This was the year 2024 in the world of fishing and fish farming

In addition to the national data – with a three-year retrospective – the itemized data for Lake Balaton, Lake Tisza, Lake Velence, the Ráckevei-Soroksári Danube branch, as well as the Danube, Tisza and Körös rivers are also listed separately. All this can be interesting reading for anglers and anyone interested in the wildlife and fish stocks of our natural waters. The most important statistical data is the fishing catch recorded in the catch logs. This is the vast majority of the actual fish removal, which does not include the amount of fish sold by fishing in production ponds, as unregistered fish management water areas.

Removal data also includes the selection catch of fishing competitions, recreational fishing catch, the results of ecological selective fishing, and – if there is such in a given year – the catch of fish with a fishing license for further education, and the fish removal of demonstration fisheries. In 2024, the total removal was 4879 tons, of which the fishing catch was 4614 tons (94.6%), which represented an increase of 2.8% compared to last year. Anglers submitted 97% of the catch logs on time and reported 7,494,081 fishing days in addition to the catches. In the catch ranking of the “large waters”, Lake Balaton certainly maintains its leading position, but the total catch of 633 tons represented a slight decrease (-9.8%) compared to 2023.

The lake’s perch stock remains remarkable, but the sharply decreasing catch of garda, once considered a Balaton specialty, is a cause for concern. The amount of fish taken from the Ráckevei-Soroksári Danube branch has increased further (180 tons). Thanks to its outstanding catfish catch, Lake Tisza is starting to catch up again after its weaker result a year ago (160 tons). Thanks to the installations beyond capacity, the fishing catch of Lake Velence is on the rise (21.3 tons), but this water area – crying out for constant water replenishment – is still particularly vulnerable. Among rivers, the Tisza continues to lead the ranking, with a total catch of 343.5 tons.

The Danube, which surprisingly has significantly strengthened its pike catch, produced 292 tons of catch last year. In 2024, the Körösök system yielded 122.3 tons of fish, and the increase in catfish catch here is also welcome. The intensive stocking of natural waters is a curiosity throughout Europe. In Hungary, this task is practically carried out almost exclusively by fishing organizations, and some of these stocking operations serve not “only” to ensure fish removal, but also to create ecological balance and diversity by transforming the stock structure, repopulating native fish species, or even partially compensating for the damage caused by cormorants, which is equal to the total fishing catch.

Since the stocking compensation due to the drought in 2022 took place in 2023, there was no justification or requirement for additional stocking in 2024, which explained why the annual stocking volume of 4,071 tons represented a decrease of approximately 25% compared to the previous, corrected year. At the same time, fish prices did not increase, and in the case of carp, they even decreased somewhat. The value of the fish stocked was 6.7 billion forints in total. 90% of the stocking continues to be by far the most popular carp, which is unfortunately still far from the ideal professional ratio of 75% in the long term.