This introduction is to give a survey on 125 year’s history of the Austrian Fishing Association for all people interested in fishing.

Writing these contributions which deal with the long-standing history of our association, we had, of course, to rely on old reports and chronicles.

Considering the history of our association, the alert eye will have noticed four periods covering several decades, i.e. the periods from 1880 to 1918, from 1918 to 1945, from 1945 to 1980 and the period from 1980 to 2005.

Thinking of the period of about 1880, we are facing a peaceful phase in Europe, at least as far as foreign policy was concerned, prevailing until beyond the turn of the century, where many political activities had been concentrated on the founding of new colonies in other continents. In Austria this development had its positive effect on science, research and arts.

New pioneering inventions became common property. Thus, e.g. Emperor Franz Joseph I introduced the first private telephone in the federal province of Vorarlberg in 1881.

In the field of land property where fishing belongs to as independent civil law, they tried to create a reorganisation with the intention to achieve appropriate management of the fishing grounds by forming fishing areas.

At the same time the gradually developing industrial society refused to be exposed to the raging forces of nature any longer, encouraged by the last big flooding of the suburbs of Vienna in 1862; they began with the regulation of the Danube in 1869, which was terminated in the Vienna region in 1875.

As the concerns of fishing right owners began to collide with the justified interests of people, our association, constituted in 16th February, 1880, demanded the formulation and decree of a fishing law for the crown land of Lower Austria as a matter of priority.

In the years to follow the fishing area committees of Lower Austria were founded under the patronage of our association and the experts responsible there for the creation of fishing areas in the various rivers were appointed. Besides these mere legal activities, the association had to care for spreading and increasing the fish stock in a national territory reaching from the „Riesengebirge“ to the Adriatic Sea and from Bregenz at the Bodensee to the „Eisernes Tor“ at the river Danube and to introduce and support the gradually developing scientific knowledge on fish breeding.

The idea of fish- and river care is gradually gaining importance, moreover, it is also necessary to take revitalizing measures as there are already river sections completely desolated. In 1890, our association was able to announce the regional fishing law for Lower Austria. Soon afterwards, the fishing area committees received their first standing orders from our association.

Besides the legal activities the concerns of fishing economy had also been of great importance. Those people interested in fish farming were provided with modern incubators for trout breeding. There was a demand for extended protective periods for crawfish and Danube salmons and the first fishing areas were taken on lease.

In 1905, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of our association and on account of our endeavours we were awarded the title of „K.k. Österreichische Fischereigesellschaft“(„Imperial royal Austrian Fishing Association“) by Emperor Franz Joseph I. It is with pride that we may point out that our members were working as experts in any field of fishing economy whatsoever in the first decades of our existence.

The time until 1945 with its radical political changes ranges among the worst chapters in the 125 years of our existence.Very often our association almost lost its autonomy or it had to adopt other names. Thus, in 1935 it was merged with the „Österreichischer Touring-Club“ and was then called „Internationaler Sportanglerclub und Österreichische Fischereigesellschaft, Zweigverein des Österreichischen Touring-Club“ ( Amateur Angling Club and Austrian Fishing Association, subsidiary of the Austrian Touring Club“).

In April 1938 we were put under the control of the „Reichsbund deutscher Sportfischer“ in Berlin , and named „Bezirksfischereivereinigung Niederdonau“(„Local Fishing Association Niederdonau“). It was only in 1945 when we were allowed to readopt our original name and to make use of all our private- and leasing areas.

Unfortunately, many important records were lost in the course of war confusion, also damaging our office archives, thus, hardly any records are at our disposal concerning this period. A large number of our members still remember the development from 1945 and later.

In the course of the years the Austrian Fishing Association kept increasing the popularity of fishing. It has always been one of our objectives to be able to offer further areas to an ever increasing number of interested members for purchase or leasing, and will always be.

Whereas 30 areas were at our disposal in 1945, we are now proud to point out that our 3300 members are able to do their fishing in 49 salmonid areas with a river length of 443 km and in 21 salmonid- and cyprinid areas extending to 1672 ha of water surface – about 1100 ha of it being Danube areas.

The ever -developing affluent society, on the one hand supporting leisure industry, which certainly favours the extension of our activities, on the other hand confronts us with all contamination problems of an industrial society involved.

The board and the office staff as well as more than 135 experts are constantly trying to preserve existing water biotopes and to keep off any disturbances caused by river regulations and contaminated water.

In collaboration with staff members of the Academy of Sciences and the Hochschule für Bodenkultur our association started water examinations of our rivers, which shows our serious engagement in connection with the problems of increasing water pollution.

Although most of the areas under our control still have water quality 1-2, we are not extremely satisfied knowing that we will be confronted with new challenges in spite of the ever-increasing sensibility for nature conservation.

Our aim for the decades to come is to keep under control the increasing fishing ambitions of people having more and more leisure time at their disposal and to avoid that one of the most precious natural resource, i.e. clean water with its fauna and flora, falls prey to a short-sighted pursuit of profit by reckless handling.

Fishing is active protection of nature!