Sydneysider Stan Konstantaras is young enough to be running a business while managing to get away on fishing trips every few weeks.
“I’ve lost count of the weekends I’ve worked to make time to go away.
“But I’ve seen hundreds of sunrises and sunsets because I’m out there fishing, I’ve seen whales every year go past my boat,” he tells Neos Kosmos.
“It’s crazy the stuff that we see as fishermen out there and really lucky to be able to experience that.”
He is also old enough to have been fishing for the last 50 years.
“I was quite fortunate to grow up on the coast, in Maroubra. We were five minutes from the beach and my earliest memories are of going fishing as a four-year-old.”
Recreational fishing became his second nature since then.
“It’s what my father did when he came in the ’60s and it’s my entire life.”
Both Konstantaras’ parents hail from the capital of Lesvos island, Mytilene.
But they first met as Mytilinean community members in Sydney, where they migrated in their late teens.
“It was a case back then, whichever place you came from, your network was pretty much developed around that place of origin,” Konstantaras says.
He recalls the same for migrant fishing groups at the time; Greeks sticking with Greeks, the Vietnamese with their own, and so on.
Rec fishing steadily popular in Australia
But things have changed since the second generation, like Konstantaras, took over.
“You look at a fishing club like my local one, it’s like United Nations! Every race and culture in there.
“And we continually have new people coming into fishing and new cohorts of migrants.
Data show that recreational fishing has increased its appeal over the years.
A 2023 national study commissioned by the federal government, found that an estimated 4.2 million Australians participate in recreational fishing each year.
Their numbers increased but so did the population since 2000, yet the proportion of fishers, standing at one in five adult Australians, remained stable.
The study also found that rec fishing accounts for 100,000 jobs and over $11 billion per year in the country’s economy.
And mental health benefits for both adults and children partaking in the sport are well-documented.
Konstantaras has made lifelong friends through fishing.
James Mah is one of them.
“We’ve known each other for 30 years plus,” Mah tells Neos Kosmos.
He has vivid memories from his initiation into the sport.
“I was probably 10 when we started and for three summers in a row we would all go as a family.
“There was public access at Port Botany and you could see dozens of people down there, where you could just fish off the walk into deep water.”
Everyone in the family was into fishing, Mah remembers.
“My dad and brother were there, my little sister and my mum. Mum had a particular knack of catching whiting.”
His father learnt fishing in Australia, where he grew up since migrating from Hong Kong as a three-year old in 1940.
But Mah was still privileged to overseas knowledge on fish cooking methods thanks to his grandmother.
“I still use her recipe of steaming a fish, whether it be a bream, snapper or a redfish and steaming it with ginger and shallot and soy sauce.
“It’s just the perfect way to have a delicate-fleshed fish.”
Fresh fish on the table breaking barriers
Konstantaras and Mah still go out fishing together with up to a dozen of friends of different backgrounds, including Lebanese, Greek, Chinese and Maltese, each bringing family recipes to the table.
“When you’ve got a shared passion, it’s a bridge to cross different cultures,” Mah says.
“You look at some of the different techniques that people have employed in other cultures, like I’ve seen Korean fishermen out there and used their gear which was a game changer.”
Knowledge exchange amongst anglers, Konstantaras says, happens “all the time on the rocks”.
“Like a Malaysian guy will take a bonito next to me and I’ll ask ‘how do you cook it’ and I’ll try the recipe next time.”
He believes Australian taste in fish has evolved thanks to the many migrant communities.
“It’s a huge melting pot now.
“But our guys in the ’60s in the fishing club would go catch a yellowfin and cut it up for bait. It wasn’t until the Japanese showed us how, that we started eating it.
“Or we’d eat eels and stingrays with my pappou 40 years ago and people would look at us weird. You just don’t know what you’re missing unless you’ve had it. It’s restaurant quality food selling for $80 a plate today.”
Konstantaras says he’s come across the love he and his family share for fishing in other families.
“It doesn’t matter what ethnic background you’ve got, many anglers use fishing as a means to connect with their kids.
“It really does bring families together, and especially immigrant families.
“We say we’ve got saltwater in our veins. And back in our parents’ time, fishing was the way to put fresh fish on the table for us.”
South Australian Soteres Liapis can relate to this.
Born in Chios island, Greece, Liapis migrated at 17 years of age.
He and his older brother settled in Adelaide where they met ‘uncle’ Costa, a fellow Greek islander hailing from Kalymnos.
“He was a professional fisherman and taught us how to use nets and everything we know about fishing.”
Going out in the open to fish became “pure passion” for them since, he recounts.
“It was also a way to escape life’s bitterness, the daily struggles.”
At 66 years today, Liapis reflects on the family he made and the business he managed to build in Australia.
“I feel young as. We are blessed with three kids and nine grandchildren, one on the way, aged from five to 16.
“And of course I show them how to fish and they love it!
“We just got a big boat so we can all go fishing together as a family, men, women and children.”
Three generations of Greek islanders in Australia, as he puts it.
“It seems to be running in our veins, the sea attracts us, and Australia has offered us sea in abundance.”
