Latvia's other headline migratory-salmonid river and the clearest second system to add after Gauja and Salaca. The Venta is a tightly regulated western Latvia river with public evidence for licensed salmon and sea-trout fishing rather than broad casual access. Sandstone freestone bedrock underlies this river. Atlantic salmon are managed under national and EU Baltic conservation rules, with quotas, size limits and seasonal restrictions; catch-and-release is widely applied — check current rules before fishing.
The Venta rises in Lithuania and runs three hundred and forty-six kilometres — a hundred and seventy-eight of them in Latvia — north to the Baltic at Ventspils. Its great set-piece is at Kuldiga, where the river spills over the Ventas Rumba: at two hundred and forty-nine metres across it is the widest waterfall in Europe, a low ledge of Devonian dolomite over which, in centuries past, leaping salmon and sturgeon were famously caught 'in the air' in baskets. The water is broad and lowland, lime-influenced off the dolomite bedrock, running through farmland and woodland on a gentle gradient. The sturgeon are long gone and the salmon much reduced, but the river keeps its run and its history. The character is wide, even-flowing water broken by the dolomite ledges and rapids. Wading is steady on firm rock, with real care on the slick dolomite shelves around the falls.
Wading: Slick dolomite shelves around the falls
Summer-autumn runs, seasonal patterns vary by region
- Sandstone
- Unconfined
- Pool riffle
- Large river