Tauragnas
Tauragnas is a lake in the territory of Utena district municipality, east of Tauragnai. The area 503.3 ha, length 9.5 km (Tauragnas stretches in a semicircle from the west to the north-east and south-east), the greatest width 1.1 km. The surface altitude 164.8 m. Tauragnas is the deepest lake in Lithuania, the greatest depth 62.5 m (in the western part of the lake), average depth 18.4 m. The lake is of glacial trough origin. The area of the basin 73.6 km2. The coastline is winding, its length 24.3 km; on the southern side there protrudes a peninsula. Banks are mostly high and steep, only the peninsula is swampy (there is Pajauris swamp). From the north-east the lake is surrounded by Šeimatis, Varniškės and from the south, Pajauriai, Sėlė forests. Some rivulets flow in (one of them from Labė lake); the rivulet Tauragna flows out into Pakasas lake; Tauragnas belongs to the basin of Žeimena. The lake is fed with underground wells, so the level of water does not fluctuate much. The flowage 25 %. The sandbank is narrow, overgrown with reeds, bulrush, rush. In Tauragnai near the lake there is a water measuring station.
Tauragnas is a part of Aukštaitija National Park; Tauragnas and its surroundings are Tauragnas landscape reserve. On the southern bank of Tauragnas there are Taurapilis and Tauragnai hillforts and burial grounds, Sėlė (Sėla) hillfort, on the northern bank – Stučiai and Šeimatis burial grounds, at the south-eastern end of Tauragnas, on the north-eastern bank – Skroblus I, Varniškės burial grounds.
In this lake you can still come across whitefish which was introduced here from Peipus lake. In 1985 the one of the weight of even 4.2 kg was caught and studies showed that it was born in this lake.
It could seem that the boundaries of Tauragnas are finally formed but they are not. The depth of the lake is no longer disputed, it is most probable that the initial measurements were imperfect and inaccurate. However, even now dozens of meters of in-shore reeds constantly disappear under the water. They just mysteriously vanish without any explanation. This is what exactly happened more than 80 years ago with a small island overgrown with alder trees. Just 45 years ago in that place there used to grow rare reeds of the area of 20 x 30 meters. Ice destroyed the shallow and the reeds disappeared. Today there is Graužynas shallow in the north-eastern direction from Žąsinas horn. The depth there reaches 1.5 m. Not less mysterious is the outflowing Tauragna which often completely dries out in dry summers. According to scientists, the south-eastern part of the bowl of the lake is based on gravel formations, that is why the water of the lake is filtered into the underground and partially feeds Pliaušis lake to the north. During the year the level of water fluctuates about 70 cm, in spring, 50 cm.
Several rare water plants included in the Red Book have been found: greater creeping spearwort, common river grass and narrow-leaf water-plantain.
Tauragnas has been famous for fish since old times. This is reminded by ancient fish catching tools: fishing gaffs, creels, net weights that are found during archeological excavations, or in old homesteads. Tauragnas is famous not only for its depth but also for its fish. Here used to live the biggest basses in Lithuania, up to 3 and more kilograms; vendace used to be really big, up to 300 g; rudds in the in-shore grasses used to grow more than 1 kg. And what about super large roach, a meter-length eel, record „Tauragnian” pikes. And all this was not hundreds of years ago, but just in the 8-9 decades of the 20 century. Unfortunately, the changing environment and human activities changed the population of fish: there are no longer basses whose age used to reach 20 or more years, the numbers of vendace decreased several times, the last eels emigrated. Only rudds in Tauragnas are still enormously large and their numbers increase in the overgrown bays of the lake.
40-50 years ago fish was started to be caught by fish farms. However, it was not easy to catch fish in this ditch-like lake with steep slopes. Fixed gillnets turned out to be too low for the depths of Tauragnas; dragnets scraped on slopes, got stuck on the edges of shallows. Therefore, fishermen went to other lakes where fishing was easier: Baluošas, Lūšiai, Asalnas and others. In the years of independence, it became possible to obtain nets for catching vendace and they became the most desirable fish. Anglers enjoyed catches of basses, big pikes, but not everyone knew how to catch fish in this lake. So one had just to wonder how a local old fisherman used to pull out several half-a-kilo basses with a wooden winter fishing rod while what others could catch using even the thinnest line were just „skinny“ basses.
According to the level of eutrophication Tauragnas belongs to mesotrophic lake type. According to dominant and indicative fish species the lake is assigned to „smelt” type variants, where the main body of fish includes cold-liking fish – smelt, vendace and fish of other ecological groups – roach, bass, and bream. The commercial perspective fishing type – vendace.
According to the summarized data of the studies in 2010-2011, there are 14 common species of fish in Tauragnas: smelt, vendace, pike, bream, roach, tench, rudd, white bream, common, bleak, burbot, bass, ruff, three-spine stickleback and eel. The lake belongs to a medium productivity lake group, has repeatedly been stocked with vendace, pikes and eels.
Basses which reach 300-400 g, regulate the numbers of lake smelts, and pikes those of vindace (in summer in the depths, in autumn in the in-shores), eels regulate the numbers of small roach. Complicated but stable feeding chains form. The condition of fish corresponds to the possibilities of an oligomezotrophic lake, only the condition of sources of pikes being not met. The number of some fish, for example, burbot, even though they have been stocked with in abundance, is doomed by parasitizing helminths. There is a need to restore the resources of eels, the population of lake whitefish could be restored and catfish could be introduced. In the future it is purposeful to only fish vendace with commercial equipment, although fishing of other fish could be organized using ethnographic tools such as fish traps and fishing baskets.
Tauragnas stood in the way of the stone
According to the legend, a long while ago there lived a man Mokas. He had a wife and a son. The family of the Mokas were really hard-working and worked for the whole kin. However, having got upset with people‘s laziness, he became sad and stopped working himself. People got angry with him, so he had to move. He took his wife and son and travelled northwards. However, the way was blocked by Tauragnas lake and it had to be crossed. Mokas told his wife and son to look back while crossing. The son listened to his command, but his wife did not and so she got drowned. Mokas wept a lot, got onto the shore and stood there so long as he turned into a stone. He still is standing there. And on the bottom of Tauragnas there lies his wife, a large stone upon which fishermen often tear their nets. These are the stones nearby Tauragnas lake: two large rocks, Mokas and Mokiukas. Its measurements 3X2.6X2.7 m and next to it there is a smaller rock – Mokiukas. There is a hardly visible date cut on Mokas rock – 1860.
