This drone shot cannot show where the char are hiding in Lake Altaussee. But the fishermen also find it that way, they follow their gut feeling. And only for a few weeks in early summer, after which the fish have their rest again.
Bild: Mauritius
The Altausseer See in Austria is a paradise for char, which are traditionally caught here by a group of eleven families. They only have a small window of opportunity to do this each year.
An late afternoon the sky over the lake is clouding over. Will the fishermen go out in this weather? A quick call to Otto Kalss, the eldest of the troupe: “Of course we’re going out,” he says, visibly amazed at how people can worry about the little bit of rain. It stays the same: In the evening at half past eight, like every year in mid-May, they will open the season. Meet for the first time after the long winter break in the small wooden hut on the lake shore, address Fischerndorf 1, get on their boat and lay out the nets outside on the lake.
Fischerndorf is the oldest part of Altaussee, a small community in the Styrian tip of the Salzkammergut. As the name suggests, the men who lured the swimming treasures out of Lake Altaussee used to live there: trout, perch and, above all, char. The king among the fish, which is only called “the fish” here, which has been registered as “Austria’s culinary heritage” and is celebrated at the char festival every year.