Cast & Catch

Being able to combine your passion with your work is something few of us achieve. Going one better and turning two passions into successful businesses, involving your family along the way, all while being as environmentally sustainable as possible is surely then the stuff of dreams?

Meet Matt von Sturmer.

For more than 25 years Blacksand Bronze, the company Matt runs together with wife Carmen Sosich and daughter Trelise von Sturmer, has produced world-class bronze architectural hardware that sells throughout New Zealand and the world - and all with pride and passion in Waiheke Island’s Onetangi!

At the same time, Matt’s other great love in life - fishing - is driving his second business in the form of Saltflyfish, a saltwater fly fishing operation that aims to highlight conservation as much as it does to ensure great fishing yarns. It’s a heady mix, and not a bad one for a self-described ‘wharf rat’ from Birkenhead.

“My parents were sort of, what I would call ‘university hippies’, both psychologists and well, a bit different!” Matt says. “So I had a pretty free childhood. I would just disappear at all times of the day and night with a fishing rod and a bucket, bare feet, pocketknife and a box of matches. And, you know, just spend all day and night down at the wharf. So I was always going to be - I’m going to just say unorthodox! - in terms of my learning style, but I was always creative and good with my hands and just tried a bunch of things.”

After a stint in Australia working with a traditional woodworker—“he basically threw me on a tractor with a chain around a stump and shouted until I figured it out”—Matt enrolled in an introductory jewellery-making course and worked as a gardener on a permaculture project to earn just enough to take the 36-hour bus trip to Queensland to surf. But by 19, with a new baby, life shifted. “I’d always made things, but becoming a parent pushed me to take it seriously. I started working on bigger and bolder projects. Looking back, it was brave—but definitely fuelled by a lot of enthusiastic naivety.”

His career has seen Matt create everything from jewellery to furniture and civic artworks - “Basically, because no one told me to stop!” - and has led to Blacksand Bronze, homed in an old boatbuilding workshop in the aforementioned Onetangi. “People hear Onetangi and think beachfront - but we’re next to a fire station! And we don’t do the romantic part - the melting and casting - here, that is sent over to our foundry, but all design and finishing is done here, so it’s nice to keep all production local. And we’ve ended up with a very ‘circular’ production system where everything is recycled and we don’t use solvents or toxins. This kind of work can be very polluting, but we’ve honed it down to be much more environmentally friendly.”

The inspirations for Blacksand Bronze’s designs are also locally sourced and looking to the natural environment. “Yeah, I think it’s just that simple immersion in nature thing. And you know, for me, it’s all very ocean-orientated. So there are designs in there that we’ve done for many, many years, that we call a wave, and they’re obvious, but then we’ve got some more minimalist designs that are really just trying to be simple, refined, and honest.”

The ocean connection brings us neatly to Matt’s other line of work, Saltflyfish, which sees him guiding saltwater fly fishing tours in the waters around Waiheke.

“Saltflyfish is almost like legitimising an obsessive passion for saltwater fly fishing! “he says. “Saltwater fly fishing has a bit of a history, it’s a little bit more rock and roll than trout fishing.

It is influenced by the sort of 70s and 80s in Florida Keys, rum-fuelled gangster poets, artists, writers, it’s more manic than the very contemplative trout fishing. Today a lot of people who do it are typically people, in a way, like myself I think, who have busy minds and really need a high level of engaging activity to relax!”

“Also, because you have to think so much about it, it makes you realise the value of fishing. People who live in coastal communities are often really aware of how things work in the natural world, and the importance of conserving this resource and utilising it wisely.”

“It can be the most stupid way to catch fish, because there’s so much that can go wrong, but when it all comes together it’s very satisfying!”