About the lake
The Berkesd fishing lake is located in Baranya County, in the northern part of the Baranyai Hills, south of Pécsvárad, accessible from the villages Berkesd and Kátoly. The lake was created by damming the Szilágyi stream and has been operating as a fish farm since the 80s of the previous century. Basically, there are 2 lakes. First, the new owner saved the upper one from destruction and sludging by investing a lot of money and time to make it suitable for fishing.
How to get there
From Szeged we can reach the lake in 2,5 hours by taking the Baja-Bátaszék-Pécsvárad-Berkesd route. From Budapest, you should take the M6 highway, passing Szekszárd-Mohács-Pécsvárad-Berkesd, which also takes 2-2,5 hours. The last 3 km section of the road leading to the fishing lake goes on a dirt road in the agricultural area. In case of rainy weather it is definitely worth checking with the owner of the lake to see if the road is accessible by car.
Hydrographic features
The fishing lake carries the characteristics of classical valleys with reservoirs. On the upper part there is a shallower, vegetated water section, which is also an excellent spawning ground, so fishing is not allowed there. Moving further down, the water depth reaches 2 metres and 3 metres in the former streambed. Because of the recent dredging there is not so much sludge that affects fishing. However, the aim of landscaping was not to create a perfectly straight water bottom, so that pits and snags keep the fish in place. The least amount of snags can be found in the middle of the lake, by the line of the serving buildings. It is comfortable and catching fish is almost guaranteed, so it is the most popular fishing area. Going to the dam, you will find the deepest parts of the lake, but not deeper than 4 metres.There are harder, sometimes stony parts here. Due to its depth, this part is less elusive, trees and bushes grow less, so there are not so many snags here.
The streambed is not parallel to the shore. It is hardly detectable in some places, but elsewhere it is much more noticable by both depth and structure. In the upper part of the lake, the bushes that stand out from the water also show where the streambed is, but we need to look for it at the deeper parts. After heavy rainfall, the lake becomes self-restrained and significant water movements can occur.
Fishing
As the very first step in creating the lake, even before dredging and landscaping, significant fish settlement took place. 4-5 – summer carp and pike weigh 2-3 kg were settled, establishing the stock. In addition to this, there were surprisingly large fish caught during the trial fishings, such as carp weigh over 10 kg and pike weigh over 6 kg. Some of them surely survived the shortage of water and the sludgy period.
The main fish of the lake is carp, which can be caught the easiest way by bottom fishing. If you want to catch larger fish, you should use boilies because if you use smaller baits, there is a much higher chance to catch 3- summer carp. Of course, it is still possible to catch these fish or bream and crucian with finer equipment, but the chances of catching fish over 3 kg are significantly reduced.
Our first experiences show that larger fish prefer stinkier and spicy tasting baits (both boilies and pellets) that are bigger than 20 mm. There is a sense in carp fishing with floats on the northern part of the fishing lake, especially when the water is warming up and when stronger wind is blowing from the South or the South-West.
There is also a significant amount of grass carp in the lake, which remained from the former fish farming, but we are not able to give any advice for their targeted fishing. You may catch one while fishing for carp.
Predatory fish
Anglers’ prey consists of a large number of pike, an increasing number of pike perch and an undetermined amount of catfish. In the autumn season (from November 1st to January 31st) it is possible to fish for predatory fish. Of course trolling is allowed, for which we can provide boats. Pike weigh over 6 kg and pikeperch weigh 3 kg have already been caught. Catching catfish is really uncommon, but during the summer the owner of the lake found a corpse of a catfish that weighed more than 30 kg.
Infrastructure
On the eastern side of the lake there are 3 guest houses and an open guest terrace. The main fishing pier, where fishing is allowed, is located here as well.
Serving facilities are also available here, you can use the bathrooms for personal hygiene and get water as well.
We can provide accomodations including up to 3 meals a day. For anglers who stay for several days we can purchase all the necessary food, drinks and other products at the store price.
During the high season a snack bar and a fishing shop is also open where essential products are available. Boats with or without an electric motor can be rented here as well.
