MODRAC - THE LAKE OF WORLD RECORDS 91 lbs CARP! By Mirzet Mujacic / Ramirez

I was seven at the time. My dad promised to take me to Lake Modrac.
The thought of going kept me awake throughout the night as I've never been there before, Only hang out on a couple of near by ponds with my neighbor kids. Our fishing gear was a wooden stick, a line, and we used a bottle cap as cork. Modified bent pin was our hook as anyone who owned real hooks in town was considered lucky. A real fishing experience was ahead of me and I was so ready. Dad managed to scrap some money and he bought a real fishing rod with a reel, The rod was 67 inches long and the reel was a generic brand, kind of looked like A prototype of first Shimano reel ever made, and when you start reeling it back in It was making a crunching noise but it worked, for all I cared.

We got up around 3 in the morning on a summer day. We were going to walk across couple of hills and pass through another village to get to the lake. I'll never forget the view as we climbed the highest peak on our way and the enormous water surface down in the valley between the high hills, The largest I've ever seen at the time, it was Lake Modrac. The smell of woods was mesmerizing as we were going down the hill and approaching the lake. Dad was pretty serious when it came to fishing, going for deep water casting and Big fish only - and I was using the wooden stick trying to catch the little ones.
Home made bread leftovers is what we used for bait and both of us had a good outcome, I caught a couple of Red tails and dad had a few Drums and Carps, the fish I've never heard about before. It was an unforgettable experience. We had breakfast there on the lake and I was starring at the water that looked so busy, There was constantly something going on inside that huge water accumulation, the minnows were jumping around in a shallow water chased by the big fish who was slaying them.

Came back home tired with smile on my face and a bag full of fish. I fell asleep right away thinking "Hopefully we won't see that fish next time we go". The fish was a so called "Bucov-bolen". I asked dad once how come we do not try to catch the Bolen fish, the one all the other fish were scared of, he just waived his head and said its meat is not really tasty and the fish has a lot of bones.
My dad was inspiration and someone to look up to at all times, but this time I did not like the answer he gave me. I was so intrigued by Bolen fish that I wanted to catch it right there when I saw it and did not care if its meat was poisonous or not. Bolen was so fast in the water, driving in the shallow water, then pop at the middle of the lake and swirl around in between the swimmers' feet in the water. That's how it all looked like long time ago at my lake Modrac, when it was so rich of fish like big Carps and Catfish, Pikes, Perches and other white lake fish. And then the industry came and prevailed with coal mines, explosives, power plants, etc.

Formation of Lake Modrac
Lake Modrac was artificially created in 1964, when a dam was built on the river Spreca in the town called Modrac, county of Lukavac with intention to support near by industry with water. The lake is approachable pretty much coming from any direction. If you're coming from NE town Doboj, take a freeway Doboj to Tuzla. In Lukavac you will connect to the loop toward Banovici that goes along river Spreca, passing through Modrac and Prokosovici you will get to the lake. If you keep driving past the lake you come to villages of Lukavac county: Bikodze, Turija, Babice and Poljice. The lake is accessible along its entire shore. If you're coming from Croatia, take a freeway to northern Bosnian border point called Orasje, take a freeway to Tuzla and on Sicki Brod loop take an exit toward Kiseljak which will take you straight to Modrac lake. Coming from Sarajevo take a highway to Tuzla and a left turn toward the lake in town called Zivinice. It is pretty much impossible to miss the lake and get lost along the way. The size of lake Modrac is one of the largest water accumulation in entire Ex-Yugoslavia, with rivers Spreca and Turija flowing directly into the lake. It's spread out on 17 square kilometers, 1600 meters wide and 11 km long with depths Of 20 m. Lake Modrac has a great potential when it comes to supporting industry and economy of the whole region, tourism is also growing and it's beauty is God given for the most Important thing that matters in this world - FISHING. You can fish literally at any spot of its shore. During rainy season, a short walk enlightens the day on your way to the lake. The lake is deepest in the middle where Spreca and Turija were flowing long time ago. Lake's bottom is made of ground and stone, tree trunks, big rocks, even flooded houses and an entire village that existed prior to formation of the Lake.

Life inside the lake Lake Modrac was at its enriched peak in period from 1964 to mid eighties. Industry was just starting to boom, there were not so many fishermen as today and their gear and knowledge was at the infant's level. Nevertheless, it was not possible to come back home from fishing empty handed. White lake fish was the easiest catch and Carp was biting madly to simple home made bread used as bait. Pikes loved the minnows, butterfly spinner bait and was easily lured to even dead minnows or pieces of dead fish. Catching a good size catfish using deep water fishing techniques was so easy it was not even challengeable and you could not tell if there was more water than Bucov Bolen fish inside the lake.

In period from 1980-1995 we all, partially unaware, decided to destroy the lake. Industrial waste water was being dumped into lake and enormous amount of fish was being caught and pulled out of the lake, some by fishermen and some who saw that as business opportunity that all led to fish mortality and imbalance. A lot of fish was literally extinguished and it was coming to the point where it was a challenge to catch a good size Perch or Carp. They were hard to find. Life inside of Modrac lake was at the edge of extermination during civil war period in Bosnia. It was justified by a need to overcome poverty and feed the familis but the truth was that a lot of people got rich pulling huge loads of fish out of the lake. As the war ended and government reestablished, Lake Modrac reached its third phase, The reincarnation of the lake.

In the beginning
In 1995, a lot of the fishing associations started reorganizing and "Smudj" was one of them. Nowadays, it operates on more than 2/3 of the lake area and it is one of prestige and most dedicated associations in whole Tuzla Region. Smudj counts 350 active members and has a committee established to protect the fish breed of the lake. Smudj also hired Husnija Mrdzic, to be a lake guard for additional preservation of the fish in the lake. Smudj also owns a property where the fish is being repopulated and it has a fishing ban year around. In 1999, the lake was repopulated with 2000lb each of five different fish, some of them brought from neighboring Serbia. The members of Smudj are struggling a lot with illegal fishing and this would have not been the issue had the state law and legislators gave proper support to the association. Most of the industry there is shut down, the coal mines were forced to filtrate their waste water and in the last year period, when the lake reached its lowest level ever since it was formed, there was a large initiation to clean the off shore area of all kinds of waste and disposal.
The fact that in the last two years around 1360 fishing nets was confiscated undoubtedly shows that large percent of illegal fishing is still a huge problem. This was initiated by Smudj club along with help of local police department. There is a few more fishing associations that are trying to preserve Lake Modrac, "Rudar" from Tuzla and "Mrena" from Zivinice as well as new established " Sloboda" from Tuzla, and in cooperative effort of all of these named above, the overall situation is improving even though we're long way from our goals. Lake Modrac is a huge lake with lots of potential with almost perfect conditions for fish breeding and all it would take to have a full recovery of the fish in the lake is just a couple of years of following the rules and regulations when it comes to depriving the fish growth.

Life reborn Lately, fishermen are catching fish only for private purposes and there has been significant increase in catching perch, carp and catfish, particularly in last two years. Some of the perch caught was weighing 24 lb, catfish up to 207 lb (I will talk more on this particular catfish in one of the next issues), carp up to 55 lb, etc. However, do not let these numbers fool you; I am pretty darn sure that there is much larger fish still living in the lake. My following assumption is based on enormous beast catfish photo and it is that Lake Modrac claims the largest living catfish in its water in whole Ex Yugoslavia region and furthermore, maybe even whole Europe. I'm guessing there is catfish in Modrac weighing over 450 lb, and I know it doesn't sound truthful and real, but feel free to believe me as I was personally listening to the stories of the divers when they were extracting drowned tourists off the lake bottom claiming to have seen enormous catfish in the lake. Among catfish there is also huge perches weighing between 33 and 39 lb, Some of the fishermen claim to have felt the strength of these fish on their reels but have never gotten a chance to pull them out of the water and take a photo as a proof.

The carp has a lot of past on lake Modrac. In this case I will be very precise:
The largest carp ever caught on this lake was weighing 91.227 pounds. This is an absolute world record. !!!
Unfortunately this fish was caught using illegal fishing techniques such as the net. During the competition, Husnija Mrdzic along with Smudj committee member Dervis Djedovic found huge female carp trapped in the net and they both tried to pull the carp out of the net and save her - but did not succeed.
The fish was first set on 50 lb scale, which didn't quite work out, and the record weight of 91.227 was recorded once the fish was weighed with 100 lb scale. Everything on this competition was done in amateur way except for weighing the carp as seen in photos. Unfortunately, past can not be changed and this world record was never reported but hopefully it will not happen again. However, when heard about this unofficial world record, fishermen from Germany, Holland and Great Britain started visiting Lake Modrac more frequently.
If they only knew that this unofficial world record carp was not even saved or stuffed but…….
- I feel embarrassed even thinking about it. What matters is that lake is getting growing attention from fishermen abroad. I will talk about that in one of my next articles.

Initiative actions taken Sufficient funding was recently released so that 6000 lb of fish can be transported from Prnjavor to lake Modrac and thus carp will be repopulated with 4000 lb of fresh fish, 2000 lb of catfish and little of other white lake fish. In town of Prokosovici, a professional running track was paved along the shore which Provides a really good spot for national fishing competition and with even greater effort and lake environment improvement, there is a strong possibility that at some point in the future we will be able to see international fishing cups being held at this Bosnian pearl-Lake Modrac. Lodging and relaxation at the lake are provided by newly built hotel "Senad od Bosne". Another hotel is being built right next to the water as we speak; there are tons of restaurants and guest houses along this side of the lake. Prices are really affordable, well below any European standards. Fishing permits (daily, weekly and annual) are available at any fishing association in Tuzla Region and recently, it is possible to obtain a fishing permit directly from the lake guard. Annual permits costs 35 euros and daily one is 5 euros. I can not finish this story and not to mention the fishing crew of casters All of them are pretty young and their goal is not only to catch as much fish but to relax and hang out at the lake, as well as attending the competitions. They keep catching pikes and Bucov Bolen fish under 2 lb and catfish under 6 lb. Their nicknames are as follows: Anto, Hrva, Bega, Zlaja, Dragan, Pero, Bozo, Enes, Dzamba, Zeljko, Casper, Cata, Susa, Spahic….apologies to ones I forgot to mention.

At the end, I should say something about myself; I am the first and only initiator of new movement and a tag line called "CATCH AND LET GO" where one should catch the fish, take a picture if so and let the fish back in the water.
Professional carp fishing is still at the beginners level here in Bosnia, mostly due to financial shortages, but I keep seeing more and more people who take carp fishing as professionally and seriously as I do and they dearly join my new movement, CATCH AND LET GO.
Its all matter of pride, especially after the embarrassment we had with a 91 lb carp!

Mirzet Mujacic / Ramirez
March 2006