The Fish Behind the Festivities

Photographer: Lukas Vincour

Videographer: Lukas Vincour

Every autumn in Czechia, a seasonal ritual unfolds across the countryside. Large fish ponds are drained, nets are pulled tight, and thousands of fish are lifted from the water. These annual traditional pond harvests are part work, part public event.

Inside Czechia’s Autumn Pond Harvests and Christmas Carp Tradition

At one 22-hectare pond in the Central Bohemian Region, our photojournalist Lukas Vincour documented spectators lining the banks: live music, families with children, and vendor stalls. In one morning, an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 fish were removed from the water. Most of these were common carp, joined by catfish, grass carp, zander, pike and bighead carp.

The Mechanics of a Harvest

During the harvest, once the water level is low enough, fishermen drive fish toward shore by striking the surface with long poles. Nets are drawn in, and fish are lifted by crane. They are then dumped into troughs, sorted by species, weighed and either loaded into transport trucks or killed on-site for customers.

Roughly 40 percent of the fish taken at this event were killed and butchered at the market stalls on-site. For the rest, the ordeal was not yet over. They were moved to holding ponds for later sales, many destined for temporary Christmas markets across Czechia.

Christmas Carp: A Seasonal Tradition

In cities throughout the country, short-term fish stalls appear about a week before Christmas Eve. Here, thousands of live carp are held in crowded portable tanks. Customers choose their fish and can have them killed and butchered on-site for an added fee, or take them home alive in plastic bags to be killed later.

At home, carp are commonly kept in bathtubs in chlorinated water (which is toxic to fish) for several days before slaughter. Handling at these markets can be rough. Fish are often seen struggling on counters, falling to the ground or inadequately stunned before slaughter. Our photojournalist documented one fish still moving while being descaled.

A growing body of scientific research confirms that fish are capable of feeling pain and stress. In this context, the handling and conditions observed during harvests, markets and hatchery processes raise clear welfare concerns.

According to the State Veterinary Administration, nearly 3,000 of these Christmas fish markets operated across Czechia in 2023. Early reports suggest fewer stalls in 2024, but research indicates more than five million carp are still killed annually, most of them destined to be eaten for Christmas Eve dinner.

A recent investigation by Compassion in World Farming revealed shocking levels of suffering on carp farms in Czechia, demonstrating the urgency for stronger fish welfare laws in the EU.

Inside the Hatcheries

Fish farming has deep roots in Czechia, especially for carp. For this project, Lukas Vincour documented several facilities, from small trout farms to one of the country’s most modern hatcheries.

At a trout hatchery, rainbow, brown and brook trout, along with burbot, are bred for fishing grounds and direct sales. Eggs and milt are manually stripped from broodstock during spawning season, fertilized, and kept in cold-water incubation devices until hatching. Once fry absorb their yolk sacs, they’re moved to flowing-water tanks, where several dead and dying fish were observed.

At a larger hatchery in Pohorelice, workers extracted eggs from female carp, mixing them with milt and a diluted cow’s milk solution to remove stickiness before transferring them to incubation cylinders. Incubation typically lasts three to five days. Some broodstock showed bruising or lethargy before being placed back into transport tanks.

A Seasonal Cycle

Together, the scenes from these images reveal the whole system of the season, from public pond harvests to Christmas markets and the hatcheries that supply them. Czechia’s holiday traditions depend on a supply chain that stretches from muddy autumn ponds to bathtub-held carp on Christmas Eve.

Photographer: Lukas Vincour

Videographer: Lukas Vincour