Vidinkstas
Vidinkstas lake is 10 km from Utena, on its southern bank there is the village of Pakalniai. The altitude of the lake is 162.18 above sea level, its basin is 5.75 km2. The area of Vidinkstas is 115.5 ha; the lake is replenished with water from many nameless rivultets, and from the western bay a nameless rivulet flows out of the lake, towards Versmynas lake. The length of the lake from the north to the south 2.4 km, average width 0.49 km, the coastline 7.2 km. The greatest depth 5.9 m, average depth 3.8 m, volume of water 4.3 m. m3. The lake is of glacial origin, the slopes are steep, rising up to 10-40 m and in the distance of 10-70 m from the bank; loam soil in the slopes. On the eastern and western parts of the lake there are larger bays. Depths near the bank suddenly become deeper, and in the distance of 20-50 m from the bank the bottom becomes flatter. The deepest hollow is in the north-western part. On the banks sand soils dominate, 20-50 m from the bank black- greyish sludge begins. Sand makes up 23.3 ha of the bed, sludge 91.5 ha. In Vidinkstas in June, 2008, 34 species of algae were found; the amount of phytoplankton made up 3 m. cells/l, the biomass 2.69 mg/l. According to the biomass of phytoplankton, this is a mesotrophic lake.
The most common fish caught in the lake are: breams, carps, pikes, rudds, roach, white breams, basses, trout. Trout are the most desirable fishermen’s catch. The numbers of trout in the lakes of Utena region are considerably smaller than those in Kaunas or Curonian lagoons, and they are much smaller.
Vidinkstas has been inhabited by broad-fingered crayfish since old times. Among the crayfish caught dominated animals of 105, 115 and 100 mm in length. Among males the most numerous were groups of 115, 105 and 110 mm in length, among females – 105, 100 and 95 mm in length. Some male crayfish have been caught whose length was over 130 mm and weight over 100 g.
During the studies in 2013, the resources were found to have decreased significantly because of intensive fishing; small crayfish prevailed.
Basses in Vidinkstas over 7+ years of age grow up to about 12.5-14.2 cm in length and 24-30 g in weight – the rates of growth are slow. Breams, according to length belong to the average group, and according to weight, to the slow-growing group. The total relative abundance of fish in Vidinkstas lake in all catches using all fishing tools shows that the biggest amounts are those of roach and white breams (72 and 14.2 % respectively), meanwhile the biomass of breams is much bigger and reaches 57.5 % of the total biomass of fish. From the rest of the fish no ones distinguish by their amount and biomass. The total fishiness is rather small. The population of the lake is not completely balanced, because predatory fish – pikes are rare, their abundance and mass in the population makes up only several per cent. Basses also do not perform the role of predators since here they are rather small and their mass is only 3.3 % of the total fish mass.
