Press Release
A European Approach To Fishing Out West
Article Date: January 2007
Talk about fascinating wrinkles in international fishing travel, ponder this: An Italian fly fisherman moves to America and is so successful with his business helping Europeans fish North America that he decides to stand the business on its head, offering the same kind of service for Americans who want to fish in Europe, principally Italy. And wait. There's more. This same Italian Claudio Tagini now believes he's spotted a business opportunity providing European-type travel services to Americans interested in fishing the American West.
Let's start at the beginning. Claudio Tagini is an Italian fly fishing junkie who moved to the US way back in 1978 and began to fish intensively across North America, particularly the American West, with an eye toward offering complete-itinerary-type fishing travel services for Europeans. To that end, he formed a company called American Western Adventures.
Tagini has copied us on one of his Western fishing itinerary packages, and it is indeed something to behold. The one we perused, for a party of three Italian anglers, comes in a hard-cover notebook with a color photograph on the cover and page after page of detailed instructions on how to go from point to point, what flies to use, who to call. Nearly all the pages have a map of some sort on them, or one or more color photographs. No American agent we know of is producing anything like this.
The trip began with the Italian anglers arriving in Idaho Falls, renting a Ford Explorer and heading toward West Yellowstone where they stayed in a cabin with a kitchen on the Madison River. From there, they went into the park, visiting the geyser area and on into Mammoth Hot Springs/Gardiner where they fished the northeast section of the park before going on to Jackson and back to Idaho Falls. One of the highlights of the trip was a horseback/day-fishing trip up Slough Creek.....Click Here to Continue Reading
THE ANGLING REPORT
Remember our report about Claudio Tagini, an Italian agent who arranges custom fishing trips for Europeans headed to the US West? We mentioned that he also arranges similar trips in Europe for American anglers, but we did not have any firsthand information on those trips at the January 2008 -9- Volume 21, Number 1 . Well, subscriber Jack Franzen tells us he gave Tagini a try during a recent visit to Italy. He writes:
"I contacted Tagini to book some guided fishing on a trip I had scheduled to Italy. I'm pleased to report that he put together a wonderful day of fishing. The day started with our rendezvous near Lake Como north of Milan. On the way to our intended fishing spot, we were joined by another angler, Tiziano, who was very knowledgeable about the water we were planning to fish, the Sesia River. "On arrival at the river, but before hiking down to it, we stopped at a rustic cafe' to take some refreshment. Tagini cautioned me that no one comes to Italy specifically to fish for trout. And there are reasons for that, he said. I told him I understood all that, but if you are already in Italy, at the foot of the Alps and in the presence of a cool mountain stream, one would be crazy not to give it a try. "Momentarily, we made our way to the river, arriving at the tail of a flume, where I could see a half dozen very large trout nymphing in the current. On my 10th cast, I landed a really nice brown of maybe three pounds. As the day progressed, we fished downstream for a ways and then back upstream to a stretch of very inviting pocket water. We all caught fish. My first was the largest, but none was smaller than 12 inches and most were around 14. We had brookies and rainbows, as well as browns. A slam!
"My day with Tagini was quite a success. I'd recommend booking a trip with him, here or abroad. My oneday excursion cost several hundred euros. The cost varies according to the water you want to fish. Tagini planned every detail of my day and worked around the only problem that developed - a minor hiccup over our intended meeting place. He's a US resident, and he speaks flawless English. I suspect the trips he arranges for Europeans in the US are as well executed as mine. My only regret is I had only one day to fish. I'm not complaining, though, since the 'bookends' to my day of fishing were in Como overlooking the lake and four days in Reggio Emilia, Italy's premier food region." (Postscript: Tagini says Franzen's trip cost a total of $330, including transportation from his hotel and back and streamside lunch. He warns, however, that this is the very low end of the scale and most days of fishing will cost more, especially with gas in Italy costing $6 a gallon. He says to expect the cost for a day of fishing in Italy to hover around a few hundred Euro, which is about $400 to $500 dollars. You can contact Tagini at American Western Adventures by e-mail at: awaflyfish@aol.com. His web address is: www.westerneuropeantravel.com.)