Watty enjoys a beer with Starlo

Good catch up. Oh, I'm in Darwin today, and I've caught up for a beer with an old mate of mine, Glenn Watty Watt, who runs Barefoot Fishing Safaris, he's been up here in the territory, guiding for a number of years. Nine years now? Nine years, yeah?

It's going like a blink, isn't it? It seems like last year that we're at Tipperary Station, fishing we go... Yeah, before I ever started, so good. Yeah. And what I wanted to talk to you about today is just people coming up from down south, especially people making their first ever trip up to the tropics.

You know, it's a dream for a lot of people to come to the Top End. They want to catch a barra. There's lots of other things usually on their bucket list as well. And I'm just wondering what sort of common mistakes you see people make as far as their expectations of what they're going to find up here.

Yeah, it's a big one. And we suffered from it in the early years when I first started coming up, you know, we used to come up for a couple of weeks and runoff and that sort of thing, and just expect to throw a lure in any lure, doesn't matter, and just wind it in and catch Barron, we very quickly realised that that's not the case once you live here, you know, we used to sort of get good fishing when we'd come up for a week or two, but if you turn up in Darwin Harbour and expect to go and catch a Barrett, 99% of time, you'd be very disappointed, as you know. Yeah. And the main reasons is because people just don't have the concept of the tides.

I mean, it's a profound difference to down south, isn't it? Oh, yeah. The tidal movement. Here's 3 times the movement of, say, Port Philip Bay or, you know, a lot of these other places down. So let's get down to tackle and techniques and things.

I mean, as a fishing guide, you're quite happy to pick people up off the plane with none of their own gear. You can supply them with everything, but some people like to bring their own gear. Do you encourage that or not? Yeah, definitely.

Yep. And a lot of the stuff is crossover to what you'd be using down south these days too. You know, a lot of the snapper stuff, if you're throwing plastic for snappers, is really good for our, for the, you know, the harbour embarrassed stuff. The biggest misconception, I think, is, people will bring gear that's too heavy, right? You know, like, a six to 10 kilo rod with a TLD 15 on it or something patrolling for Barron, and it's a real overkill, isn't it?

Now, I'm interested in this. You're a bit of a fan of the saluna tables on the bike windows, and so forth. You follow that, and you've been doing it long enough to see the patterns. You reckon it really does make you?

Yeah, definitely. Now, time of year, you know, everybody talks about the runoff, and everyone wants to be up here for that period of the runoff, and it's renowned for great barrow fishing, and obviously a good time to come. But there are plenty of other times of the year when there's good fishing up here, isn't there? Definitely.

Yep. I mean, the runoff is has been marketed really well, and it's the best time to come up for numbers of Barra and Big Barra. Are you a clientele? Mostly Australian, and what, mostly from down south? Yeah.

Yeah. There's, there may be one group a year that's from International. Right. All interstate tourists, and it really varies to me.

I mean, I've been around long enough now that there's a, I've sort of got my own little niche, I suppose, and so I get a lot of the families, which I love taking kids fishing, you know, I've taken my own kids fishing. You know, Darwin Harbour for 4 hours, so like a bit of bait on a rock bar, catch people, snapper, and kids. I mean, we did it when we were kids on school holidays, and you remember those guys forever, who provided you a good time, and I just love that, you know, seeing the kids' face light up when they catch the fish, and right through to, you know, I had a week with a fly fishing bloke from America, and going for world records, and all that sort of stuff. So the whole spectrum.

But I got a lot of couples as well. That's one of the great things of the job, isn't it? You know, like I get to meet new friends every week and they become your mates. Exactly.

Well, we're picking up a couple of blokes in the morning and heading out to Dundee, Bynoe. What's your what's your plan of attack for the next few days? Yeah, yeah, that's right. So I spoke to John just before on the phone, actually.

He's very fired up. So, yeah, we've picked some building tides. We're coming up to the new moon now, which is one of my favourite tide phases, to do the stuff that I like to do. So tomorrow we only got a little bit of runout time before the bottom in the morning.

So we'll go and see if we can hit some queenies and trowley for a start. Good way to go to get the boys a bit excited and get some fish in the boat for a start, and then, you know, as the, I guess their skills progress as well, because being able to throw lures in the right spot and all that sort of stuff, it's a good way to go if there's not too much pressure straight up. Next couple of days, obviously, Barry will be on the list and we'll be hitting the flats and maybe even some bottom fishing for some snapper and jeweys and stuff as well.