Lic - Licus - Lech
The Lech and Lechtal glaciers began around 50 million years ago with water-driven erosion, the result of which today separates the Lechtal and Allgäu Alps as a deep valley. The last glaciation ended around 12,000 years ago. The process of gravel formation began. As a result, the Lech today flows around 20 to 30 metres above the rock bed carved out by the glacier.
In early times, the Celts came to the „Lic“ to hunt. In the 1st century AD, the Lech Valley belonged to the Roman province of Raetia and the river was called „Licus“. From around 500 AD, several waves of settlement passed through the area around the Tyrolean Lech. It is known that Alemannic tribes, Rhaeto-Romans, Bavarians and Valaisans migrated to the area of today's Tiroler Lech Nature Park. The monks of the monastery of St. Mang in Füssen - founded in the 9th century AD - now called it „Lech“, derived from the Greek lýkos (wolf), because in their opinion it resembled a ferocious wolf in its ferocity.
Picture: Tyrolean fishing book (1504) - In the Außerfern
The Tyrolean fishing book of Emperor Maximilian (1504) - he was a passionate fisherman - contains astonishingly early reports and illustrations of fishing in the region at that time, which has a tradition going back over 500 years.
Picture: Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519) fishing
Today flows the last savage of the Northern Alps from its origin to the first power station just before Reutte, uninterrupted in its natural riverbed over a distance of 70 kilometres (!). It is the largest contiguous wild river area in Central Europe and is a strictly protected Natura 2000 site. Due to its ecological uniqueness, it has been declared an „Austrian River Sanctuary“ by the WWF.
The Tyrolean Lech is unique in the heart of Europe: it harbours all the typical species and biocoenoses of an alpine wild river landscape. In our natural areas, the river flows through a gravel bed several hundred metres wide. Its waters repeatedly divide into several branches, only to reunite again soon afterwards. Letting your fly dance in this extraordinary river landscape is a special privilege.
The Lech River's journey covers about 256 kilometres and ends approximately 1,350 metres lower than its source. A few kilometres downstream from Donauwörth (Bavaria), it flows into the Danube.
„Returning from my fishing trips – whether from Greenland, Iceland, Canada or the Balkans… – I feel an ever deeper appreciation for our Lech. The comparison shows me how exceptional our river is. One of the greatest places of its kind in Central Europe.“
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