The Angling Report

March 2007    Pag. 13/14

Volume 20,  Number 3

 
Outfiter Critiques

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Subscriber Jefferson Miler has wonderful things to say about a fishing guide he found during a trip to Italythis past fall.

He writes:
I spent the second half of October on vacation with my wife in Italy.  On this trip, I discovered an excellent fly fishing opportunity and a wonderful fishing companion and guide.
Luca Castellani guides anglers on the upper reaches of the Tevere River (Tiber to you and me) and he knows his stuff.  This is a recently established tailwater fishery with angling for browns and grayling.  There is a lot of insect activity and hatches were happening basically all day.  I caught upwards of 20 browns and a few small grayling.   The trout we caught weren’t huge, but we didn’t catch any “dinks, either.  The fishing was very technical and almost entirely with dries.  Luca is totally dialed in to the bugs on the water and to these very selective fish.  We fished a variety of small (16, 18) stonefly patterns, changing often and effectively.  An 18-foot leader ending in an 8X tippet made things interesting.  It’s safe to say that without Luca’s knowledge, I’d have caught maybe a couple of fish. 
Luca is really fun to fish with.  He speaks very good English and really enjoys putting the angler on fish.  A good cast or presentation is met with a hearty “Perfecto!”  This stretch of river gets a lot of pressure from the members of a nearby angler’s club.  Even on a Thursday, there were a lot of people on the water.  Luca is obviously regarded as the guru here and he seemed to always be able to find an open stretch of river.
A good day of fishing is wonderful wherever one fishes.  Fishing in Tuscany, though, is really special.  It’s pretty unique to look up and see a castle in the distance, to know that you’re fishing within a few kilometers of Michelangelo’s birthplace or see a fisherman emerge from a taxi he’s taken from Bologna, three hours distant.
Luca and his partners fish the Tevere from May 1 through November 30.  Prime time is July 15 through September 30.  They also fish the Upper Nera in late spring as well as several other streams.  Their main deal, though, is the Tevere.
He and his partner don’t bill the fishing they offer as a destination in itself, but as an opportunity for a “vacation within a vacation.”  After a week and a half of hard touring in Italy, I found it to be a very welcome break and pretty darned good fishing.  I had my own rod and reel, but Luca supplied the waders and flies.  He can supply all the gear you need if you’re traveling light. 
The water he fishes is about 90 minutes South of Florence and approximately 2 1/2 hours North of Rome.  There are all sorts of accommodations near the river.  Luca’s wife is an acclaimed tour guide and he’s associated with an organization called Western European Travel, so arranging tours and activities for non-fishing companions is easily accomplished.
In addition to being an excellent guide and companion, Luca is something of a bargain.  He charges 200 Euro for a day of fishing, about $250 American. 
He can be reached at castellaniluca@inwind.it

I've have been fly fishing Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Scottland.  Luca, you are by far the best guide ever!  The fish were huge, but the company was better.  My wife is a novice, but with Luca's help she caught more fish than me.  And, that's hard for a Texan to admit!  I can't wait to go back and fish the Nera.

Rick Rennhack

Fishing the Tevere in Tuscany, Italy

My bride and I were visiting some small towns in Tuscany for a week toward the end of October, and I managed to negotiate a day’s trout fishing.  A little internet search found me a couple of fine English speaking fellows with Mosca Club Altotevere, Mareno Borriero and Luca Castallani.  They guide on the Tevere (or Tiber), a tailwater that eventually flows through Rome to the Tyrrhenian Sea.  There are several other fishable streams in the area also where they guide also.  The club is headquartered at the farmhouse hotel Podere Violino, near the quaint little medieval town of Sansepalcro on the border of Tuscany and Umbria.  I showed up with no gear and few expectations - was I in for a surprise!

Where we fished was a flat, slow moving section above a low head dam, just a few minutes from the lodging.  We were the only ones on the river, it was drizzling rain, and the brown trout were jumping as far upriver as I could see.  Some of those I saw at close range were easily 20”-24”.  The dozen or so I actually brought to hand were in the 14”-18” range.  Of course there were numerous missed strikes and last second refusals. The river had a hard flat bottom and the wading was very pleasant.  We could spot fish cruising along the bushy far bank and I had no trouble reaching them with the light rod – it was mostly sight-casting.  I was expecting an overused fishery and petite trout, but I found the Tevere to be well regulated and full of bruisers.  I was impressed with the professionalism of the guides, the club, the whole operation.

Luca provided the gear; a 4wt Sage, new waders that fit, 7x tippet, and he tied all his own flies.  The insects the fish were feeding on were impossibly tiny blue winged olives, so Luca’s solution was bright yellow inch-plus-long foam Chernobyl Ant variants. If the hatch had been baby chicks, we could say we matched it.  They would slowly take the fly dead drifted under the branches at the bank, or with more gusto, ripped aggressively midstream.

Podere Violino is clean and comfortable, and has wonderful food and good prices. The language was no problem, except in trying to sort out Italian road signage and toll ways.  I’d advise anyone to get a good map and a briefing on toll paying scheme.  The day’s guide fee was 200€, plus there was a daily river fee of 10€, plus a 30€ one-time regional license, all of which were obtained at the hotel.  If you find yourself headed to this lovely region, the Tevere, and Luca and Mareno are worth your while. 

 
Moreno: moreno@alpiapuane.com 
Luca: castellaniluca@inwind.it

Flyfishing in Europe just keeps getting better and better.  I don’t understand why more folks don’t take advantage of it.  There are books written telling how to find the secret Europe.  To find and experience the sites, culture, cuisine, and people of the less traveled Europe, you don’t

need a guide book.  All you really need is your fly rod.

This May I fished two different Italian rivers.  One river, the Tevere (Tibor) tailwater, is brand new.  Five years ago, this section of the Tevere ran dry in the summer due to irrigation needs.  The other river was the Nera.  The Nera was harnessed to power Roman mills around 30 BC.  It was a great trip and I look forward to returning.

Both of these rivers are located in central Italy, about 2 – 3 hours driving time from Rome.  The Tevere is in Tuscany and the Nera in Umbria.

While the Tuscan countryside is relatively hilly, it is widely cultivated. The river valley’s are broad with large fields of wheat polka dotted with red poppies.  In the late spring, everything thing is green with abundant wild flowers rather than the ochre and browns that one normally associates

with Tuscany.

Near the town of Sansepolcro, the Tevere flows through this Tuscan countryside.  The river will eventually make its way through the center of Rome on its way to the Mediterranean Sea.  Below the Montedoglio Dam, the Tevere is around 80 feet at the widest.  It is braided in many places.  This

makes it easily wadable.  It is hard to imagine that five years ago this section of river ran dry in the summer and that three years ago there were no trout in the river.   It was then that the Italian fly-fishing club “Mosca Club Altotevere” first planted approximately 30,000 grayling and 40,000 brown trout in the river.  The number of fry and fingerling in the water indicates healthy levels of natural reproduction of both species.  The club’s fly-fishing catch and release (No Kill) fishery is 8 kilometers (6 miles) long.  That gives this section of the river has a theoretical trout density comparable to a Montana’s Big Horn River.  This isn’t the only similarity.  The Lake Montedoglio lies in a limestone valley much like the Big Horn’s Yellowtail reservoir.  Because this tailwater feeds from the bottom of the dam, the river runs cold.  While I was there, the watertemperature was 46°F.

Luca, my guide, told me that the fishing is best a bit later into the summer as water temperatures get up to 50°F.  The tailwater is extremely fertile and full of insect life.  While I was there, multiple hatches were going on continuously.  Fortunately, I didn’t really need to match the hatch to catch

fish because the multiple hatches made it difficult to determine what the fish are feeding on.  Luca showed me his method of skating a foam fly over some of the calmer waters found on the river.  This is where many of the larger brown trout lurk.  It was popper action at its best for brownies in the 15” range.  All were healthy and strong.

The next day we fished the Nera River in Umbria.  Traveling through the Umbrian countryside, you see that it is more rugged than in Tuscany.  The hillsides are steeper.  There is less cultivation, and in areas, it is densely forested.  From the valleys, you see that many of the hilltops have some type of structure on them.  The structures range from decaying castles to modern villas offering splendid views of the region.

The Nera is a spring creek that flows through a steep narrow Umbrian limestone valley.  We fished the 7 km “No Kill” section.  This section of “No Kill’ was put in place in 1994.  Nearby is a hatchery and education center.  This same hatchery provided the fish stocked in the Tevere tailwater.

Where we fished the Nera, it was 20 feet across at the widest.  For the most part this is a pocket water type fishery.  Due to fishing pressure, the Nera has some very specific regulations.  For example, streamers or strike indicators are forbidden and in one section, so is wading.  The water is

more technical than the Tevere.  Short and accurate casts are necessary.  I always felt that I could hold my own in this type of fishing.  After watching Mauro, my second guide, cast in this water, I realized that I had a lot to learn.  Most fish were in the 12” – 18” range with some larger specimens, up to 10 lbs. near the hatchery.  These large fish are frequently targeted and it takes a skilled angler to get them on the line.

............Since I was traveling on my own, (my wife had to work and my daughter had to attend school), my meals were more informal.  The first evening I dined on my own in my hotel’s restaurant.  There some other hotel guests joined me. While they spoke little English and I speak even less Italian,  I didn’t need a translator to share laughs and enjoy a round of Grappa.

My other meals were a delight as well.  One evening we enjoyed dinner prepared by Mauro and his wife at his home deep in the Tuscan countryside. While fishing the Nera, we enjoyed a fine picnic, again prepared by Mauro, under a riverside gazebo.

A couple of meals were pizza in town.  This was more at my direction.  I preferred spending more time on the water so we fished until dark each evening.  In the late spring that meant we were off the water at around 9:30, too late for a large meal.  Had my wife been with me, it would have been different.  However, this trip was tailored to my wants.

I also lunched at the Mosca Club Altotevere clubhouse where my guides Luca and Mauro are members.  I learned that the club is working in conjunction with a local family to create a fly fishing center where anglers can dine, book a room for the night and have lunches catered directly to the riverside if desired.  The Mosca Club Altotevere has long reaching plans to turn the tailwater and its surrounding stillwaters into the premier fly-fishing location of Italy and eventually Europe as well.  The club’s hosting of the World Tuscany Open Fly Tying competition held in Sancepolcro, October 8 – 9 of 2005, emphasizes this vision.  World Tuscany Open events and displays will be in the old town center of Sansepolcro.

Gear requirements for both rivers are basic.  An 8’ four weight travel rod strung with a floating line will do.  Ideally a shorter rod works better for the Nera.  Waders are a must.  Add the basic items such a leader and tippet (4X – 5X) and you are outfitted for the day.   Also, carry a light jacket for any evening fishing.  Air temperatures drop quickly as the sun goes down because of the cool water temperatures at the tailwater.  While I was there, it was 90°F during the day and at dusk; it was cool enough to see my breath.

Issues for travelers to Europe to consider are different weight restrictions and carry on regulations than in the US.  I traveled to Rome from the Netherlands so I took my fly-fishing gear with me.  This took planning on my part.  I also traveled alone and had to pack for only four summer days. European luggage restrictions are tight and enforced to the letter.  For example, Ryan Air allows 15Kg (33 lbs) and one carry on.  Unlike the current rules in the US, EU rules forbid carrying on rods, reels with line, and flies.  All of these items must be checked.  While these restrictions may

not apply when you leave for Europe, the carry on restrictions will apply when you return to the US.  Being aware of this prevents unfortunate surprises.  However, Tapestry travel provides all the fly-fishing gear that the traveling angler needs at no extra cost.  This includes rods, reels, boots, waders, flies and a lot less hassle.  So, all you need to do is be there.

I fished with two different guides, Luca Castellani and Mauro Raspini.  Please note that I said

fished with.  Unlike guides in the US, besides guiding you, your guide enjoys fishing with you as well.

www.flyfishingitaly.eu

www.moscaclubaltotevere.it

Craig Peterson

Professor and Vice-Chair

Program in Molecular Medicine

University of Massachusetts Medical School

Fishing report – May 15th, 2008.  Fished the no kill section of the River Serchio north of Lucca with guide Moreno Borriero.  There were good hatches of baetis and march browns both in the morning and early afternoon, and during the hatches a good number of fish were rising. We fished dry flies for most of the day, getting fish to come to the surface fairly consistently. Ended up with 7 nice Browns to the net with lots more lost on the hookup.   My guide Moreno was excellent – he knew exactly which fly to choose from his personal collection of hand-tied favorites, and his sense of humor throughout the day was very much appreciated.  If your idea of a perfect day is fishing dry flies to willing browns on a beautiful stream surrounded by the green hills of Tuscany, this is for you.