Hooked on carp, Czechs keep Yuletide custom alive

Today, induction into the fisherman's guild still requires a frigid initiation, which includes an oath to serve the patron saints of fishing, a dunking in ice-cold water, and a swift spanking with an ornate wooden paddle.

In the 15th century, Stepan Netolicky designed a system of fish ponds around a 25-mile long Zlata Stoka (Golden Drain) running through Trebon, which is still a considered a small marvel of engineering.

At the time, much of South Bohemia was marshland. But slowly the landscape was changed by the fish ponds, which retain and reuse water while allowing surrounding land to be cultivated. Now, the ponds and the giant oak trees that cling to their dikes are a natural part of the Czech countryside and shelter a host of wildlife and birds.

Hofbauer's family, which owns 16 ponds in the Trebon area, began trading carp to Vienna in exchange for wine in the 16th century.

The farm compound, with rough stone walls, a windmill, and an interior courtyard sheltering the huts of farm workers, still has the look of a medieval fort. Indeed, it once had a moat, built on carp wealth.

But in 1949, when the Communist Party took over what was then Czechoslovakia, the Hofbauers' prestige became a liability. As the wealthiest farmers in the area, the family was stripped of land and forced to work at menial jobs. Hofbauer, who was 25 at the time, was banned from the fishing industry altogether, while his father was imprisoned for five years.

"Fishing was everything to me as a boy," Hofbauer says, as he clenches his fists. "It was extremely painful for me to be banned from fishing. I missed the ponds terribly."

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 turned the tables again and Hofbauer was able to return to his childhood home. The buildings were crumbling, and the winter holding ponds had been destroyed. "I am still rebuilding," he says. "But I just had to come back. I could not just let go of such a strong tradition which had been built by so many generations. I couldn't live with myself if I did."

Of the 620 farming families in the area, only seven have gone back to agriculture since the Velvet Revolution. Now, in a region where every village once had two or three fish farms, Hofbauer's is the only profitable family operation left.

Today Hofbauer produces 110,000 pounds of carp yearly and sells it at around 60 cents a pound. That is enough to compete with big farming companies, and Hofbauer now expects that his grandson, also named Jan, who at 19 is studying at a fishery academy, will return and take over the farming operation from him.

"That makes me a happy man," he says, with a broad grin. "This is one family tradition that isn't going to die."

As for this Christmas, when asked if she is too tired of working the carp ponds to cook the fish, Hofbauer's wife Hana laughs.

"We have to have carp for dinner," she says. "It wouldn't be Christmas without carp."

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