A Northern Territory man been bitten in the groin and leg as he fought off a 3.6-metre saltwater crocodile.

Elston Lami Lami has told how he accidentally stepped on the “12-foot” croc while hunting with his dogs in a shallow creek near Minjilang, on Croker Island, north-east of Darwin.

“When he come up, when he flipped me and I looked at his eye, he had that crocodile tears on it. Like … you’re mine, you’re my lunch,” Mr Lami Lami told the ABC from a bed at the Royal Darwin Hospital.

“I hit him three times in the nose [and] he let me go. Come back again, try and attack me.

“When he snapped at me, I grabbed him, held him at the jaw with two hands and I was getting weak so I thought the only way to get his attention, I had to hit him again.”

Mr Lami Lami is recovering in hospital in Darwin. Photo: Facebook/ABC Darwin

Mr Lami Lami, 42, said his dogs and yelling from one of his hunting mates distracted the croc and gave him the chance to get away.

He escaped with a bite on the leg and another near his shorts – which he said the salty managed to shred.

But his ordeal was far from over. Mr Lami Lami then faced a half-hour walk back to his car on his wounded leg.

“Whatever pain I was going through, I didn’t want to show it to them boys, because I was the older one there,” he said.

He was bandaged up back at the car and took a few paracetamol for his throbbing leg, before being treated at the Minjilang Community Health Centre.

He was flown to hospital in Darwin later on Saturday, and was to spend a few days recovering.