Summerly warm bathing lake. The Kraiger See is a small, idyllically situated bathing lake which is embedded in hill slopes that are surrounded by meadows and woods. In summer its water temperature climbs up to more than 25 °C.
Lake basin out of the Ice Age. The lake is situated in the north of town St. Veit at the bottom of the hill Kulmberg 596 m above sea level. It has a glacially formed flat basin with a maximal depth of 10 m. The geological underground is built up by metamorphic phyllites that are covered by different moraines and fluvial sedimentations.
Fed by ground waters. Primarily the lake is fed by ground water. Only a few wells flow in on the surface. The runoff, the Kraiger Seebach, leaves the lake in the south and has only a little water volume of 8l/s on average. The wind protected position in the basin helps that regularly during the summer months a thermal layering is built up, with warm surface- and cool depth- temperatures.
Good water quality by draining off of the deep waters. In 1974 a deep water drain off was installed for the first time in Carinthia. It should stop the progressing eutrophication. Out of the depth they led waters, rich in nutrients and poor in oxygen, down the runoff. Above all the extreme time of algae bloom was decisive for this project.
Conservation and surrounding. The lake has a small reed belt on the eastern shore. Behind it there are some ash-trees and willows near to the banks. On the west side restocked spruces reach down to the lake. On the south bank there is a bathing beach. The further surrounding is culture land.
The Kraiger See is situated in the landscape protection area “Kraiger Schlösser” which has an area of 532 ha (LGBl.83/1970).
Land of the castles. Leisure time activities which treat the environment carefully, offer pure recreation around the lake: hiking, jogging, swimming and biking. Also
ruins and castles of the nearby region invite for excursions.
10 species are documented:
Pike (Esox lucius)
Bass (Perca fluviatilis)
Catfish (Silurus glanis)
Chub (Leuciscus cephalus)
Bream (Abramis brama)
Carp (Cyprinus carpio)
Roach (Rutilus rutilus)
Common rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus)
Tench (Tinca tinca)
Pike-perch (Sander lucioperca)
The bream is the main fish of the Kraiger See. Besides here is a good population of catfish. In former times you could also find little basses, which have decreased now. Eel were never stocked. The lake is only used for angling nowadays, but in former times they also did net fishing. For this purpose they stocked lake trout, which even could adapt in the lake.
Stocking of chars in the Middle Ages. According to the information of Wulfen the char also could be found in the district “Greigensis”, the Kraiger See (Honsig- Erlenburg und Mildner, 1996). Because of the stocking of chars above all in regions that were under supremacy of the church in the Middle-Ages, we can suppose that chars were stocked in the Kraiger lakes and ponds at that time, too. This region there was the seat of a provost at that time.
The fishing season at the lake lasts from the beginning of May until the Beginning of November.
Pension Kraigersee, phone: +43 (0) 4212 3565, web:
www.kraigersee.at
Superior crayfish in the lake. The Kraiger See houses a population of noble crayfish.