Tenkara Adventures in Cuneo, Italy #2

I woke up on the 2nd day after a slightly better night of sleep. The bell towers in these small towns have this strange habit of going off every hour, including at night. This would take some getting used to. 

I had the morning to myself, so I went to the local bread and pastry shop and picked up some bruschetta and a bottle of cold water. After eating as quickly as I could, I raced back to the no kill section to explore another part that I had spotted from the road the previous day.

After a couple of misses I had a nice brown on the line. It was bigger than most of the fish from the previous day, but not monstrous.

I fished up this section, catching a few more fish along the way.

The slow section of water on the bottom right of the photo had a nice fish that somehow got off my

 hook.

I got a video of me landing another nice fish, too:

Above this section, the water hits a little break under a bridge. There was a really nice shaded pool and I hooked into the biggest fish I've ever had on a Tenkara rod. I knew it was big but after a solid 5 minutes of just holding it in place, it surfaced. The fish was almost as long as a 3 foot rock in the middle of the stream. My heart was racing. It had to be at least 20-24 inches. I took out my camera as I guided into slower water. I held it while I filmed it thrashing about. You can see the fish to the left of the rock and closer to the shore in the video. I couldn't figure out how to make it larger, apologies. Admittedly I should have not bothered with the camera, but I needed to have evidence and was hoping I'd land it on film. Surely you know by now that I lost this fish. And I got it on film. Talk about disappointment! WARNING - NSFW. Apologies for the language ;)

So to combat that feeling, here are some big smiles from the previous day. Photo taken by Paolo of me and Roberto.

After a quick panini, I drove to Roberto's place to meet the guys again at 2:30 to head to an apparently incredible and unique mountain stream. 

Roberto's town had a nice church which made for a beautiful view. The next picture was from dinner the night before - Paolo, Roberto and I, enjoying some Raphael Bareche Champagne. 

After discovering that Roberto had a work issue that popped up, Paolo took us to a spot to get some more water and snacks on the way to the water. Two small gelatos later we hopped in his car and we drove the remaining 40 minutes the Valle Stura to a particularly special stream.

Paolo has a group of fishermen that he splits the fishing rights with, to a 4.5km section of the river Gesso. They stay in touch to make sure that nobody crowds eachother out, and I discovered that Paolo had set us up to be alone on the river that day. What an amazing privilege to be able to fish here!

We drove almost to the end of the road, before a Refuggio (mountain hut) and the official trailheads for many of the surrounding peaks. I snapped some photos as we suited up. Paolo used his wading pants, not hip waders and I used my wet wading socks and gaiters. I felt like this gear was absolutely perfect for the conditions we encountered.

The stream was right below where we had parked, and after fighting a few of the stinging plants and thorned berry bushes we were ready to hit the water.

I was more than overwhelmed. We were near to the top of the valley and would fish up into the basin of the larger peaks surrounding us. The theme of the afternoon would involve chasing the light up the stream, catching some nice hatches on the way. Everything was incredibly beautiful.

The alpine landscape is unique. Its not so different from some of the Rocky Mountains, but in other ways it looks rather different. The pines are slightly different, as are the angles of some of the cliffs and peaks.

In some ways it looked like mini Rockies peaks were just placed on top of beautiful green mounds of earth. But the alpine plants and trees are similar enough in both places to make connections. 

As were the plunge pools! The water was gin-clear, with a hint of that glacier melt color.

The fish were beautiful as well.

Soon Andrea joined us with his little one in tow on his back. This is how my father used to carry me on hikes upstate and I got a good kick out of it.

We caught a few fish but not that many heading up. It was not a very active day for the fish in this river. But as we got higher, the results improved.

As did the Scenery.

Paolo caught this beautiful mediterranean brown.

In this pool I had a fish on the line, but it got off my hook. Argh!

Every time I looked around I had to keep repeating to myself "where the hell am I right now? This is epic!"

In this pool, we crouched behind the log you can see on the left. We watched many fish rising in the pool, and each took turns. We both hooked into nice fish, but we failed to land them. The angle was bad. After this we climbed over the log and I hooked one again. It was big. Somehow it got my fly.

I was beating myself up for missing so many fish this day, but I was so happy about the environment I was in that it almost didn't matter.

We found a few more nice plunge pools as we reached the valley and the intersection with the trail and the end of the road.

Paolo tied a new fly, and gave me one. It was a really interesting dry fly he had tied up. After spotting a feeding fish he sent me off to try my new fly.  Here's a picture I took of it after getting back to NY:

Just some kind of special duck feather and polypropylene strands. It floated, and it caught fish. Here's the photo after I caught a nice trout with it in the Gesso:

This is the pool where the fish was rising, below.

A nice fish and an incredible place to be fishing.

Paolo also hooked a non native atlantic brown that had escaped from a nearby hatchery.

You can see the difference in the coloring and the fins.

At the bridge there was another pool, but no fish were rising there.

Photos barely do the spot any justice.

I liked the signs at the entrance from the road.

Our walk back down to the car was also of particular beauty.

As clouds settled over the peaks, I thought of how this perfect day would be forever remembered. And I didn't even know what was to come the next day!

The moon shined from behind the clouds and offered a spooky light to guide us back.

On the way home we stopped for pizza and used the google translator to exchange more detailed info about our fishing that day. I learned a lot from fishing with Paolo. He has a lot of experience on the local streams, and it was because of him that I was successful on these foreign waters. I can't thank him enough for bringing me to fish in this special place.

One more post on Italy coming soon...

Tenkara Adventures in Cuneo, Italy #1

I just got back from a most epic adventure in Italy. After an eye opening work trip visiting winemakers I rep from Tuscany and Piedmont, I got in touch with some of the guys from the "Tenkara Italy" facebook group and rented a car in Milan.

After a 2-3 hour drive, I arrived in small mountain town called Frassino, to stay at a small B&B in town called Barba Bertu. And "the beard" was a funny guy. A real character!

Paolo and Roberto met me soon after I arrived and we went looking for some clear water. There had been some issues with a dam (or diga) in Italian, and it took a few tries before we found clearer water.

The water temps were pretty perfect - 60 degrees on the dot. We were all soon into some fish.

I was pretty overwhelmed after having visiting all the wineries the previous week, having to stay out late and wake up really early, walk around in the 100 plus degree weather... needless to say I was VERY happy to be in the cool, refreshing mountain air.

The river Varaita is a "big" small stream and is textbook-perfect for happy trout. Free-stoned, winding and cascading down the valley, it provides ideal lies for trout left and right. I was having fun picking the river apart. I was also having trouble getting good hook sets and landing fish. But plenty of fish went for my fly, some even too small to swallow it.

Make no mistake, there were fish everywhere. Here Paolo drifts through the slow water on the far side of the current - unlike Brookies back home, the browns here like the slowest water more often.

Roberto fishes an Eddy, above, between two rocks. A likely lie for some brown trout.

I soaked it all in, catching only a few fish on the first afternoon. We were fishing the "No Kill" section of the river and Paolo kindly reminded me that these fish are not stupid, making me feel a bit better.

There was a healthy mix of wild Mediterranean brown trout, above, and the atlantic variety, below. The way to tell is to look for the signature distinct white circles around the red dots. The atlantic trout do not have that. Additionally, there is a white stripe on the fins of the mediterranean trout that I did not see on the Atlantic trout that I caught. 

I took my time picking apart pockets, but Roberto kept me on task, signaling for me to move up when I wasn't paying attention.

There were plenty of tough casting locations, and as usual I employed many slingshot casts. The same flies that work for me here at home worked in the river Varaita as well. But there was something about red and orange that really made the fish bite, it was undeniable as I switched back and forth to test Paolo's advice. His small red nymph was insanely successful.

I will try to create a kebari pattern that uses those same elements to try here, although the color may have been more important there then it ever would be here. I used precise slingshot casts to get under these branches where I hooked and lost a nice fish.

At a particularly nice pool we switched to Valsesiana style dry flies, tied by Paolo. He gave me a few after I had given some of mine to him and Roberto upon arrival. Paolo's red Valsesiana "dry" flies (nothing like our catskill classic dries in the states) worked like a charm.

Paolo releasing his first fish from this pool. I also had one on the line soon after.

Roberto left early to head home, where he was preparing some dinner for us all. What a pleasure to be hosted by and to learn from these gentlemen.

After we finished a delicious dinner, Paolo sat down to show me how to hand tie an Italian Valsesiana fly. I watched him do it a few times and then gave it a try. He used silk thread from his grandmother, breaking it down into thinner strands to use separately for each fly. The hackle was different than Tenkara Kebari hackle... intentionally longer, applied to the hook in a unique way, and from wider and less sleek feathers. This particular pattern was a bit of a dry fly pattern. But after a few casts, the fly would sink just a tiny bit and become a pretty perfect emerger. 

This fly was the one I would be using for the next day in the mountains. I would soon find out just how insanely effective it would be. Originally I had still just thought it was another sakasa kebari.

I tied one of my own using partridge. I took all these photos recently, long after the flies were used heavily in Italy. The hackle was not really as dramatically "forward" or rear facing as it looks in these photos. It was sort of "neutral" when it came to the direction it pointed in. After fishing the flies, they settled in one way or another naturally. I should have thought to take some "before" photos, but alas, I did not. This is one I tied by hand after Paolo showed me the technique. Again, used in this photo. 

 I'll be looking forward to ordering the appropriate materials and trying to make some more in the coming weeks. The simplicity of these flies just made me giddy, especially when I found them to work back home just this weekend. Meanwhile I'm still uploading photos and putting together some posts for the following days, stay tuned... The best views and most beautiful fish are definitely still yet to come!