Fly Fishing

Testimonial

Claudio: Greetings from Roma! Wow, what a fantastic trip you planned for us! It has been one of our best and just fantastic in all ways. Montalto was glorious, Dianna and Giovanni very hospitable, Tuscany, all it was described: scenic, friendly, food wonderful, wine delicious. Restaurant you recommended was fantastic. Then there is the fishing! Luca is avery good guide, lots of challenging fishing, some big ones in the Tiber 70cm, 50 cm plus grayling. The Nera great fishing, bamboo rod fantastic, everything the best except I save the best for last.....Primo feels like an old friend! What food! What friendly hospitality! He is a hunter like me, a creative cook, a fine man and a great host! He is the best, I cannot say enough good things about Primo Piermarina. Claudio this was a fantastic job you did for us. THANK YOU from all of us. I will write up a very good report to the fishing report.

Paul Dickson

A European Adventure with Something for Everyone: In response to an article in The Angling Report last year, several friends and I traveled to Umbria (Italy) in late September. The article was about Claudio Tagini of Western European Travel, who has built a successful business arranging custom fly fishing trips for Europeans wishing to experience the American West. He is now expanding into arranging trips for Americans wishing to combine fly fishing with the food, sights, history and culture of Europe. My group and I (fishers and non-fishers), had a wonderful five-day trip arranged by Claudio. The arrangements were absolutely first class. Claudio personally presided over every step to make sure everything was flawless. He was great company to boot. Claudio had us stay at La Palazzetta del Vescovo (www.lapalazzettadelvescovo.it), a terrific villa near Todi: a bishops summer residence built in 1737 and completely renovated to 5-star standards a year ago. It occupies a hilltop and overlooks an expansive valley planted in olive groves and vineyards. We took the whole place (8 double suites) and put ourselves in the warm, capable hands of the owners Stefano and Paula. We ate about half our meals there. The food was fantastic: antipasto lunches of vegetables, sausages, hams and cheeses; homemade pastas; freshly slaughtered lamb; and (given the season) truffles, truffles and more truffles. For each meal Stefano chose great local Umbrian wines; we brought a lot of labels home. With La Palazzetta as our base, we launched into various daily adventures. The fishermen in the group spent 3 days fishing two highly productive rivers (more on this later). When not fishing, we visited lovely medieval towns, viewed fabulous Renaissance art, went horseback riding, sat by the pool, went hiking and biking, had massages, took a cooking class and explored local shopping opportunities. It was also boar and bird hunting season. We could hear some of the shooting around us but time did not permit us to try it ourselves. There was a ton to do in addition to the fishing, and Claudio had written almost a book for us laying out choices, providing maps, recommending restaurants, giving us the history and highlighting the sights of note. Now to the fishing. We fished two rivers, the Tiber, a tail water fishery where the world fly tying competition was held last month, and the Nera, a spring creek. Both are loaded with fish up to 24. The first day we fished the Tiber, which holds predominantly brown trout and grayling. Water temperature was 48 F. This is a self-sustaining fishery with no stocked fish. The fish are incredibly sensitive to drag so we ended up using 18 foot leaders with 6 feet of 8x tippet. For the most part it was tiny dry flies. Hatches included blue winged olives, black caddis, tiny black stone flies and terrestrials. I caught 15-20 trout and 5-6 grayling on dry flies over the day. My trout ranged from 6 inches to 17, although much larger ones were visible. The grayling fell in the 8" 13" range. For the most part, we were casting to rising fish or fishing the water in likely looking spots. At the end of the day I had a frenzied last half hour with a streamer, catching a half dozen trout in the 15-18" range. Our guides were members of a local fishing club that controls the fishing rights to the river. (We had the whole 8 km stretch to ourselves.) They were good fishermen, and really nice people. They were generous with their flies and genuinely enthusiastic about helping us enjoy their river. They provided us all the equipment needed (their own), except waders. It was a terrific day and I would enthusiastically return given the chance. The other days we fished the Nera with the same guides. It is loaded with very large browns, all clearly visible in the gin clear spring creek. Water temperature was in the high 50s. This is heavily stocked by a hatchery right there on the river. But make no mistake, these fish see a lot of flies and are not easy. We caught browns up to 24 on terrestrials, emergers, nymphs and dries. It was all sight fishing. Wading, streamers, weight and strike indicators are forbidden. Generally we caught 5-15 fish in the morning, stopped for a wonderful lunch of pasta, truffles, boar, prosciutto and wine in a rustic restaurant, then renewed fishing, catching 3-5 fish in the afternoon. The river fishes best in the morning (or maybe we do, before food and wine). All in all, it was a great trip and I highly recommend it and Claudio to anyone.

Angler information

Hamilton E. James 345 Park Avenue, 31st floor, New York, New York 10154

First-Hand Report On European Fishing Trips With Claudio Tagini

We've reported previously about the custom fishing trips Claudio Tagini of American West Adventures arranges in the US West and in Europe. Now we have a first-hand report one of his European trips. 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 caf 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 one-day 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.)

Wow! Thats what went through my mind when we got back from our trip to Italy with Claudio Tagini. Just WOW! Weve been on a couple of trips to Europe. Some were guided tours with a fixed itinerary. Twice we were with some ex-pat friends living in Europe that knew their way around. The guided tours were nice but they tended to be very structured. There isnt much opportunity for finding that interesting little shop or stumbling onto that really cool off the beaten track caf. Youve got a schedule to keep. Bumming around with friends is great - IF you have any ex-pat friends and IF they have the time to go when you do.

Claudio gave us more of a framework. We supplied the parameters we want to spend 12 days, we want to rent cars, wed like to see these regions. He booked the places to stay (a Castle, a fabulous Bed and Breakfast, an 11th century Monastery), arranged all the transportation and car rentals and then developed not one but MULTIPLE itineraries for the areas wed be in. It all came together in a nice little binder with lots of maps and pictures and driving directions and tidbits on what there is to see. A couple of fixed things to do, a lot of free lance opportunities.

We have a lifetime of fun memories from this trip. We got history and culture in Florence and Siena, Etruscan ruins in the Maremma, and had time for a really nice glass of wine in Massa Marritima. We had a fabulous evening cooking a meal for four Italians (friends of Claudio and his wife Naomis) in a professional kitchen at a B&B near Arezzo, got a personalized guided tour of Spoleto and wandered on our own through Cortona. The last night was over the top. Claudio arranged a private banquet at a restaurant normally closed that night. We feasted on locally produced prosciutto, drank prosecco, and had course after course til we had to tell them to stop. It was the trip of a lifetime. Thanks Claudio!

Rick and Bobbie Cobaugh

Moneta, Va.

Hello Claudio,

We are pleased to hear that everything is going well with you. I am also pleased to give a testimonial for our trip.

The following points come to mind as I think back on that great vaction:

It was the best vaction we ever had.
Communication in planning the trip was excellant.
You followed up on all of our wishes and made excellant suggestions.
The trip was executed flawlessly.
We felt totally comfortable with your presence, suggestions, and help everyday.
We also felt completly safe. We were confident that if any problem arose you would resolve the issue easily.
You are also a great cook.

Best regards, John and Karen Porter

Buongiorno! IL mio cuore e in Italia!!

We are home, we are rested (sorta) we can't talk about anything else...but Italy!
Claudio, we had a fantastic-fantastic time! Thank you sooooo, sooooo much for the beautiful itinerary! The only "problem" was Don's driving! HA-HA! (And of course my phone!) And I was wrong to tell you it took 6 hours from Milan to Pavia....No, just a bit lost trying to get out of Milan, but it was only 2 hours.....It was 6 hours to Bevagna which you told us about! Everyplace you had us staying was beautiful! We'd say, "Oh, wish we could stay here for a week", then on to the next and we'd say the same thing!!! We can not come up with a favorite! We LOVED them all.
We tried to stay with your ideas as much as possible and I think we were pretty successful! Believe it or not, I took 1300 pictures (thank god for my back up camera!) We did that whole drive around the Nera Valley...spectacular!!
And Shiggino(sp) became the place we went every morning for cappuccino while in Ferentillo Love that little village....
Every person you had scheduled for us to meet were wonderful! Don had a great time fishing and was very happy he actually caught fish...even though the greyling got away!! Luca is a very special guy!! Thank you for the picture from Luca. I saw lots of the pictures he took of Don, I'm hoping he will send more. Daniella was a wonderful guide and we got along very well with her limited English and my limited Italian!! We had many laughs and found our common interests! Hopefully we made friends for life......(as I said we want to adopt Gianluca!!) We are already Facebook buddies!)

Rome was magical....Did just about everything we could do! I swear, everyday Don & I go over everything you planned for us and have such wonderful memories & pictures! I did take almost 1200 pictures....Actually I took 1500, but I've deleted a lot of duplicates! This was a dream vacation and the most wonderful anniversary gift anyone could have designed for us! Grazie! Grazie!

-deb

[] One of the more interesting new wrinkles in world fly fishing of late has been the emergence of Italy as a place for American long-rod fanatics to practice their passion. No one has been more responsible for that development than Claudio Tagini, an Italian who has relocated to the US and become an expert on Western US fly fishing while maintaining excellent connections in his home country. His business, we've told you before, goes back and forth across the Atlantic: He arranges fly fishing trips for Europeans out West and the same for American clients who want to fish in Europe, particularly Italy.
What occasions this new mention of his services is a rave review he just sent us from the wife of a client who took part in one of his new "chaperoned" fishing trips, which, you may recall from our report in the February issue, involve the use of trip facilitators who meet arriving clients at the airport and then accompany them and/or non-fishing spouses on cultural outings that augment the pre-arranged fishing activities. In all our years of publishing The Angling Report we have never received an equivalent rave about a fishing trip from the wife of an addicted fly fisherman. She writes:
"Buongiorno! Il mio cuore e in Italia! We are home, we are rested (sort of) and we can't talk about anything else but Italy! Claudio, we had a fantastic time! Thank you sooooo much for the beautiful itinerary! Everyplace you had us stay was beautiful! We'd say, 'Oh, we wish we could stay here for a week,' then at the next place we would say the same thing! We can not come up with a favorite! We loved them all. Every person you had scheduled for us to meet was wonderful and very helpful, from the very start, with Clifford greeting us in Milan, Gianluca taking us to visit castles in the countryside and Daniella taking care of us in Tuscany and Umbria. Don had a great time fishing, and he actually caught fish. This was a dream vacation and the most wonderful 40th anniversary gift anyone could have designed for us! Grazie! Grazie!"
On receipt of this review, we asked Tagini for more details on where this blissful couple went and where they stayed. And here is what he wrote back: "The itinerary I created for them, as always, was conceived after the clients' desires: He fly fishes, she likes arts and history and both like visiting smaller towns and off-the-beaten path villages in a non-touristy way. Other than letting me know they had already visited Florence and Venice, they left me free to set up an itinerary for them. It began with their arrival in Milan on September 11 and ended with their departure from Rome two weeks later.
"Milan is definitely not a typical Italian tourist destination, but it is easier to fly into, and it is rich in history and art. It has a castle in the center of town, and it is a city with plenty of good restaurants and specialty food stores. In Milan, I had them stay in a furnished apartment for three nights. After that, I sent them on a drive of just over an hour south of Milan. Here, they had a huge room in a Bed and Breakfast in the countryside near a medieval village. They visited castles and Roman ruins, and they ate local dishes, unknown even to most Italians. The husband could have gone fishing there but he didn't because they both just wanted to visit the countryside.
"The next stop was Umbria where the husband went guided fishing twice, once on the upper Tiber and once on the Nera, while the wife was being accompanied on trips to Cortona, Norcia and other hill towns. On other days they visited Siena and San Gimignano on their own, following the directions and maps in the trip booklet I provided them. They ended up spending the last three days in Rome, where they had never been. They flew back home from there to California. The total cost of the trip for this couple was $6,578, excluding car rental and most meals, but including all lodging, two full days of guided fishing, six days of chaperone service and a detailed trip booklet containing maps, pictures of places, history, lists of museums and restaurants, etc. etc.
"The chaperone program works because I choose very likable, affable and eager-to-please persons. Most of them are friends, or persons highly recommended by friends. They are not 'official tourist guide.' In fact, they do not guide clients really; they offer companionship while moving along the streets of a city or along country roads that lead to a castle where, maybe, an 'official guide' is hired to tell them about the castle's detailed history. My chaperons know the area where they live intimately. They know the local food shops and the small restaurants with great food and atmosphere and low prices. My chaperones don't point an umbrella at a monument and tell you in detail what that guy did; they are there to show you the area where they live and to introduce you to life as it is lived by locals. I think I will offer this service to all my clients, not on a daily basis, but interspersed along their trip, as needed...."