Country’s First Fishing Museum Awaits Visitors with Many Relics

Lake Tisza in the eastern part of Hungary has a new pride, as the country’s first fishing museum has opened in Sarud, Senior.hu reports. The location can be deemed symbolic since Lake Tisza is a four-season fishing lake, including several types of water and is home to most of the native Hungarian fish.

The fishing museum first opened in 2006 at Lake Balaton, with the initial pieces of the collection coming from the legendary Uncle Gyuri Gönci, a fisherman and fishing shop owner living in Balatonalmádi. It was he who first started collecting old fishing tackle. However, the museum was closed down and some of the relics collected were sent to Hatvan near Budapest, while the other part was collected by the manager of the Sarud Experience Village at Lake Tisza.

Over the years, the collection has continued to grow, including through bequests, donations from anglers and items bought at fairs. In 2016, the Lake Tisza Fishing Museum opened its doors, but it was not to last long, as two years later it had to close for economic reasons, leaving the country without a fishing museum once again.

This brings us to the present day, when the ill-fated fishing collection will hopefully find a permanent home in Sarud, in the former Varsa restaurant building.

The Varsa Experience Courtyard, which will be built around the museum, is soon to become a real community center, with a play house and a farmyard, among other things.

In the Fishing Museum, visitors will find fishing rods, reels and related equipment, fish utensils and a collection of motorboats from local harbor owner János Gál. The new museum also has a mini reel dismantler and a fishing net tying corner for children, and it will also house the CHERVY collection, a tribute to one of Hungary’s most popular bait makers, Peter Cservenák.

Fishing is very popular in Hungary, thanks to the many lakes and rivers. It is no coincidence that Hungarian anglers excel in such good conditions on a global scale.

Just this week, the news came in that the Hungarian angling team won a gold medal at the World Feeder Fishing Championships in Bela Crkva, Serbia.

The Hungarian national team, ranked second in the world, regained the world title after a tremendous fight, thanks also to a brilliant second day of fishing. The Netherlands finished second, while the bronze medal went to the British team.

Featured photo via Facebook/Élményfalu Sarud, a Tisza-tó Aktív- és Ökoturisztikai Központja