About the Author

Helmut Samerski was born in Germany during the Second World War and migrated to Australia after completing his University Degree in Electrical Engineering at the age of 26. For the next 30 years he worked in our shipbuilding industry, in the offshore oil and gas industry in Bass Strait, in the phosphate mining industry in Nauru and the industrial gases industry in Australia and Asia.

For the last six years before his retirement, Helmut was General Manager/Executive Director of a medical company, developing and marketing medical equipment. But that’s another story for another day. Every spare moment he could find in that hectic life, he was a fisherman.

Some thirty years ago, the chance purchase of David Scholes’ 1961 classic Fly-fisher in Tasmania, had him spellbound and dreaming of one day being in Tasmania and experiencing trout fishing at its best. 

On his first outing in Gippsland, in the company of four old timers, he caught his first trout on this third cast. And Helmut was hooked. From worms to spinning to fly-fishing to tying his own flies in less than a year. And no looking back.

So when the opportunity came 10 years ago for Helmut to retire from his professional career and change his frantic life in Sydney’s big smoke he embraced it with both hands. 

There was only one destination, the lakes and rivers of Tasmania. He has been here – fishing with a fly- ever since. His dream had come true, he had arrived and found his new home!