Czech Anglers Union is ...

... a civic organization, whose functions essentially are:

• Perform angling activities pursuant to the Fishery Law.
• Behave, protect and fish water organisms, protect their life and environment.
• Provide methodological help and service for organizational units of the Union and its members, including the purchase and distribution of fish stock for further production and stocking of fisheries.
• Protect nature, water cleanliness and environment.
• Participate in out-of-school activities for children and youth in the area of fisheries and angling sport, environmental protection, water and environmental cleanliness.
• Participate in integration of handicapped people into the Union´s activity.
• Develop and popularize angling, and organize angling contests for all levels.
• Cooperate with the Czech and foreign bodies, organizations, and institutions whose activity touches angling and the environment.
• Union and its organizational units can perform the business activities in compliance with generally obligatory legal regulations.

(Statutes of Czech Anglers Union)

History of the Czech Anglers Union

First associations of anglers started in Bohemia at the end of the 19th century. In 1873, the Anglers Union in Opava was established, and in 1876, in Ronov nad Doubravou. By the year 1900, several dozens of them were established.

The most famous anglers association was the First Anglers Club in Prague, established in 1886. Its members were also significant personalities of this time, including the President of Czechoslovakia Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, Ferdinand Lobkowicz, Dr. Bedřich Schwarzenberg, and the world-famous opera singer, Ema Destinová. The magazine Rybářský věstník, later called Rybářské listy, which were predecessors of the current magazine Rybářství (Angling), reported on the work of this association.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the angling associations felt the need for the creation of a large mutual organization, which could better preserve the interests of fish breeding, angling and protection of rivers, fish, and other water species. However, the unified organization wasn't created until 1957, when the Association of Anglers in Prague and the Unified Association of Anglers in Žilina established the Czechoslovak Anglers Union, which included, at the time of its establishment, 409 local organizations and 78,767 registered members. It was the first time that the uniform statutes, membership fees, and principles of management were set. The first chairman was Mr. Oldřich Doležal, and the Secretary was Dr. Jan Hanzal.

In 1968 the Czechoslovak Association of Anglers was divided into two independent associations - Czech Anglers Union and Slovak Anglers Union.

The Czech Anglers Union was divided again in 1990, when the South-Moravian Anglers Union, which was the base for the Moravian Anglers Union, separated.

Currently, the Czech Anglers Union belongs to the largest interest associations in the Czech Republic. It hosts almost 243,000 members organized through 482 local organizations, which are divided into seven Regional Boards.

Development of membership in Czech Anglers Union between 1990-2012

Present Structure of the Czech Anglers Union

• Seven Regional Boards.
• 482 local organizations.
• 242,605 members (of this, 216,658 are adults; 25,947 members are younger than 18 years old).
• 1,277 fisheries (of this, 823 are non-salmonid; 454 are salmonid).
• 35,064 hectares of fisheries (of this, 31,771 hectares non-salmonid waters; 3,293 hectares salmonid waters).
• Czech Anglers Union issues the angling permits with various scopes of validity. This largest scope permits in the country are the country-wide and union-wide permits, then the regional permits issued by the Regional Boards of the Czech Anglers Union, and then the local permits for particular fisheries.
• Angling in the Czech Republic is specified by Act No. 99/2004 Coll., on fisheries and Decree No. 197/2004 Coll., as amended according to later regulations.
• Activity within Czech Anglers Union is specified by the internal rules (Statutes and Rules of Procedure).

Perspectives

Czech Anglers Union, upon respecting its historical bases and national traditions of union angling, in the future is going to focus on:

• Preservation of the current system of angling;
• Maintenance of current fisheries and their extension, if possible;
• Specification of angling rules due to the increase of attractiveness and extension of their possibilities;
• Accessibility of angling in the fisheries of Czech Anglers Union for broad angling publicity;
• Promotion of interests and national specifics of Czech angling in the EU environment;
• Implementation of information technologies into the activity of Czech Anglers Union, as well as needs for improvement of services for organizational units and members of the Czech Anglers Union;
• Partial professionalism and improvement of conditions for activity of fishery guard;
• Realization of conditions for stabilization of populations of brown trout, grayling, and eel in fisheries;
• Support of the project for returning salmon to Czech waters;
• Solution for the negative influence of fish-eating predators on fisheries in the Czech Republic.

Organizational structure of the Czech Anglers Union

Production of stock fish

• Czech Anglers Union manages 2,157 fish breeding ponds covering the area of 2,470 hectares.
• Annual production of fish breeding ponds and reservoirs is annually more than 1,400 tons of fish.
• The need for stock fish for stocking of fisheries is covered mainly from its own production of fish.

Stocking fisheries

• Fulfillment of fish-stocking plan in individual fisheries is an essential duty of fishery managers.
• Annually, 30 fish species are stocked to fisheries including endangered species in the value of about 185,000,000 CZK.
• Stocking of fisheries is performed by the Union at its own expenses, without any significant subsidy from the state.

Basic scheme of cash-flow from Czech Anglers Union´s permits

Catches in fisheries

• Annually, almost 3,100 tons of various fish species are caught in the fisheries of the Czech Anglers Union (from this ,3,000 tons in non-salmonid fisheries and 100 tons in salmonid fisheries).
• For example, more than 2,500 tons of carp, 17 tons of tench, 93 tons of bream, 60 tons of grass- carp, 100 tons of pike, 82 tons of pike-perch, 60 tons of cat-fish, 15 tons of eel, 42 tons of rainbow trout, 13 tons of brown trout, and 2 tons of grayling are caught.

Total catches in pieces and kilograms in non-salmonid fisheries of Czech Anglers Union from 1990 to 2012

Total catches of fish in pieces and kg in salmonid fisheries of Czech Anglers Union from 1990 to 2012

Protection of fisheries

• The protection of fisheries and fish-breeding facilities is ensured by the fishery guard with a status of a public agent.
• The Fishery guard is appointed by the municipal authority with an extended scope for the proposal of the fishery manager or another authorized body.
• Within the Czech Anglers Union there are 4,800 members of the fishery guard, all performing voluntarily.

Care for the environment and water cleanliness

• Czech Anglers Union continuously observes water quality in the fisheries and tries to prevent accidents.
• It actively takes part in the building of fish ladders in the rivers, in actions upon providing permission for operations of small water power plants, water sampling, adjustment of river beds, etc.
• It deals with observations of development of numbers of fish-eating invasive species, and the evaluation of their influence on free waters communities. It also takes part in negotiations with bodies of environmental protection for solving various problems.
• It cooperates with the Authority for Protection of Nature in regards to rescuing endangered species and water organisms.

International activities

• Czech Anglers Union is a member of the international angling organization CIPS (Confédération Internationale de la Péche Sportive) and their sport federations FCS (casting), FIPS - Mouche (fly fishing) and FIPS - e.d. (angling in fresh waters), which is active in 59 countries from from around the world.
• Czech Anglers Union is also a member of ICSF (International Casting Sport Federation), a federation which belongs under the international organization of non-Olympic sports GAISF (Games Association International Sport Federation), which ensures participation in the World Games organized once every four years in a selected country.
• Czech Anglers Union also closely cooperates with anglers unions of neighbouring countries such as Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Austria and Hungary.

Educational and informational activity

• The website of the Czech Anglers Union Council, www.rybsvaz.cz, provides a wide range of information about the activity of Czech Anglers Union.
• Training of applicants for obtaining the first state rod license, fishery managers, fishery guard and training of people for the operation of the electric aggregate.
• Training focused on obtaining certificates for leaders of youth clubs and Chiefs of camps.
• Regular publishing activity through the magazine "Rybářství", whose majority owner is Czech Anglers Union.
• Organization of specialized seminars and conferences.
• Participation in exhibitions (FOR FISHING in Prag, RYBAŘENÍ in Brno, NATURA VIVA in Lysá nad Labem, ZEMĚ ŽIVITELKA in České Budějovice and others).

Work with children and youth

• This is performed in clubs organized at the local organizations of the Czech Anglers Union in cooperation with the children and youth associations (within the Czech Anglers Union operate approximately 700 clubs, where almost 900 group leaders spend time with groups of children).
• Support of the development of knowledge and positive relations towards angling, nature and the environment.
• Also the search for new talents for sport activity is an integral part of working with youth.

Highlights of all-year activities with children are the significant actions:

• Field contest "Zlatá udice" (Golden Rod) - contest for the angling youth in knowledge and skills in real angling.
• Summer camp - camp focused on improvement of youth in angling skills.
• Meeting of angling youth - actions for carefully chosen children as a reward for their year round activity.

Sport (competitive) anglers

• This is the integral part of the activity of Czech Anglers Union.
• Organization of competitions is a longstanding tradition.
• Czech Anglers Union organizes many national and international contests during the year (from local contests up to the National Championship and World Championship), and prepares and sends the Czech team to the international contests and championships.
• At these high quality international championships, our competitors regularly are awarded the highest trophies and successfully represent Czech Anglers Union and the Czech Republic.
• Competitive angling and coarse fishing is today performed by many handicapped anglers.

The most spread disciplines of angling are:
• casting - casting of a fly or a weight with the rod to the target or for distance (in 2005 this sport had 70th anniversary from its establishment),
• coarse fishing;
• fly-fishing;
• přívlač,
• feeder.