Hello Raider comrades,
My name is Matt. I’m a mid thirties Seppi who's been living in the Sutherland shire for the past 3 years. I come from a tech background but am a jack of all trades and master of maybe one. 😝 Most of my time outside of work is spent chasing around my 2 year old daughter and doing housework. Aside from fishing, I love hiking, swimming, climbing, basketball, carpentry, welding and general tinkering. It's been crazy at times but I rather enjoy my new life in Sydney and feel very lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.
I grew up in suburban Philadelphia and spent most of my adult life split between New York City and northern California.
As a child and into my teens, I always enjoyed fishing and exploring the various lakes and creeks in my area, as well as the Delaware and Lehigh rivers via foot and kayak. We used to target shad during their yearly run, Brown trout, rainbows, bass, walleye, stripers etc. It was always good fun but often time either feast or famine as these water systems had been very overfished and generally still recovering from years of pollution before conservation came to the political forefront in my lifetime.
I was lucky enough to have a father, uncle and grandfather whom all owned boats and beach houses spread between long island NY, South Jersey and Maryland. Growing up, most of my summers were spent fishing for flounder, stripers and Tailor (Bluefish in Yankee) in the bays, throwing crabpots off the boat or the local wharfs, walking in the sandbars for clams to clamp onto my toes, and jetty casting for big Tarpons (great fight but not worth eating).
In my adult life, I've kept this love and in the past ten years, targeted Kings, salmon and steelhead while living in the US wild west As well as learning to fly fish (with limited success and proficiency)
In the first couple of years since moving here most of my life has been occupied with learning my new surroundings and adjusting to family life with a toddler. I hadn't went for my fishing licence and didn't have any gear over here. About a year and a half ago, I decided I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and reclaim one of my life's passions.. I got my fishing licence, and sank several thousand on some decent estuary gear and a kayak with a sounder. Unfortunately the wife wasn't so keen on a boat purchase, but she'll come around one day.
In my quest for understanding fishing my area (generally from Kiama up to the Harbour but focused on the RNP and the hacking) i googled everything from productive fishing grounds to bait collection yorigs to fish tendencies to effective lures and techniques. In these never ending searches, a common thread emerged- most of my high quality information was coming from this forum. I started monitoring the site for new posts over a year ago then joined a few months later. As I feel that I now have a better understanding on what I'm doing now and have the urge to network with other fishos both digitally and in person (would love to find someone to teach me the ropes rockfishing, a hacking kayak mate or to crew up on a boat inshore or offshore), I felt like it was time to unveil myself. Reports and interaction to come!
-Matt
