According to the motto: Back to cork!

My passion for fishing started in the park of the little Thuringian village of Bendeleben. My parents´ home is situated only a few steps away from the park at the edge of the village. The perfect starting position for a young rascal like me to start exploring the world. Seven ponds full of fish in the middle of nature. That is what the park used to be like to me back then. Enormous old trees and impenetrable thicket, only cut by streams and walkways, surrounding the ponds.Those where laid out centuries ago by baron von Uckermann for the breeding of carp and the pleasure of swimming.

When I was in school our headmaster administered the whole lot of ponds with a team of students, that was called “Pond-Economy”. The fishing was the highlight of the year, where all socialist workers were united to harvest the fish. I do not know how economic or how much fish it was anymore. But I remember exactly how I was fascinated and attracted by the fish that appeared out of the ponds that day. Being too young to help, I was only allowed to watch. Only older students were admitted to the team. And when I was old enough, we had a new headmaster with different interests.

Today I can still see the pictures: the mud, the fish that where gasping for air and people with big boots. This is where a fantastic hobby had its roots.

Today I am safe to say it: of course we were fishing illegaly. Out of a save hiding place and without rods. A piece of Leska-string, a hook from Solidor and an old cork as a float. We were drilling and landing the fish without spool brakes. And as if we were guessing it – being ahead of our time – with catch and release. All fish were properly put back into the water. That was how it was like more than thirty years ago. Today we are administering the ponds together in the club of “Fishermen of Bendeleben” and again I am using cork, although this time to make a handle for a split rod.