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Leon was Born in Dandenong Vic and spent his childhood at Barwon Heads. His best mate's father was a commercial fisherman and Leon and his mate would go out and help on the 30 foot dory (these were known as 'Couta boats), trolling under sail for Barracouta.
His trade was printing and he got a job as ships printer on the coastal passenger/ freighters that ran between Sydney and Freemantle.
He then moved to Sydney after he left the shipping company and founded a business with a partner that was to become Lynx Engineering in Croydon. At first mainly specialising in wrecking/building/ racing/ repairing/ MGTC sports cars, the business grew and branched out to cover modifying and 'hotting up' all types of cars. In the early 70's Lynx branched out into boatbuilding, making 16 and 18 foot “Sidewinder” speed boats under license from a company in California, these were popular and in the mid 70's Leon sold out of Lynx taking as part of the payout the Sidewinder moulds and rights to build them. During this period Leon always owned a boat, ranging from a 24 foot Savage Ranger, 24 foot Mustang which he finished from lock-up stage and a 28 Bertram which were all used as fishing platforms, mainly for bottom fishing. He also always had a ski boat and loved weekends away on the Hawkesbury River water skiiing.
He sold Sidewinder Marine in '78, sold the Bertram 28 then bought his first charter boat- a 52 foot concrete constructed bottom fishing charter boat renamed Sidewinder, taking out up to 20 punters drift fishing for reef fish out of Sydney Harbour. He sold Sidewinder a few years later and bought a smaller commercial (LFB) and charter fishing boat called Hapuku, a 38 foot fibreglass Randell cray boat style vessel which was also a half reasonable game-fishing boat. Leon was doing bottom-fishing charters, commercial fishing which included tuna long-lining, trap fishing for crays and reef fish and bottom set long-lining. At this stage he also doing the occasional charter chasing Marlin, Tuna and sharks on the continental shelf off Sydney.
In around 1981 Leon moved the family from Cabarita on Sydney Harbour to Newport on the northern beaches and based Hapuku out of Pittwater, basically doing the same sort of fishing trips when weather permitted.
In 1987 Leon and Brett could envisage an opening for a dedicated game boat out of Sydney and Hapuku was sold, Leon and Brett went in search of a second hand gameboat in Cairns, evetually finding an old 40 foot Woodnutt in poor condition for sale in Townsville. The boat was bought and Leon and son spent 6 weeks fixing and performing a minor refit on the old girl, in their favour was the fact the motors were almost new. Steve Georgouras, then president of the Broken Bay club was the third partner in the venture. The boat was renamed 'The Sheriff' and arrived in Sydney in mid 1988, in the middle of the Tuna season.
Before The Sheriff was sold Leon had been hired to be project manager and skipper of a new vessel built at Newport, this was to be named Jo Jo and Leon spent 3 years operating successfully out of Port Douglas, returning to Sydney each year in December. moving on from Jo Jo Leon became skipper of the private game boat 'Myuna' and because of his love of port and the reef brought Myuna up for the owners use each year from 2004 to 2006, based in Port Douglas.
After Myuna Leon was hired to skipper another private Riviera based in Sydney, but always brought up to North Qld at some stage of the year, Leon was still looking after this vessel, B-hag until his illness forced him to retire from boat work. He passed away on 18th April 2011 of cancer related complications, he will be greatly missed by the East coast fishing fraternity.
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