The water quality of Willwerather reservoir water samples The water quality is crucial for the well-being of our fish. To sum it up in a few words: Good water - healthy fish. In order to ensure the water quality, we started taking water samples at different points in our body of water in 2022 in order to regularly check the quality of our body of water. We bring these values together in a comparison table in order to be able to identify deviations at an early stage and counteract them as quickly as possible. Water pollution or water pollution is man-made pollution of surface waters (rivers, lakes, seas) and groundwater with sometimes toxic substances, through the discharge of sewage, the washing out of pollutants introduced into the soil (fertilizers, etc.) or illegal dumping. Even in low concentrations, residues of pesticides, biocides and other chemicals can have an impact on the environment and human health our wildlife have. Therefore, we are all dependent on keeping our waters clean and free from contamination. Information on unusual water discharges or substances around the Willwerath reservoir or other waters, we are happy to accept, also anonymously.

Beginn und Fortlauf des Nachzuchtprogrammes für die "Eifeler Bachforelle" aus Wildstämmen The beginning Conservation on behalf of the State of Rhineland-Pfalz Return Artificial reproduction of the "Eifeler brown trout" The fishing association Prüm 1967 eV has been actively protecting species in the form of the offspring of the "Eifel brook trout" since 1991. The University of Mainz (Prof. Dr. Alfred Seitz) carried out the first genetic studies on the importance of the regional brown trout population. When creating a population genetic profile of the "Eifeler brown trout" by Prof. Dr. Arndt Schreiber and Dr. Michael Riffel from Heidelberg University, it turned out that the "Eifel brook trout" - if not different from that of the Rhine catchment area - formed the most homogeneous group of all trout in the Rhine catchment area. In the years that followed, the Prüm Fishing Association 1967 eV stripped many thousands of trout eggs from as many varieties of brown trout as possible from wild stocks and released the trout seedlings it yielded into several previously damaged Eifel streams to preserve the "Eifel brown trout" at a young age. For this purpose, a specially built hatchery is operated, which is fed with 6 ° C cold, surface-independent water. Regular surveys of the populations of the occupied streams have shown that these measures, which are very time-consuming and labor-intensive for the fishing club Prüm 1967 eV, are crowned with success, since the wild brown trout are very true to location and reproduce particularly well. In this way, a self-reproducing stock could be established in many small streams. This is mainly due to the fact that only regional animals are used for breeding - autochthonous stocking - which means that the seedlings are already optimally adapted to their "new" environment through their genetic heritage. The biggest hurdle that stood in the way of breeding success were the scattered, partly unsafe ponds that were leased by the association. At this point, a cooperation agreement was concluded with the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. This included the work in the species conservation project "Eifeler brown trout and river pearl mussel" and as a result the construction of the later pond system "In der Litzer". This contract has existed for more than 25 years and has now led the association to international activity. In addition to the alliance partners in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, the EU life project river pearl mussel, in particular the "Hellef fir d'Natur" in Heinerscheid, also benefit from the work of the association. More about our colleagues from Our at: www.margaritifera.eu

Vereinsheim und Hüttenbuchung Our clubhouse The Anglerklause at the Willwerath reservoir 360° tour The Anglerklause is located on the east side of the reservoir. The club home of the Angel Club Prüm 1967 eV, built in 1973, is open on many Sundays during the fishing season and is a popular destination not only for anglers but also for hikers and guests of all kinds. A list of open Sundays can be found below. Visit us at the reservoir - the hut is open from 10:00. The Anglerklause can also be rented for private parties / events, on request with service and catering - space for up to 40 people in the interior and for another 20 on the terrace - our hut keeper will be happy to answer your questions. Cabin duty roster

Photovoltaic "In the Lizard" 360° tour Due to the dry summer months and the low rainfall, sometimes in the fall, it is sometimes necessary to supply the pond system with water in circulation, for this the use of pumps and pond aerators is essential - which, however, require energy. Initially, this was generated by units that were only needed for a short time, but when an increasingly long-lasting cycle operation was necessary, another solution had to be found. The So it happened that the first efforts in 2013 to electrify the system using photovoltaic modules were undertaken to ensure regenerative cycle operation. In 2014, a revised project planning provided for an open area elevation with 20 kWhp output and its own operating building to house and maintain the technology. Various regional companies took part in the tender. Financing could also be drawn up by the end of 2014. Only the approval process dragged on until spring 2016. After further official hurdles, the construction work began with the civil engineering work and foundation laying from August 2016. The system is currently being expanded and since July 2017 the PV system has been supplying the pond system with energy. After the automation is complete, the system is controlled by a PLC for optimal use of the generated energy. gallery Current plant performance The PV system is configured as an island system - so it has no connection to the local power grid - so the pond system "In der Litzer" is 100% self-sufficient. The operating building supplies the field distributors at each pond with energy and compressed air. The circulation pumps convey over 100,000 liters / hour from pond 5 into the inlet trench via the underground DN110 pump lines. At the same time, the coolness of the earth lowers the water temperature while it is being pumped through the pipes.

Der Weg zum AV Prüm The Executive ... your contact person Christian Ziwes 1st chairman / equipment manager / website Electric fishing (§11 / 12 LFischVO) eM@il Erwin Black Treasurer eM@il Niko Nahrings Youth leader eM@il Elmar Rausch 2nd chairman / 2nd water keeper eM@il Dennis Noeske 1st water keeper eM@il Wolfgang Push Cabinmanager eM@il Stephan Alff Secretary eM@il Achim Candels 2. Gewässerwart eM@il Erich Ternes 3. Water keeper e-M@il

Vereinsgewässer und Erlaubnisscheine Club lake Artificial Lake Willwerath 360° tour Since 1971, the Willwerath reservoir with 1.62 ha of water has been the club water of the Prüm 1967 eV fishing association, which in addition to the regular restocking measures, also takes care of the maintenance work around the lake. In addition to large predators such as pike and pikeperch, the reservoir is naturally populated with original "Eifel brook trout" and is one of the few lakes in the region in which the rainbow trout has not found its way. Perches and eels are also part of the local biodiversity. The reservoir offers the coarse angler the opportunity to fish both mirror and scale carp. Roaches, chubs and bream may be taken without limitation. The statutory closed seasons and minimum dimensions apply to all other types. Fishing permits can be purchased on Sundays with the hut open (see hut services) or at our issuing offices in Prüm: water quality daily tickets arrival Weather at the reservoir

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The brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis Mitchill 1814 This colorful representative of the salmonids was imported to Europe from North America as early as 1884. It is therefore classified as a neozoa, alien animals that have entered a faunal area that was originally inaccessible to them through the involvement of humans. It is a very popular fish among anglers and is also valued as a food fish. However, natural reproduction is rare in Europe, so the species can only be preserved by stocking. Because even if it hardly reproduces naturally, the animals form sex products and the artificial reproduction largely corresponds to the methodology used with our brown trout. The incentive to produce these fish yourself is due to the fact that it was not possible to obtain animals in the colorful appearance so typical of the brook trout, as it is often portrayed. Why is that? The brook trout is usually used for edible fish production and not as stocking fish - which is a good thing. It simply has no place in open waters, since it hunts its prey in direct competition with the brown trout and occupies similar water structures, potentially displacing them as well. Further advantages compared to the brook trout are that brook trout hardly need shelter - as is unfortunately often the case with our straightened and therefore fast-flowing streams, as well as the better tolerance of acidic water - due to spruce monocultures. So these fish don't belong in open water and are intended as food fish or for angling - most of them end up straight from the farm directly onto your plate. It is only to be expected that fish farmers have looked for a way to increase their yield, a way that does not necessarily serve the preservation of the natural species, its appearance and it has been found. The solution to being able to produce larger quantities faster is the "Alsässer-Saibling" or "Salvelinus alpinus x fontinalis", a hybrid that was probably first grown in Alsace. In this crossing, Arctic char (alpinus) is used on the female side and brook trout (fontinalis) on the male side. In the case of hybridization, animals are usually optically closer to the mother species - here the arctic char - hence the weaker markings and marbling. It is also often claimed that "Alsatians" are sterile and incapable of reproduction - that is simply wrong. Hybrids are not necessarily sterile, but natural reproduction is as unlikely as that of the parent animals. Finding parents with the desired appearance, from a reputable source, turned out to be as difficult as it was tedious. The breeding stock was built up from young fish so that they could get used to the conditions in the breeding facility. We obtained animals from private breeders and even transported them from Bavaria to the Eifel. It should take 4 years until the first eggs could be stripped. In the spring of 2021, the first brook trout eggs arrived in the hatchery. These were picked up from a breeder friend of ours when they were in the eye point stage and we were able to gain initial experience in rearing the larvae up to the seedling. At this point let's go into a little more detail. Breeding the local brook trout naturally has absolute priority - brook trout spawn earlier, however, so we only lay small numbers of eggs, because there must always be enough space for the farios. Therefore, the eggs were placed in the incubator, which has a high capacity and is just as well suited for the rather small char eggs. An incubator offers various advantages over incubation in channels. The space requirement is very small with, in this case, 0.8 m² with a minimum water requirement of 2L/s and a capacity of up to 120,000 eggs. Another advantage is the possibility of separating the scrims according to trunks, each slot can be divided into up to 8 compartments. So can eggs in the eye point or too. Larval fish can be returned to their original waters. The average quantity of eggs in a brook trout rogner is 2,000 - 3,000 per kg of body weight. The eggs of our 4-year-old animals are approx. 3mm in diameter, they can be up to 5mm, so they are more than half smaller than those of the brown trout. So here on the right in the picture the fertilized eggs in the ocular stage. At this stage, the eggs are largely insensitive to transport. You have to know that we handle the eggs won as little as possible during incubation. A transport is only unfertilized (roe and milk separated), here the fertilization takes place immediately after arrival in the incubator, shortly after the fertilization in a small time window and just after reaching the eye point. This is quite easy to recognize - the eyes of the larva are now so far developed that they can be seen through the membrane of the egg. For transport, the laid eggs are removed from the water, divided into compartments in an insulating container, which, similar to the incubator, are divided into shelves and then stacked. It may sound wrong at first that the eggs are transported dry, but that is exactly what prevents the eggs from moving too much, they are "fixed" so to speak, because they are not insensitive to shocks and vibrations, which inevitably take place in the sloshing water. The bottom floor is left free and the top one is filled with ice. This defrosts during transport, and the water then drips through the individual floors, thus ensuring sufficient moisture and cooling before it collects again on the lowest level. Arriving at the incubator, unfertilized eggs are then selected before they are placed in a slot in the incubator. This would have been possible in advance, but it would have been much more convenient to do it in the incubator. Since Salmonids usually multiply during the cold season, transport in this way does not pose a problem in terms of temperature. Depending on what reading you take, brook trout are given with 450 - 470 daily degrees. So let's assume an average of 460 TG at an average water temperature of 6°C, which results in a hatch around the 76th day. Our clutches had at 35-.40. Day reached the eye point, leaving almost 4 weeks time for a transport or 168 day degrees. You should always take this into account beforehand, because the temperature increases during the procedure and, depending on the duration, hatching can then possibly begin. Afterwards, everyone carefully returns to the water. Here now first in a larger underflow box of a long-flow trough, everything unfertilized is now read out (no eye point recognizable = rejects). Then it goes over the counting plate to determine the exact amount, already in the incubator. From here the daily care begins, as if you had put them on yourself, until hatching. Since brook trout, at least in Europe, are very likely to come from farms, there are usually no problems to be expected in further rearing, which means above all the conversion to exogenous food. Always a critical point in rearing that cannot be missed, but with wild fish this process can often be fraught with problems. Here are the hatched brook trout in the larval stage. They can best be described as the size of a pin - really very small and filigree. It is all the more astonishing when you imagine that such a tiny thing will become what you will see below. When the first brown trout were released into the wild in April, the char were able to move into a channel that had become free - still quite small but already moving much further in the direction of the fish. From here on, however, the little ones develop quite quickly, with increasing feed size the more steadily and faster. The three pictures above show the development quite well. On the right you can already see the characteristic juvenile stripes that are already forming on the flanks, the development of the fins and their reddening as well as the white fin rays. We would have liked to have followed and recorded the development of the small brook trout for longer, but unfortunately this was not possible. On July 14, 2021, the hatchery in Willwerath was damaged by the flood and the water supply was destroyed. Luckily the water in the facility was "only" knee high and all the remaining broodlings in the facility could still be evacuated as the water did not reach the pools. Parallel to incubation, we have been looking for year-old animals in order to enable earlier entry into breeding. By selecting animals from other sources and the bred ones, the aim is to create a gene pool that is as broad as possible. As mentioned at the beginning, we had found a company that breeds high-quality fish in Bavaria and was willing to provide us with a sufficient quantity. For the transport of more than 600km we left in the middle of the night to arrive at the destination in the early morning. The trip took place at the end of March, so no temperature problems were to be expected. The transport trailer has the necessary oxygen system with EPDM air vents and an insulating container that protects the 600 liters of water from heating up during the journey. Arriving at the breeding facility, our fish were already waiting in the tanks to be picked up. They were caught from the pond the day before, which significantly reduces the stress of transport, as the fish return to the water quite quickly when transferred to the transport container. After adjusting the oxygen system the fish could be loaded and we made our way back to the Eifel. However, this took longer than the way there - every 45 minutes we took a break to check the oxygen saturation with the oximeter and make adjustments if necessary. The saturation was kept at an average of 95% over the entire route. Back home, all the char survived the transport well and we could start adjusting. The water only warmed up by 1.5°C during the trip. A third of the water has now been drained from the tank and gradually filled up with water from the pond. In this way, the animals could get used to the water values in a gentle manner and then be moved. What was left to do now was - wait. The fish had an average size of 15 cm and should have reached the 30 cm mark by the age of three. For this purpose, the feeding began with feed that has an increased carotene content. From 2mm up to 6mm grain. Char have a smaller mouth gap - therefore smaller grain sizes should always be chosen than with brown trout. After the long wait, we were able to win the first brook trout eggs from our own fish at the end of 2022 and lay them in the hatchery. The animals have developed excellently in recent years, as can be seen in the following pictures.

Vereinsheim und Hüttenbuchung The Anglerklause at the Willwerath reservoir The Anglerklause is located on the east side of the reservoir. The club home of the Angel Club Prüm 1967 eV, built in 1973, is open on many Sundays during the fishing season and is a popular destination not only for anglers but also for hikers and guests of all kinds. A list of open Sundays can be found below. Visit us at the reservoir - the hut is open from 10:00. The Anglerklause can also be rented for private parties / events, on request with service and catering - space for up to 40 people in the interior and for another 20 on the terrace - our hut keeper will be happy to answer your questions. Aal Salmo trutta fario Bachforelle (Salmo trutta fario) Brasse Döbel Grasskarpfen Hecht Rotauge Rotfeder Schleie Schuppenkarpfen Spiegelkarpfen Zander Der Zander (Sander lucioperca) wird maximal etwa 120 cm lang und etwa 20 kg schwer. Der Zander ist ein Süßwasserfisch der Gattung Sander aus der Familie der Echten Barsche (Percidae). Er ist in den Binnengewässern Mittel- und Osteuropas weit verbreitet. Früher reichte sein Verbreitungsgebiet östlich der Elbe über Osteuropa bis zum Aralsee. Im letzten Jahrhundert wurde der Zander auch westlich der Elbe eingebürgert. Er lebt einzeln oder in kleinen Schwärmen und bevorzugt im Gegensatz zum Hecht das uferferne Freiwasser. Der Zander bevorzugt größere, durch Plankton getrübte Fließgewässer (auch stehende Gewässer wie Teiche oder Seen) mit festen Untergründen. Der Zander lebt überwiegend im Süßwasser, kommt aber auch in Brackwasserbereichen (Flussmündungen) der Ostsee vor. Normalerweise lebt dieser Raubfisch bodennah in Wassertiefen von 3 bis 5 Metern, wo er an markanten Bodenformationen (Felsen, Vertiefungen) oder an Spundwänden auf Beute lauert. Bei klarem Wasser zieht sich der Zander in tiefere Wasserschichten zurück. Dank einer reflektierenden Pigmentschicht im Auge (Glasauge) kann der Zander nachts sehr gut sehen. So findet er seine Beute auch bei sehr schwachem Licht. Die Verbreitung des Zanders wird durch Besatzmaßnahmen und die Schaffung von Laichplätzen unterstützt. Bei Sportanglern ist der sehr scheue Zander ein beliebter Zielfisch. Bevorzugte Stellen für den Zanderfang sind z.B. Spundwände, Vertiefungen oder erhöhte Bodenformationen.

Interessante Links zum Thema Angeln, Natur und Fische links of friends Over the years, as an association, but also due to the project work for species conservation, we were able to get to know many nice and interesting people. We would like to introduce a few of them, at least those with an Internet presence, to you here: ASV Hillesheim 1977 registered association Fishing friends Burbach Fishing club Schmidtheim 1982 eV Frey water analysis Trout Gut Rosengarten fish farm Kauth Fishing club Liblar ARGE Nice LIFE project freshwater pearl mussel German Angler Association eV Eifel info Holiday region Prüm

Lake Willwerath North bank (entry area) East bank (cabin side) South bank (outlet structure) West bank plateau with barbecue area (parking lot Kleinlangenfeld)

Die Äsche - seltener Flussbewohner The grayling ... ... beautiful and threatened thymallus thymallus ... it is considered to be the most colorful local fish, it is the leading fish of the river region of the "grayling region" and fish of the year 2011. But the "flag bearer" has become a rarity in our waters or has completely disappeared. Grayling stand in the middle water, show no escape behavior and do not seek cover like brown trout would. So they are usually the first to fall prey to the invading cormorants. In most cases, however, water pollution from agriculture and industry, but also the construction of rivers and the associated reduction in shallow water zones, which are indispensable for larvae and juveniles, as well as the warming of the water is a main reason for a decline in stocks. The grayling Thymallus thymallus due to the large, striking dorsal fin also called the flag bearer belongs to the family of salmonids (salmon-like). In many places, committed associations are trying to preserve the species in their waters through stocking measures. However, it is scarcely possible to support established tribes with outside stocking. It is more promising to remove parent animals from existing populations that have already undergone a regional adaptation genetically. By breeding these animals it is possible to rebuild a stock "from below". It is a misconception that the use of adult animals is the right way. These can usually not adapt and contribute little, if any, to the natural reproduction of inventory. The search begins ... ... so it happened that in 2018 we started looking for a source for suitable grayling parents or fertilized eggs. Only a few are dedicated to the breeding of grayling, as a rule, breeders encounter animals that have been imported from Sweden / Denmark, if any statements about their origin are made. Our colleagues from Switzerland recognized the signs of the times and started a breeding program very early on. But after several conversations it was clear that no suitable material could be obtained here either - the Rhine Falls near Neuhausen represent a natural obstacle to hiking and the grayling trunks above and below differ genetically too much to be able to bring them into our waters.