Hodgie the Barefoot Fisherman has uploaded a self-shot opening-day Northern Territory barramundi session that deliberately swerves the chaos of the public boat ramps on the first day of the year.
"Morning. It is 1st of February, Paris season. It's like 3:30 in the morning. Truck's loaded," he says. "I'm not going to go and launch the boat today cuz there's going to be a 101 boats on the water. So I'm going to go and wander the bush somewhere."
The tackle is curated. A new Samurai Infinite rod, a Conquest reel just fitted with an upgraded handle, and the Jamie Flat bad-breed family of Australian-made surface lures.
"The lure I'm throwing is one of Jamie Flat's bad breeds," he says. "And this one here, this is the 110 big bad breed. And I put some Gamakatsu trebles on that. And I'm going to throw it on the Atomic 7T6 swimbait rod, the 25-pound one."
The day, however, refuses to give him an easy bite. The moon phase is wrong, the water is murky, and the first creature interested in his lure is a saltwater crocodile.
"This croc out. Look at it," he says as a snout tracks the propbait. "The fizzer here and a croc's just come over and he's up it. Big fizz. Big profile. He's on it. Did you bite my bloody lure? He's just popped up again. You see him pop up about 10 ft behind. He's woken up to it."
The first season-opening barra hits a smaller bad-breed propbait. He calls it at around 65 centimetres.
"Sound like a piece of fish, too. Not huge, but 65 or something," he says. "So that's on that bad breed I was talking about. That is a really unique sound on these things. They're super aggressive noise."
The rest of the session runs to the same script. A 90-plus-centimetre fish gets dropped on the strike. What he believes is a metre-class barra rolls on a topwater lure but doesn't commit. Lost lures stack up - six or seven by lunchtime, by his own count.
The full moon is his recurring complaint.
"It's only a one-bar rating. That's full moon. I hate full moons," he says. "So be surprised to catch anything today even though it's first day of open season."
The outro is short, but contains a direct ethical message that lands cleanly inside a video about a notoriously rowdy season opening.
"One thing you got to not do at this time of year, any time of year - this is the time of year when most people do it though, they'll jump fences, start going on private properties and stuff like that," he says. "Don't do that. That's just disrespectful and illegal."
The session ends mid-morning. A few fish on the bank, plenty of lost lures, no metre-plus opening-day photo - and a plan to come back the next day with a clear day off and the same boots.