Hello everyone,
Back from Italy and had a wonderful time. I'm sure some of the things I learned are old hat to many of you, but with less than a year total fly fishing under my belt, I was more than happy to soak up as much learning as possible.
Building in a day to fish was a great idea and I couldn't have been taken better care of by my guide from
www.flyfishingitaly.com.
After an easy pick up at the library steps in Florence, we drove about 90 minutes out to eastern Tuscany near the town of Anghiari to the head waters of the Tiber River (the same river that ultimately flows through Rome). We stopped near the river to square away licensing for this special section of the Tiber, and to pick up sandwiches and water for our lunch later in the day. (Fresh crusty bread, spicy soppressatta ham, and fresh provolone....awesome!)
Another 10 minutes or so and we were on the river. The river in this part of the country is about 10-15 yards wide and ankle to chest deep. The bottom is mostly river rocks about 1-2 fists in size. Alessandro rigged a double nymph setup by but it was different from others I've seen. Instead of tying the tippet for the lower nymph to the bend in the hook of the upper fly, he tied what I would describe as a dropper loop (pardon my saltwater spinning gear reference) about 18-24 inches above the lower nymph and the dropper loop extended about 6 inches off the tippet. He used a piece of fluorescent line tied in about 3-4 feet above the lower nymph as the indicator.
Alessandro held school pointing out current seams, eddies, pockets in front of rocks, undercut banks, logs, and really helped me refine the way I looked at and covered the water. Where and when to hold the rod high, twitching the rod tip to add action to the nymphs, one nuance to the place after another. We roll-casted our way along about 800-1000m of stream as we fished through the day, only saw two other anglers who were never any closer than 50 yards to us, and disappeared shortly after we saw them. We caught about 2 dozen fish 6 or 7 of which were Grayling, the rest Brown Trout. Late in the day we stopped for lunch and were interrupted by thunderstorms, and although we spent 45minutes waiting for the storms to pass had great conversations about all the places Alessandro has fished, and all the places I've surfed. Alessandro was very interested in our local Shad run and I told him he was welcome on the Rappahannock or Potomac any Spring.
Several pictures are attached. Please ping me if you're traveling to Florence or want to know more. I would absolutely do it again!
Tight Lines,
Dave