Walking on water.

We rugged up warmly this morning to go to my first Fishing Festival in the village where my English friend lives, so we knew we had the correct lake this time. It was cold and frosty, about 1.5 degrees, with brilliant sunshine. The walk through the forest to the lake was magical. Things were well under way with the first catch just finishing but we saw the second trawl from the start. The lake had been drained so was mostly shallow but the deepest part is at the edge of the lake where the water outlet is. They pull the net out here with boats encircling the water where most of the fish will be. This net was 50 meters long but some are much longer. The net is slowly dragged in to the shore as far as possible, depending on the size of the catch. The fish are then scooped up in a catching net and put into enormous vats before being sorted and loaded into trucks for transporting. At this stage the concentration of the thrashing fish looks like the water is boiling and they say that in October the lakes of Waldviertel are boiling, referring to the fishing season.  
It takes a lot of skill and team work to bring in the net, making sure the net moves along the bottom of the lake under the fish and encloses them at the shore. I have added some extras which I hope will demonstrate some of the process.  Waldviertel carp are renowned and are a much loved and traditional meal at Christmas.
The stalls and tables and chairs were set up on the drained lake. We ate a Steckelfisch for lunch which is a fish (this time trout) impaled on a stick and cooked over coals. Delicious.