Time to Harvest

The Alpine River Rhine above Lake Constance is the longest undammed part of a river in the Alps. Nevertheless the dam at Reichenau built in 1968 has destroyed the fish populations below and the pond and release of dozens of power stations in the tributaries above and below the dam has contributed to the situation as it is today. In regard of the fish population the river is only a shadow of what it was like in ancient times. Even 50 years ago a good fisherman could catch dozens of brown trout and grayling a day. Today the river is more or less dependent on stocked fish as self reproduction in the Alpine River Rhine has turned out to be impossible. More or less because there are still fish from Lake Constance that migrate up the river to spawn. Whitefish (coregonus lavaretus) are plentiful in Lake Constance due to stocking programs of the local fishery boards. A part of them migrates up the river for spawning in the river not knowing that their eggs will later be destroyed by the power stations whos deadly gush of water makes the river rise up to more than one meter 2-3 times every day will wash the eggs away or cover them with silt. Some of the lake resident and also the stocked river resident rainbows spawn in the river with the same success but a big part of them enter the spring creek like tributaries in the Principality of Liechtenstein, Sankt Gallen and Vorarlberg and reproduce successfully there being protected in these streams from October to April which makes them enter and leave these tributaries without being caught by anglers.