Allison Cadzow

Fishing the Georges River: Cultural Diversity and Urban Environments

Fishing is the most popular recreation in Australia but there are many different ways in which Australians have fished. Here are just a few extracts from interviews with people who live near and use the Georges River, a large tidal river in Sydney’s suburban south-west.1 They suggest the diverse skills and knowledge on the river, but also the currents of emotion, fear and politics which swirl around everyday fishing: Mahmoud lives in Bankstown but his family came from Syria: …we use a traditional Syrian or Lebanese rod where there’s no reels. It’s about a metre long and it’s telescopic … so it comes out to some six metres and then from the end tip, a fishing line is just tied to the top and then you put a sinker, a float and then another line down with the hook.