, those sandy flats and,

and you find, find those, um, those tail and goldens and permit on, on those sand flats over that low tide. So, you know, fuck the threadies when they're doing that. Get them when they're coming off the flat when they're easy to catch. Yeah, right.

And that's all I talk about. That's why, you know, you know, we talk about each species at the right tide and threadies, the threadies are there and, you know, half of them are going to be blue salmon as well. If you want to catch them, catch them in that 1st in the 1st 3 hours of that tide when they're coming off the flat and the water's clean and you can throw at them. Now, Glenn, talking to you, I can see you're a guy who pays a lot of attention to water height and, you know, what's going on, tide cycles, you know, you've got a great understanding of that and, you know, how it affects your target species and more importantly, how it affects the opportunities that fly anglers crave for it, mate.

Obviously, you've been doing this a long time, like, you know, fishing for this. sort of stuff. Oh, yeah, I mean, I, to go back to my fly fishing heritage. I remember when I, I, I grow up in Western Victoria.

The, the local, the closest tackle shop to our place about 45 minute driveway and we'd go there once every 3 months, you know. So, when I was about 15, I bought myself a, uh, it must, it would have been a Reddington fly rod combo from when we're outdoors, um, 6 white, um, what, you know, what was that lawn back the end of the, the, it was a tapered on both ends. Double tapered lawn. And I'm out on the lawn with one of Starlow's books or something on the old deck chair, figuring out how to cast boy and dad comes out to me and he goes, mate, I don't know whether you should get into fly fishing. Everyone I know that's in the fly.

And dad's, this is at the time when my old man is, he is, you know, he's super active in our local angling club. They're heavily stalking rainbow and brown trout in diarya local areas, but it's all about mud eyes under bubble floats and that sort of stuff, you know, and dad goes. Everyone who I know gets involved in fly fishing, gets obsessed with and they spend all their money on it. And, you know, 30 years later, he's dead fucking right.

But, I, you know, I car to fly right around, around the world. I've caught fish on floor in over 20 different countries. I fished the on this Henry's fork on trout opening in on the Snake River in Northwest US. And evolution, for me, the fly stuff is just that evolution of any fisherman's journey to sort of create difficulty, I suppose.

Yep. self-imposed limitations, mate. That's what it is. my opinion.

Yeah, I mean, it's yeah. For me, these days, to a large degree, if I take a group of little officios into Bynoe Harbour, I can pretty much predict what we're going to catch, you know, you're going to have 15 interactions with Barra, you'll you'll hook, you know, 8 of them. You'll get 6 of them to the boat and you'll land 4, and and you'll catch some snapper and you'll catch some jacks, and you'll catch definitely catch some queenies and some Trevally, and then we'll, you know, we'll go home, we'll call into the 3 pubs on the way home and you'll tell everyone about how much of an amazing bloke I am and how they should come fishing with me as well. But with the fly stuff.

It is so unpredictable Oh, it's not so unpredictable, but it's so much more challenging. And and for me, when I go fishing. That's what I like to do.

Um, and I, you know, I've got a good group of clients these days who come up, try and fly, and it's just such an inch. It's, it's such an enjoyable time because of the, the, the trip is more about the act as a whole, rather than, um, you know, at the end of the day, how many fish you catch or whatever. Um, So yeah, the fly fishing stuff for me, Dad was right. You do spend every amount of money on it, especially when you get into fly tying and that's, you know, where people you provide fly tying materials, that's why they're flying vaulty.

compared to us blokes that are buying them. Yeah, I'm not just saying, the customer is always... Walking around with the big gold chain and the button down. crisp barbeque.

Got a huge size. not here. It's all on the PayPal these days, Nibble. So... But it truly, like at fair income, it, I remember when I, I used, I lived in Ballarat for a while, it's a, it's a big fly fishing area, you know, traditional trout, you know, the Lake Wenderie, Cracker Fishery, and, and the, um, the club down there right on the lake and stuff.

It's, It's such a different vibe there. And I, you know, I'm talking to you blokes like I'm talking to mates at the pub, but me uncle's in the fly fishing club down there and Mick Hall and I know a lot of blokes down there and they're, it's a cracker club, but it's a very different club to fly fishing in Darwin, you know? Fly fishing up here is the same as lure fishing up here with a longer rot. Like, it's the same blokes.

It's, it's the Cardi B playlist. It's the VB on tap, and we're going out to have a good time, but we're doing it with Fly. And, and all it does is add that extra challenge in the evolution of an angler's skill to that desire to be able to, especially when you're tying your own flies, to be able to put something in front of some other critter that you've constructed and tied to a piece of steel and have them eat it. It's like it's just, you know, you guys know and everyone listening, no, is the buzz and the feeling and and that. And then you look at him and then you're letting him go.

And it's, like, it's, the old man's right. Like, it's a weird thing to do, but it's, you know, here we are. Yeah, people who don't don't get it, don't get it, that's for sure. It must be pretty strange to be standing on the outside looking in it when you point it out like that, the amount of money you spend just to let it go, you know?

I mean, my brother, Dean, he was a, he's a gun fisherman and he'd be a really good guy for you to talk to as well. He lives in Scotland now and catches a lot of pike. But he, um, he was a really good fishing guy, much more natural fisherman than me, and he always said the most difficult thing about fly fishing was telling your parents you were gay. But he also, but he also said, and it, um, that was that was a very bad thing for him to say.

Cool. But he also said that and it's true. It's the most expensive way to catch the least amount of fish. But that goes to show that that, you know, the whole reason that we're there isn't because of catch and heaps of fish.

It's the journey and the evolution and the challenge and all that other bullshit that we write poetry about. Yeah, yeah. And beyond that too, I think it's the best thing for the fishery because it adds the most value financially to, you know, to a resource, you know, based purely on the amount of fish you don't catch, you know what I mean? Well, the dollar spent per landed fish is, you know, is if you're an accountant doesn't make sense.

It's a far more sustainable guided fishery for sure. And you look at the the keys and stuff, you know, I've been listening to the the Milhouse podcast a lot. And there's so many guides there, man, and they'll go, they'll go for a couple of days without hooking a fish. And they'll hook one tarpon, rub him on the nose and tell him to forget it all and then, you know, go and do it again for another week without catching one in it. It's yeah, like, but there's 1000000s and 1000000s of dollars get spent there every year.

So, yeah, I mean, it's a very sustainable, I guess, pastime and hobby and yeah, it's, it creates jobs and and wealth and interest and articles and podcasts and, you know. And also, with that, um, you know, with it, with that expenditure comes, you know, awareness and protection of the resource. Um, You know, I think that's one of the, one of the, the byproducts of, of it all, but, you know, they've got a massive, a massive population, an incredible opportunity with a fish like tarpon that sort of polarises how people feel and, you know, they'll travel across the country or across the world to chase them. Um, and that's not saying we shouldn't, we shouldn't try that we, but I think we should try harder.

You know? Yeah, that's right. Well, I think, and, and, you know, like, you're, you're dead right that it's, it actually is fly fishing that engages you with the animal to a point that you feel empathy for it more than, if, if I'm trolling a 17 a green bomber at 15 K's an hour at the mouth of Shady Camp and I hook a metre 20 barra. You know, that's all good and I'll take a photo and everything.

But if I see that 70 centimetre bar of cruise and on the flats and you're, and you're figuring out his movement and his body language and where's he going and where's he been? and and how far do I have to lead him and and do I wait for the gap in the tree and that? Like there's that little moment of, you know, well, a connection. But, but that great moment of empathy for, for something that the, then you do, like, the reality is that we heard them, we put a hook in them and we heard them. But then you have the empathy and and, you know, hopefully you handle efficient and you release it or or you dispatch it quickly for a feed or whatever you might do.

The feeling of empathy for anything. Obviously it's great for conservation. Yep. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it, it really puts you in touch with the whole environment and I think you're dead right. Like that's what, it's, it's styles of fishing, you know, light, catch and release, life, um, that, that will sort of save, you know, struggling populations.

Not that we're in trouble with that in in the Top End, by any stretch of the imagination. But yeah, it's an interesting thing to consider. Yeah. Look, Glenn, I can see our level of, of, of thought, of, you know, and responsibility in the, um, you know, in a resource and a fishery that, that you exhibit, mate.

Um, and I noticed you on your website too. You also dedicated to the education of anglers too, mate. Do you mind going through that? You've got a few packages on your website, education.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's something that, you know, like, through our enforced, um, yeah, I guess alone time we had last year. Uh, you know, I had the The busiest year on my books ever. lined up and I was on a mothership trip to the Moyle River and, you know, these dream location and once in a lifetime trip for these guys and we left on when it was, everything was fine and then we get back and Darwin shut down.

It's a total ghost town, borders are closed, and these guys got a high toilet for the border before 12 o'clock at night, and and then we did the year that we just did, and that sort of forces you to think about the stuff that's a bit more important, I suppose. you know, what? So, for me, like I said before, it's about, you know, this whole thing is about creating memories and, and I guess, you know, walking our part, walking through life, just enjoying it, and the reality is, what, the reason we are here isn't to catch, you know, metres and and be a big legend. It's to create memories and pass down those stories and things to our family.

So, Yeah, I mean, I, I put the, the experience that I've gained in, in 10 years of guiding into a, into a course, for want of a better word, I, I sort of hate that terminology. Um, but yeah, we I created this thing, this little playbook. And and delivered to to a group of people um, Probably half from Darwin and half from Interstate. Yeah, which I called Top End Barrow Secrets and We got we had such a good time going through the content.

There's over there's about 38 lessons in there within 6 modules. We talk about everything. So, and the way, the way it's structured, I suppose, and the way I think that the guy's got so much benefit out of it, and I got so much benefit out of it too, delivering it too. Um, was short lessons, and we followed them up, um, you know, a week or so later with Zoom meetings, which we recorded and then uploaded so we could revisit them. And we got 32 members there um, in a little um, sort of secret gang that we've got and the knowledge that's getting around that group right now, mate.

I tell you what, like every day, there's half a dozen posts about what the guys are doing, where they were, what they did, what they figured out and it's just, it's that community. We've built the skills for them to create memories is what it's all about. So, yeah. gang would be something to do with Bynoe Harbour.

You probably abbreviate the name and you probably call it Glenn's buys. Is that? No, you might. Oh, did I let you?

I think I might have mistakenly let you into it. That was an attraction. That was the before I got to know you. I was feeling left out till you told me the name. Yeah.

No, we've got a little, you know, it's an ongoing thing. There's a closed Facebook group there where, you know, every, you know, Thursday, Friday, we talk about our plans and where we should go and what we should do and what the weather's doing and the tides and the river height and this and that and then on the weekend, on the Monday, Tuesday, everyone gives their reports and we come back and it's been amazing. There's been some great feedback. People are having a good time doing it and that's sort of what it's all about. The problem for me is having time to deliver it again because I don't want to just have it as something where people can go through and just watch videos and read a bit of shit and, you know, then it's up to you, mate.

Like, I really want to help people, you know, I guess it took me 10 years to figure that out fishing for 200 days a year. Yeah, that's right. And it's very nice. That's longer than, yeah, no one else is there. You can't fish for that long in a lifetime.

Being a reco. You know, even if you're the keenest of reco anglers, you're going every 2nd weekend at best. So, so let's say 20 weekends a week, a year, 40 days, um, I've done 200 days a year for the last 10 years and it's all written down and then we talk about it. So you can say, oh, I like going to the South Alligator during runoff.

Oh, yeah, and I'll go, oh, yeah, I got it there in 2012 and it was a really big wet season. We did this and that and that. And then someone else in the group on the Zoom meeting will go, oh, yeah. And then we did that down there and it was a really dry year.

So that sort of works. I mean, that doesn't, and it was just such a great sort of forum for everyone to help each other learn. I mean, I probably learned as much as the, as, as the, you know, for want of a better word, the students, but the participants. It was so good. And, and, and I can't wait to deliver the 2nd one. We're going to do that in July of this year, 2021.

And then maybe another one in November, but limited intakes, you know, 30 people at a time. Sure, sure. They really keep it personal. It's just, it's so good. Glenn, how would, how would like, you know, an average pun to become aware of when the next, the next course is coming available, mate.

Well, it's a bit of a secret because, you know, like, I only want the people that are dedicated to it. to come in. But you can, you can search up, you can go to the Top End Barra Secrets website. It does, it's deliberately unsearchable.

You need to know the website to find it. And put your name down. You just register your name and email. You go into the email list and then next in July once or it'll be probably June once we start getting organised. Um, yeah, you'll start to get some notifications about this is coming up.

And yeah, you can be part of it. It's a, it's, it's probably going to take us this time. It's probably going to take us 3 weeks to get through. All the contents there, ready to read, as well as the uploaded Zoom videos, and any PDF that are attached to each lesson, you know, 38 lessons.

from last, last delivery. Um, read, you go through all that yourself and then on our, you know, uh, Zoom meetings, which depending on everyone's footy training, netball training, cricket train and whatever else they've got to do, choir practice, Chris. Personal grooming. Thank you.

Yeah, bandscaping session. We gotta do. I've seen him with the razor blade on that stacked deer here, mate. Like, I wonder how it looks down south.

It should be a work of art down there. Have you seen him with the sandpaper? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, then we'll do the zoos and and that and that's when everyone gets to just chuck in and and it's it's such a good time.

So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. And hopefully, you know, like in news to come. If we can do that 3 times a year for those guys who are, you know, who are really keen on progressing their fishing and jumping ahead of the queue. We can do it a few times a year and and me back off my workload of guided fishing and be able to then go and spend more time taking the young fellow to cricket training or go and find a permit on the flat, you know, that's that's the goal for me, I suppose.

share the, share the knowledge and, and um, you know, increase my own. You know, uh lifestyle at the same time. So, yeah, it's it's great. And it was it was so well received and I can't think the guys that that took up that 1st intake.

They had nothing to go off apart from, you know, what they've seen on me bullshitting around on Facebook and whatever before. So I'm so grateful for them for showing faith in the product and. And, you know, the results speak for themselves, so we don't have to worry about talking about that. I think even like, you know, if someone want to get onto this, I guess the best way for them to do this, look into it is to get hold of you through social media or something like that.

Yeah, that's right. I can just add them to the list or jump on the Barefoot Facebook page and it's all sort of getting mentioned on there from time to time. So, you know, you can keep up to that, that sort of stuff. We should shout that out now, though.

I guess probably this point is appropriate place. Like, where can people find you? You just mentioned you've got a Facebook page. Yeah, the Facebook page is a really busy place.

It's Barefoot Fishing Safaris on Facebook and also on Instagram. I think there's a dot or something ridiculous in between each word on Instagram. Uh, and yeah, I mean, Social media is not a place that I feel very comfortable, putting my stuff out. I get, I feel really weird when someone comes up to me in Bunnings and go, yeah, go on, what?

But it's great because it's always something positive because, you know, like, we're sharing the knowledge, we're sharing the happiness and the joy of fishing and, and, you know, like, like I say, with the course, the goal is to give you, give people the skills to be able to, on their one weekend off a month, to take their kids and their misses out, dad's going to show you how to catch a barrel today, kids, and go out and actually catch one of the bastards, you know, and, and, and create memory with your family or with your mates during runoff or, or whoever your mates are flying up from south or whatever and you just want to hire a boat and, and go for a fish, you know, like, it's about, you know, just, giving people a, a bit of a leg up on, on Barrafield, because they're fucking bastards of things to catch. For sure. There's a formula that, I mean, success is time on the water for a lot of people and you're offering that.

with your with your with your cook with your course, right? The class. Get together. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I mean, cancelling out, instead of having to come up and 25 days for donuts at Chadie Camp and you've just spent 3 grand, hiring boats and cars and accommodation and meals and another 3 grand on grog. Yeah. You do the course and, you know, you you get a bit of value for your money. So, you know, all these things in, uh, in anything in life, like one of the guys who did the course said to me something that's, it's all I never thought of in that way, he said, if you want to go and get better at tennis, you get a tennis coach.

If you want to get better at bowling and cricket, you get a bowling coach. Why wouldn't you, if you want to get better at fishing? Get a fishing coach. And that,

And I guess that's what it is. So, yeah, I mean, it's just, and it's a good vibe and I enjoy jumping on the Facebook page and checking what everyone's doing and, dude, I tell you what, I pay more attention to what these guys are posting these days than what my plans are because between them, they're coming up with some pretty good shit. Yeah, well, I mean, even even the teacher, you can't, you can't pretend to, to know everything. I mean, fishing's a journey, as you mentioned earlier on the show.

And no matter what your occupation within the industry is or whatever your recreational interest is, you know, the day you stop opening your ears up to observations of other people, whether good or bad or whatever, you know, I think, you know, you'd be hard pressed to be remain interested in the sport. I reckon. I mean, it makes sense. In anything.

Yeah, yeah, you know, in anything in life. You got to, you got to keep your eyes open and you got to, you, you got to evolve and you, and you got to try new things and, and you, you got to read books and you got to meditate and you got to learn and you got to, you know, you got to be a good person and all these things, and it all, it all comes back to the same thing and that's, that's leaving a good legacy and that, you know, for me, that's what it's all about. That's awesome, man. Yeah, that's a pretty, pretty deep take home out of, you know, here's an hour and 20 hour and 25.

I am not sure how long we've been recording. Aaron, are you there, Volts? Yeah, I just didn't see that coming, but it's very poignant. It's very true

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's great. Well, you guys are the same for your kids, you know? The whole your whole being changes when you've got someone else in the world to teach.

And you don't give a shit about anything else apart from making that person a good person. At the end of the day, the memories that I got from, from my grandad teaching me how to, how to skin a sheep and hang a sheep and, and, and, you know, all this knowledge that, gets passed down from generation to generation, fishing is just another one of those skills that's getting passed down and it, and it, It provides the platform to creating memories and story and for me, yeah, like it's about being a good person and just, you know, like when you go, you want people to think, Fuck, were you missing him? He was a good bloke.

Yeah, you know, that's all it is. Yeah, we we we do, you know, as part of being a human, I guess, is the need to be. You know, the need to be liked and that. It's getting all deep, man.

You know, we're just here for a good time. It's some bullshit, you know? But I like it. I think we're all the same.

I think, yeah, you... The need to be liked is something that's been created by, well, emphasised by social media, but the, you know, like, Famous people have said, either, either write something worth reading or read something that was worth writing, you know, like, just do something good. Yeah, like that's all you got to do. Just do something good. You know, like create memories for people and educate and and help out and just be a good bloke.

There's a bit of that missing these days, don't you? That's where it's at, you know? So and everyone's got to make a living and all that sort of shit, but you don't need to be greedy and you don't need to have 5 guide boats and you don't need to have a 1000000 investment properties to be happy. Oh, yeah.

Duh. Well, you know. Yeah, people measure self-worth and and um, you know, value separate, you know, in different different ways, man, but yeah, they do. Absolutely.

I, um, and I take, I'm lucky because I get to take all those sort of different, those guys fishing as well. And I see this, the whole world from all these different angles. And I tell you the most, the happiest and most contented people that I see, uh, uh, the guys that are in touch with family and the environment. Like, they, they love their family.

They love raising their kids and they want to leave the world a better place. I think you wrap that up with balance, mate. You can say that. Yeah?

Yeah, absolutely. If you've achieved balance in life, That's what's obviously going to make people the happiest, you know? You can't be working your ass off all the time and be the richest man in the world because you can't take it with you.

And that, um, yeah, mate, most of the most people are pretty unhappy if they are, you know, become a a worker drone, if you like, you know? Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of people that make a, make a lot more money than probably most of us put together, but have they got a more fulfilling life or, yeah, well, I'm not, give yourself lifetime view. But have I got a more fulfilled life or a more enjoyable life? I was probably approaching to the wrong audience here, Chris, because you're probably one of those bucks.

Look, for us, us, us and the filthy rich class, mate, we don't really care what other people think too much, but I'm here. I'm here talking to you guys and I think that's a real point topic. Good on, good on you. I think the word you're looking for is legend.

Thanks, mate. I appreciate it. That's it. Good on you legend.

Thanks, mate. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah. I like to recognise. important to me.

Anyway, we were talking about fishing weren't we? Yeah, that got deep man. It's all part of it. It's definitely all part of it.

You know, because, I mean, with balance you get to it, you start to achieve that the correct approach. Because, I mean, fluffy is one of those sports that won't let you take a selfish approach to it, I reckon. You know, it's just, you're doing it. I mean, we mentioned the show and I won't I won't want to start a whole new rabbit hole with this, but just reflecting what we just said, you know, an example of that is that, you know, it's the type of sport that'll kick your ass if you're doing it the wrong for the wrong reasons. If you see it as an ability to put yourself above someone else, which, in my opinion, is the wrong reason.

I would imagine that would be a hard sport to enjoy, you know, when it went... Oh, absolutely. For most people, fight fishing is an evolution of their experiences. You know, to rush that ahead for the wrong reason or to not naturally evolved towards it.

You know, it must be tough to enjoy that. I feel sorry for people like that and I'm sure there are people like that. I can't put a face to the description right now, but yeah, I'm sure there's people like that, but... Donald Trump goes fly fishing, doesn't he?

Then all the presidents get a given a fly rod? I think they do. If you look if you look through it, right? You've got, you'll find...

Well, George Bush was a famously unlucky fisherman. Bush Senior, that was. I don't know about junior. Barack Obama, someone said that he was, he enjoyed fly fishing, but I saw a video.

Sorry, a photo, still photo of one of his loops. It was, you know, you know, I think it was fucking terrible. Yeah, it was terrible, man. It looked it looked very average.

Yeah, Donald Trump plays golf. I don't think he plays, you know, does fly fishing and I don't know much about Joe Biden. No, you know? So...

Reckon Joe gets out in the stream? It looks like he'd be an old Montana native from Big Fork or something like that. He probably shot he probably shot the shoots with Brad Pitt. It looks like he's been around since it's invented anyway.

So, yeah, that's a lot about it. I think his movie's called a river ran through it. Yeah, but yeah. Anyways, yeah, he's getting on a bit now. Yeah.

Well, we're into an hour 26 folks. I reckon we wrap this puppy up. I've had, I reckon it's been a great chat, mate. It's flowed pretty, it wasn't until Walter said the time before that I sort of realised how long we've been talking before.

It's been good, mate. Oh, I very much enjoyed it. Boys, and, you know, like, listening to the show every time that I do, which has been very regularly while I've been working on the boat here in the shed, um, it feels like the conversation you'd have with someone down the pub, which is, I think, the great, um, you know, it's kudos to you guys for creating a relaxed environment to, to get such a, you know, get the, get the juices flowing. You've had some good stuff spoken on the show before.

Most of this won't make it to cut final cut. I sure, but it's been a little bit. It's all going in, mate. We have time to edit all your rubbish.

Yeah. Well, I cut out that last 45 minutes where... Nah, mate, that dribble was good. good dribble That's good, mate.

It's fine. staying in there for sure. Well, Glenn, mate, we're going to have to wrap it up and say good day, goodbye, rather. And yeah, man.

I really, really appreciate time. And I think for anyone that wants to learn more about the classes, get on doing through social media. Check out your website. What's, is your website um, Barefoot, Barefoot safaris?

Yeah, Barefoot fishing far as... Yep. Beautiful. Oh, I got that at wrong on purpose so you could just clarify that. and um, my plan the whole time.

It's not because I've been... You've done a lot of DD leading up to today, mate. I know. I have, man. I really appreciate you recognising that too.

I guess you had heaps of time when I messaged you 2 days ago and said, oh, I'd be good for Wednesday if you need me. Yeah, mate. It was, yeah. Well, mate, that's, that's, that's well, that's way outside of our normal preparation time.

you know, it's Drew isn't a bit of a tailspin. We have to do something. Yeah, too much, too much time.

That's why you're busy doing other things. Yeah. Mate, we might check back in on you, like, in a little while and maybe from this show, you've got some people who are like, fuck you, I'm pretty tend to explore Northern Jersey. I would even call anyone there. If you're not familiar with the area, go up, go on Google Earth, check it out on the maps, and then glen your man.

You know, if you want to get out there and get it done. Because while everyone's focussed on Barra, there's a lot of glass species running around, that's for sure. Yeah, that's right. I mean, the big thing for me too, is that, look, you don't have to want to come fishing with me, um, to get in touch with me because half the people listen to this will think that I'm a fucking dickhead, and they won't want to come fishing with me, but they'll still like the idea of coming to Darwin.

So, have a look around, like, have a look on the map. Look at, do all the research and then get onto me and I'll tell you where to go and what to do anyway, you know? So, like, whether you want to come fishing with me or not, I don't care. Like, I'll tell you, because I want to send you out there.

I want to send a 100 people out there, you know, to catch target those permit on Beer Eater Island and learn them all so that, you know, they can tell me all the ins and outs of it so that when I take clients out there, it becomes easier for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's that's the go. I guess the scouts out there.

Well, we need, that's why the, that's why the large amount bass, you know, fishery in America is so well known and documented because everyone's fucking doing it. When you, when you haven't got people putting in the man hours, you haven't, you haven't got the knowledge. So we need we just need people up here fly fishing for these fish. So you don't have to come fishing with me.

Go hire a boat and go, I'll tell you where they are, or any of these fish and we just, we start to, or we continue to build the knowledge together. That's no noble, mate. It's really good. All right.

Well, let's wrap this puppy up because we're just, you know, knowing us 3 are going to jump down another rabbit hole in a few moments and then next thing you know, it'll be a 3 hour 20 podcast. It's all right, let's go. Let's get you back on another time, Glenn, for sure. You got to press the stop button, mate.

I'm fucking gunning, mate. Stop pressure. Cheers. Hey, you're back, folks. Your hosts.

What was my name? Stuart, something? Stuart Little. No, no, no.

What I say last week, our outro names, your rocky outcrop. Oh, it was Stuart Cove or something like that. Spencer Golf. Spencer Golf. not Stuart Cove.

Stuart Cobe was way off the fucking mark. Yeah, I'm Spencer Golf. And this is my my co-host, Rocky Outcrop. How are you, Rocky?

Good thanks, Spencer. Thanks for going on for yet another outro. Well, well, well, that's the end of another good show, that one. Yeah man.

I've been up to Darwin a few times, but I had no idea there's that many options around, you know, and Glenn certainly sounds confident about accessing all of those options. You know, the only footage I see of Darwin, like when I see it on TV, whether it's, you know, from the days of watching Rex Hunt or Mark Berg and stuff, is, is you just seeing the rivers, you'd see the Daly in the alligator or, you know, like, I remember seeing Rex around Melbourne Island, but he was in between, he was in the middle of the island, like fishing the estuaries and stuff, and great fishing, you know, I've seen, I've seen Starlow up there, like, and with fishing with Bard and Blackflies, the Freddys and drains and things like that, but you never see them on those outer islands, those islands off the front there, like on the flats and the sand caves and things like that as well. And, you know, like I said, what's going on there, mate?

are you on? You got something taping your drag, man. I just can't get enough of T-Bars, mate. Sorry, man.

Sorry to listeners. I was just playing with my T-ball. I was talking. Yeah.

having a T-board twinkle. What he's saying in Hungarians is playing with his Ted. Anyway. Yeah, but like you look on Google. Like I keep saying to you, I'll show you.

Look on Google Maps. I really am starting to enjoy that when we started it with Christopher Heath. Dr. Christopher Heath Ledger, I should say. to recognise his full name.

You know, when you're on Google Earth and you're checking out these places that they're talking about on the maps, man, it's got so much fucking potential. It really has, and what we were talking about off the air, with Glenn about, you know, like promotion of the area and the comps and things like that, they're there. Imagine having a comp that just took Barrow out of the equation in Darwin. You'd have people sitting around going, what?

What do you mean? You mean, we're not going to get any points for catching a barrel. in Darwin, for fuck's sake. Yeah.

That'd be crazy, wouldn't it? How weird would it be? I mean, it would never happen, but I mean, just think of that as a concept for a 2nd to have a have a competition in Darwin and so there's no points for Barrow. Don't even bother chat.

You know people scratching their hands. Bonus points for black chewies, Spaniards, you know? Tuskies, bastards, threadies, but not Barrett. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we talked about, we talked about tournaments with Andy and Nicky Mill and the benefit of tournaments and what they do for the industry.

They would be, how good would that be? Like, to develop a fishery, you know, like, imagine if there was a, it was a high paying event in Darwin, once a year, it gained a lot of traction, you know, create a lot of stature for the winner or created a few funds and people would prepare for it. You know, the days that you would spend out going, okay, today I'm just going to look at the flats. Yeah, I want to get Freddy's Freddy's on the flats, you know? Yeah. You know, I know you can probably can threads is probably a bad example.

But I mean, even the black Jew, like black Jew in 3 metres of water. That's, um, that's totally fluffy. That's an immediate line. Yeah, depth, you know?

Oh no, that's crazy. Right. I had no idea. I'm keen to get my arse back up there and I have a finish with Glenn. Sounds so good. And it really highlights the benefit of local knowledge.

You know, a guy who's lived there for a long time. Fish is there a lot, you know, like, what's he say, 10 years of 200 plus days? That's a lot of days. It's 2000 days on the water.

Yeah, 200 days a year on the water. That's that's that's nuts. That is some serious hours. And the guy's attitude.

Imagine, you know, some people who spend that many time, that many hours on the water are pretty salty people, you know, I mean, Glenn's pretty proactive in getting people out there. Like, what do you say? Like, you know, come up here, you don't have to fish with me. I'll just tell you where to go. Yeah?

See that refreshing. Yeah. Yeah. It's so surprising to hear someone drinks, drinks great Northern, say that, you know?

strange. Yeah, well, you know, we've all got our downsides, eh? Yeah. Oh, mate.

I am stuffed tired, eh? Same. What the listeners who don't know that Glenn can talk under wet cement with a mouthful of weak pics, and he had us in between the show, in between the outro and off the show. mate, totally thrilling to talk to.

You not losing, but then you go, holy shit, look at the time. Right now, for New South Wales, it's quarter past 12 at night for us in Queenslando. It's a quarter past 11. Good past 11, yeah.

Yeah. So it's she's a late one. Oh, mate. And my domestic trade-off, you know, from when we do the podcast, is the misso puts the kids to bed. And quite often she just, you know, goes off and does her own thing and falls asleep too.

But I got to do the dishes. Do you really get your trade-off? You go do the dishes tonight. Yeah, man.

Yep. Dude, this is what then feed the chooks. Yeah, chooks? Oh, you don't live? Sorry, that's your.

Yeah, no, man. The animal's well fed in my joint. Right. Yeah. But anyway, no, I've got to keep things nice and smooth.

I've got some new tackle purchases coming too. So, yeah. So it'd be hard for someone to keep things nice and smooth, I'd imagine, right? Domestically smoothed.

Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you know what I'm saying? Metaphorically speaking.

Yeah, yeah, it's not code for anything, yeah. Yeah, no, I understand. Yeah, well, mate. It's got some new, got some new tackle planned. And just want to make sure that everything's good for the day it magically appears, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.

So what are you going to, what's your use going to be, like I sent it out for repairs. It's just come back, paint it a different colour. Is that the one? That's always a good one.

Yeah, that's where it's a good one. Right now, I'm going to, I'm just tidying up a couple of reels. You probably heard in the background. I'm just getting them ready and pitching some new, um, We'll put it this way, these uh, these coloured T-bars might come back as uh, black ables. Yeah, man. Sw and see, yeah.

You're looking at, um, looking at, mate, that's a pretty big call. Getting rid of getting rid of some T-Bors was Mabels, hey? I mean, talking to Ford and Holden, isn't it, between them two, but the new Abels look... Dude, they really, mate, they look good.

One of my mates just scored one and he is in love with it. Yeah, and I've got to say, I agree with him. It looks fantastic. Yeah. You know, you know what I mean?

I reckon it's, um, you know, like even, even for, um, I wouldn't call it a poor man's own, any means, but that Ross, no, real I've got, which is owned by the same company now, like, it's common within the industry, but people recall, Ross is just able without the able name. The quality of that, I got that, um, that evolution salt type R, and it's, um, even that's a mint reel, man. Like that, just the new reels that are coming out of that factory there are just incredible, eh? Look, you know, I've seen that one in photo, in your photos, and I've seen, you know, obviously some good reviews on those too. So, yeah, I've got to have a closer look at them, but oh, mate, I just can't get past these SDS reels at the moment.

Yeah, looking good, looking good, feeling weak. Why don't you get like a camo bolty or something like that? Just get one that looks like he's got hair all over it or something. Oh, yeah, hair camo.

Yeah Yeti camo. It's uh, yeah, yeah. But yeah, Chemo. Yeah, that could work real well.

Yeah. It'd be pretty cool if you could, somehow, get your face on there, you know, just in your nose, look ragnob. How cool it looks? Or even on the, even on the spool, it looked pretty cool. Spinning.

What team were you getting rid of, man? Um, just what do they call signatures here? I've got I've got a couple of them and there's one I... Yeah, the seal drag.

Seal cork drag, which is our unusual combination. Yeah, so, um, you know, normally you sealed drags associated with the synthetic, you know, carbon fibre, uh, rule on, you know, some sort of stack. But, um, yeah, these are a, um, a compressed cork disk and uh, they're sealed up. They're great drags, really good, but yeah, I've got a couple of them and just moving on.

I've still got one table left. I've sold a couple, but obviously got an Everglades. Nice. Sorry, riptide. Riptide.

Yep. Nice. What colour? Um, blue? Blue? Blue?

Yep. Yep. But yeah, got that a while ago. But mate, she's pretty dated now. Still bulletproof, probably will last longer than me, but compared to the new reels now.

You know, it used to be a plate, like those reels were the sort of reels you wouldn't take to an empowerment, a barra pound of sound, whereas those big water reels, I mean, I've been at times where, like, back in the days of, I remember taking my syncrotech to a barrier town, coming back with the gnarliest blister on my hand, just casting all day. Oh, it's one of those things. You know, about syncretex, right? Yeah, what about?

The Loomis secret text. They were actually that, I'm pretty sure they were a Ross reel. Ross made them. Really?

Yep. Back in the day, but back when Ross was independent to Abel. Had a cork drag, didn't they? Yeah, had a massive cork dragon.

It was, it would look, you know, as much as it's fun to hack on Vocla about the synchronics because he's hanging on to them. They were great reels, man. I used to really like that synchrotech. It was really good.

Really nice spooley at the 11, 12, 13. It was good for line retrieval. All that sort of stuff. But, um, yeah, it was just too heavy, eh?

It was just it was just too heavy. It was just, you know, compared to, you know, I had a, I had that in a super 11 for my tuna rig, back when I had a boat to fish for tuna, and you'd have to rely on Judas's to take me out around like that. But, um, But, uh, you know. Yeah.

Yeah, I might like, you know, when you pick it up compared compared compared to a Super 11, big difference. The Abels have always been great now. Yeah, dude. Got a bit of a shout out tonight.

I know we're not doing wide world of sports. This is technically not a sporting one either. This is... sort of is, yeah. So, um, someone, uh, well, uh, he did, he didn't, did a podcast for us pretty early on.

is from Tasmania. Dan Costello, or Dan Bow. What else do we call him? Also known as Rob Dan Costello.

Really? that's right Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I mean, calling him Rob on private messages and his cousin goes, okay, Jason, you know?

I don't think I don't think he gets it. Jason Adams. What's that? I don't know.

Jason Adams or? No, I think he's just coming up with some random name. He's from Tasmania, mate. Don't overthink it, eh?

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, no, he, poor old, poor old Rob's getting married. And I just wanted to pass on my congratulations to him and his lovely, brought to be Lauren. Good on you guys and all the best day. Congratulations, guys, from all of us at the end of your line and the entire staff and production crew, the whole lot of us, mate.

We all wish you the best. Yeah, mate. Take it easy, you two. Yeah.

We might have next week off because of Dan Castello then, hey? Go out in sympathy. What you can do is if you don't like us to have the week off next week, just message Rob Dan Costello and give him some running tips or perhaps just let him know that you would like the show to air. I don't know.

What do you think, Walt? Yeah, yeah, let him know. Let him know you're disappointed. Yeah, whatever you, whatever the thing you should do, though, is also, you know, give him a digital bucks.

You know, I know he's already had his bucks tonight. But, um, but give him a digital box and like send him, send him something that you think you'd like to see at a bucks night in a picture form to his private message. Okay? That's, um, that's Dan Costello. and, um, what's his,

I just want to get his Instagram handle, correct, you know, to give him the full proper digital box. Let's just have a look here. Here we go. D Costello.

That's D-C-O-S-T-E-L-O-E. No dots, no underscores. Don't like that. Get on there.

Send him a digital box. Just something you want to see. There's something if you read a bucks night, you'd like to see. Now, we all like our fruit and veg, that's a completely different subject to what I'm just talking about there.

Make sure you get your greens. Good on you, Dan. I mean, heck yeah. Heck yeah.

Heck, yeah. I want to congratulate you too, Bolts. I think you're up to your 5000 heck, yeah. Is that about right?

I know. I'm surprised I'm being called out more for it, but yeah. What, the 5000? I noticed Instagram took away the thumbs up emoji the other day.

No, they haven't. Oh, mine has. I can't find it anywhere. Let me just bring it up. I'm just, I'm on Rob D. Costello's right now. And, no, you, okay, so what they've done is like in the, in the, in the, in the row of anticipated emojis that you think you might use, it's gone from there.

But on your keyboard, you can still use thumbs up, mate. Oh good. Yeah, it does frustrate me explaining technology to you, but we'll get them. Heck yeah.

I'm just gonna send him a heck, yeah, on his latest photo. Heck yeah, thumbs up, flame sign. the equivalent of having a man bun in public. There he is.

No, it isn't. Yeah, isn't it? There we go. Digital bucks.

Did you send him his 1st digital box message, did you? No, I don't know what to do there. I got a few things in mind. I'm just going through the feed.

What have we got here? mature hotties. Uh, what else? Yeah, yeah.

Look, mate, maybe keep that to yourselves, not appropriate for the podcast, but... Sorry, podcast world. Yeah. But if you are going to participate in Rob Dan Castello's page.

Use the hashtag digital bucks and he'll know what the hell's going on. And I will suggest there with Rob Dan Castello. If you get something that doesn't have digital bucks, don't open it, mate. I didn't see that going that direction either.

Yeah, no, I totally understand. Right, he has told me that he's a big fan of all the all the chat request that's been coming through Instagram lately as well. So, um, you know, the Snapchat chat request, are you getting them as well? Yeah, yeah, I was bloody 20 on today.

I think. Yeah, you're very popular. You were more popular than most people. 26.

Yeah. You're very, but you're a very popular person though, Walz, right? No, no, delete them all, mate. Delete all. Okay, okay, cool.

All done. Yeah. Well, let's pop you up, mate. you can get back to deleting your really popular messages you get from people.

They're not real people, mate. Who are they? I don't know. People from I don't know.

Russia, Canungra. That sort of thing? They seem pretty real to me, dude, you know. Do you, do you?

Well, one lady said she was in trouble and she needed money and so I send her a little bit. How much? Oh, not a great deal, only 5 grand, but that's just to get it started, and then she'll need the rest of the 15 later on. But I'll wait. I'm not an idiot.

I'm going to wait to see some sort of validation. She reckons that when she when she when she graduated from the school of Somalia that that's when she's ready for the rest of the money. Yeah, yeah, probably waiting for a dad to have his estate released. Well, yeah, a dad's a Somalian prince and had a money held his money held up while the government needs you to another 10 grand to get it out.

Yeah, well, that's, that happens all the time in Somalia. As everybody knows, it's a monarchy. There's plenty of princes and, you know, life's cheap over there. Life expectancy is short.

They've fallen over, but there's plenty of money to be given away. Well, Waltz, I am the captain now and the ship's seeking, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

I want you to get to the chopper. Go, do it. Dylan, you son of a bitch. What?

I wanna see everything you made up. Tear it down rip it out Sh just getting v down the river