About Shaun:
Shaun Furtiere, is a passionate & dedicated fisherman at 42 years of age.
Shaun's working background has for the majority of it, always been surrounded by either water, fishing, retail tackle sales & sometimes all three at once!!
Growing up with a family heavily involved in the early days of diving & spearfishing in Victoria, Sth Aust & the Sth Coast of NSW, as well as other family relatives who owned & operated commercial fishing vessels from San Remo & fished both Bass Strait & inside Western Port, he had a very good grounding from an early age, including helping out with his uncle who commercially dropline fished for Snapper & Gummy Shark from inside Western Port around the Rhyll & Tortoise Head areas in the late 70's.
From the age of 5 his humble angling beginnings started in Port Phillip Bay with his father Barry, who was a dab hand at spearfishing, cray & abalone diving having done it professionally for a stint. He was also a one time Victorian National Spearfishing Champion during the mid to late 60's. Snapper were & still are the fish of stature in Port Phillip Bay & along with his Uncle (Barry's brother) they would fish the shallow reefs off Elwood in the dark hours. Large Snapper were the norm here with 15lb (6.5kg) fish nothing special amongst the regulars who fished these parts, great days indeed. It was a true learning apprenticeship that increased Shaun's thirst for being around the water as often as possible.
Mordialloc & almost every other Melbourne based jetty or pier were to serve as the next learning step around the ages of 12-18 with many many thousands of hours accrued here learning the noble art of float fishing with light line for a host of species inc Aust Salmon, Garfish, Yellow Eye Mullet, Trevally, Pinkie Snapper & Bream. This too was more learning that would slowly lean towards an extended stay, fine tuning the 'New to Australia UK Style 'Coarse Fishing methods' during the mid to late 80's. Shaun fished competively for around 3 to 5 years on the local Melbourne Coarse fishing club scene & was fortunate enough to finish 3rd in the Australian Coarse Fishing Championships during 1993. This was a fair effort considering the vast majority of these matches have around 95% of entrants with origins in the U.K & Europe, who have fished these methods for pretty much all their lives.
It was around this time that a two sided choice of staying within the tackle trade at the original JV Marine in Nth Rd Oakleigh, was to continue or stay on as a deckhand onboard Matthew Hunts Shimano Explorer that was very busy at the time with Snapper & Whiting Charters. This decision was easy and a near 5 year period of this continued on where he was able to witness another angling master at work as well as take in many other notes & ideas learnt by himself. It was during this period that he was witness to many numbers of Snapper & other popular fish such as Whiting, Squid & Gummy Shark landed by charter clients. These hard earnt lessons can be attributed to his very good strike rate these days on many sought after species.
Western Port was first fished by Shaun around the Warneet region back in 1984-5, when chasing his fathers beloved Whiting. In 1989 after joining a local fishing club, that's since disolved, he met up with Mark & Stuart Irvine & their father Ivan. This was to start a true love affair with the tidal streams of Western Port. The Irvines were & still are regarded as some of Western Ports original gun fisho's & helped to teach many people over these years via angling clubs. On the club angling competition scene these guys were pretty hard to beat as they'd have done much ground work prior to any comp they fished, again more invaluable lessons were learnt.
A return for 8 years to the fishing tackle trade working with several of Melbournes largest marine dealers including & an extended stay at Boronia Marine (Avante Marine now) & a position as the Victorian & Sthn NSW Sales Representative for Furuno Marine electronics soon had Shaun wanting to get back on the water.
With a few more years (10) spent fishing recreationally in all areas of Western Port, Port Phillip Bay, Bass Strait & Corner Inlet in Sth Gippsland as well as further afield at Cairns, Bermagui, Eden, Pt Mac Sth Aust & Portland Victoria. In 2004 Southern Fishing Tuition was started as a means of helping anglers by way of guided fishing & electronic tuition trips aboard clients own boats. This has proven to be very successful with many satisfied clients often returning for a third or even 4th trip out.
The yearning to charter fulltime was never stronger.
A casual meeting by chance with Brendan Wing at a Victorian based Mako Shark meeting in 2009, made that yearning turn to fruition. With a position offered up with Think Big! Charters, once a Coxswains Course had been completed. This was achieved last year.
Brendan & Shaun have known each other since the late 90's via their work in the tackle & boating trade & both have a sound respect for each others fishing abilities.
Throughout this time regular studio appearances on several Melbourne based radio fishing programs(3AW, 3AK, 3SER) with fishing reports & advice to listeners & regularly contributing to many popular web based fishing forums including Fishnet, Mr Fisho & Angling Victoria have continued on.
Shauns PB's are: Snapper 10kg Port Phillip Bay & 10.5kg Corner Inlet, Gummy Shark 25kg Port Phillip Bay & Gummy Shark 21kg Western Port, Kingfish 10kg Montague Island, Mako Shark(released est 280-350kg) Bass Strait.