N O R T H ER N TA S M A NI A
LOCAL LEGEND
Mark Bishop O C C U PAT IO N FIS HER M A N S TA NLE Y L O C AL F O R 4 0 YE ARS
MY FAMILY FIRST CAME to this area from London in the 1960s when I was a toddler. We had the most idyllic life growing up on a farm that also had its own beach, where we caught fish, sailed and spent a lot of time on boats. I got my feet wet and haven’t looked back. When you grow up in a small rural area, you think there’s got to be somewhere more exciting, so you leave and go walkabout. After working on a crayfish boat out of Stanley for a couple of years, I was privileged to get a place to study furniture design at the Australian National University School of Art and Design in Canberra, which was fantastic but a huge contrast to Stanley. I came back to live here in the 1980s when it was cheap for an artist to get established. I started off in my parents’ barn and ended up with a retail outlet on the main street with customers from all over the world. After the stock market crash in 2008, trade never recovered. In 2012, I shut up my shop and worked for a local fishing company for a year. It reminded me of my childhood. Then, after my youngest son, Oliver, left school, he repeated my history, working on fishing boats. He found a job on a good boat and wanted to invest money back into the industry, so together, we bought licenses and a boat and now fish for live wrasse and calamari. We’re “cut lunch fishermen”: we only fish for 120 days a year, day-fishing only.
WHILE YOU’RE IN NORTHERN TASSIE … 1. Visit Hunter Island to see beautiful native shrubs laden with flowers in early summer, where the effects of European impact have been minimal. 2. Explore Three Hummock Island (threehummockisland.com.au) – it’s similar to Freycinet, without the crowds. 3. Stay in Stanley for a few days and unwind.
I worry about our wild marine environment. I’m the chair of the Tasmanian Alliance for Marine Protection, which fights to protect Tasmania’s wild fisheries and pristine coast. We lobby local, state and federal politicians to make sure the salmon industry is sustainable. The impacts of intensive salmon farming are massive but unseen because they exist below the surface of the water. When salmon farmers make a mistake, they go back to the hatchery to get more fish – but who is going to repair the wild fisheries? With my son, I am also building a new, high-tech tourist boat. We want to take people fishing off Stanley and run nature tours to the nearby islands, like Hunter Island and Three Hummock Island. We will tailor the tours to recreational fishers or to tourists who want to catch fish while taking in the natural beauty. This part of the world is worth sharing.
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