Photo: Barry ord Clarke

While listening to the stories of fly fishermen of my generation about how they approached the fly method, especially those who started in my own period, one often gets the impression that almost half a century ago it was common practice to remain enlightened, let's say, on the road to Damascus. For an ordinary fisherman with natural baits the first meeting on the river with a real fly fisherman could cause great inner turmoil, even leading, for some of these, to a real conversion. And it happened to me in these ways too. It wasn't hard to understand why. Everything in the gentleman I saw standing in the river more than 4 decades ago was imbued with beauty. His clothing, so neat and so different from that of a coarse fisherman, the elegance of his gestures, a twirling of the line never seen before, the delicacy of the tools, strange reels and short rods that seemed too slender to haul a decent fish, but still tools beautiful in their workmanship. But above all the thing that fascinated me the most was the fact that the bait, that tiny fluffy thing, rested above the surface until it was grabbed with a splash by the quarry. That special detail was making the fly really different to me from any other lure used by man to entice a fish. With all the other fishing techniques the bait works at different level of depth but nevertheless underwater. Those flies were floating, so weightless that they could not be cast without a proper line, as opposed and so different from any other natural or artificial bait I was aware of at that time. That was the beginning of a journey that is still lasting after almost 50 years, a journey that brought me to handle different techniques both in fishing and tying the fly, going through wets, nymphs or streamers, but where the gentle and ethereal dry fly sits on the highest throne, my first love forever.

Regretfully, the deterioration of environmental conditions of rivers is making dry fly fishing not as practical as it was in the past. Global warming it’s not a joke and year by year we are witnessing to a drastic reduction of water flow in many rivers and in different part of the globe. A deleterious combination of pollution, inconsiderate withdrawals of water and inert materials from rivers bottoms has reduced the benthic fauna in several waters. The shrinking of hatches, combined with an increasing number of predatory birds, has caused fish to be less inclined to raise at the surface.

Even if the chances of enjoying a great dry fly day are sometimes limited, I still favour a few hours of prime dry fly fishing instead of any other technique, especially when I find myself right in the middle of a hatch with high level of difficulties and fussy fish.

1. Choice of equipment Rods, reels, fly lines, fly floatants, clothes, glasses and other useful items

& 2. Leader material, build up, length and knots

I have a very intimate relation with this sport of fishing with the fly, mostly because it opens up to a variety of side pleasures and complementary interests which make the final fishing action and the catch of our quarries just a fraction of the whole story, but certainly not the main focus. I know you need to enter into and accept a specific mindset to appreciate all these nuances but at least for me it works pretty well. Walking a river bank alone or with a good friend, talking about flies or life, with a nice tackle in your hand, well dressed flies in your vest, breathing air and filling your eyes with beautiful sceneries, is already making the story worth to be lived, with the mere catching of fish, none, a few or many, just adding to the pleasure.

In the area around Bologna, my home town, we always had a deeply rooted tradition in the use of long fly rods, even in periods where in other parts of Italy the short and fast rods for Italian casting style were booming. Rods in the length of 8,5 or 9 feet were very common and these are the length I was used to bring to the river back in the 80’s and 90’s, stimulated by my mentors of that time. With very few exceptions, I normally still use long rods today wherever the environment permits and very seldom shorter than 9 feet. The 9 feet for a 4 line is my favourite combination for dry fly fishing but I am opening to 10 feet and longer rods for light lines recently, as long as all these rods are reasonably fast.

I have always tried to apply my mantra whenever I think to fly fishing tackle, buy the best you can afford. So, when it comes to consider rods I try to focus on those who combine a nice action and a high level of workmanship, either I am referring to graphite rods or bamboo sticks. Bamboo rods are great fishing and casting tools especially in some kind of waters and I love to choose one between 7,5 and 8 feet for 4-5 size line for a nice relaxing day in small to medium size rivers where I am sure I will mostly concentrate on dry flies. I love the action of bamboo, its timing and unique reaction to stresses and I can’t resist to the charm of the material. For all other occasions, where I am predicting longer casts, bigger fish and technically demanding situations, I just stay with medium to fast action longer graphite rods for my dry fly action.

Difficult to say which line I prefer, because nowadays we have so many profiles and the only way to decide which combination of rod and line better suits our style is to try them on the water. Generally speaking I have always found the right line among Cortland selection, either a very classic 444 DT or one of the more modern profiles. The same applies to leaders, there are days I favour the knotted ones and other situations where a tapered leader is my way to go. A rule of thumb is to use the longer leader you can handle correctly and the longer tip. I agree with some respected colleagues that the leader can be considered the most important piece of tackle, but I also consider that a perfect combination of rod, reel, line and leader makes our day perfect as well. At the same time, I disagree with sentences that consider reels just a container of line. This can be very true if we talk about small fish in small waters but as soon as we move on wider spaces where a decent size fish can perform in a better fight, or when we expect large prey enticed with small flies and extremely light tippet, then the reel becomes a trusted ally and its technical features can make the difference between a netted fish or a lost one. I particularly like every sort of large arbour reel as long as they respect one important condition, having the lowest possible starting inertia. Fly fishermen have the tendency to focus just on the drag, for some strange reason people are attracted by drags that can stop a running train, forgetting that even the largest trout certainly cannot exert the same powerful run of some large saltwater predators, not to mention the size of the tippets used for saltwater. The few seconds immediately following the bite of a large fish are super critical, with part of the fly line still outside the reel and floating close to us or downstream. The most delicate moment is when all the free line is pulled by the running fish and the spool start to move. The shock suffered by this sudden rotation can result in the breakage of a light tippet. Only a good reel with wide arbour and extremely low starting inertia can avoid such breakages. If the reel is also nicely machined and appealing on the aesthetic point of view it can just increase my pleasure. Did I already mention how much the intrinsic beauty of a fly-fishing piece of tackle means to me? Well, it did it so much that I turned my life up side down at a certain moment and made fly fishing my job, founding and running 54 Dean Street company with couple of other enthusiasts.

I usually apply the same approach to fishing garments and pieces of technical equipment, if I can combine the perfect technical effectiveness with the enjoyment of wearing something which is pleasing to the eye this sounds perfect. If I add to the equation also the genuine attention that the producing company has to the environmental problem, then it’s easier to identify my choice. I find all the fishing collection of Patagonia great for our use and I absolutely adore the company philosophy in terms of efforts to save the planet. Because at the end of the day we are all users of the environment and great is the hope that Patagonia path can be an inspiration for many other companies in our sport.

For some reason, the silhouette of a fly fisherman stands out among most of the fishermen of other techniques. Indeed, every fly fisherman worthy of the name brings to the river a number of accessories and gizmos, some very useful and some other absolutely unnecessary, that make him very recognizable. And I openly admit to be infected by the same habit. You know, that childlike part that we all possess shows up sometimes in different manners and fly fishermen do their best to feed these unconscious needs in buying stuff that they don’t really need. Anyhow, some accessories are really useful and make our lives easier. Among the more useful ones I certainly include fly and leader floatant, fly drying powder and a good pair of polarized sunglasses, but I am not falling in depression if I forget these last one at home. After all, some superb fishermen of the past, Skues or Sawyer to name a few, never wore a pair as far as I heard. On the other side I would feel lost without my prescription glasses, but that’s another story and very much linked to aging. Something I never forget home is a cap with black coloured underside of the bill. It is an enormous help in reducing glare and combined with polarized glasses it helps to better spot fish and flies.

Photo: Stefano Fedrizzi

3. Approach and stealth

Even if man is part of nature, nature itself has learned to fear us as predators of the most fearsome species. For trout and fish in general our presence means danger, because danger is considered any living being or event unrelated to the aquatic environment. Elements that raise the fish's guard level are not only our silhouette but also the noise caused by our approach, such as clumsy steps on the gravel or bumps on the underneath rocks. The receptors on the lateral lines of a trout are much more sensitive than his eyesight and vibrations caused by a walking fisherman send to his brain signals of danger much quicker than the sight of the Hawaiian shirt worn by my great friend Ted Patlen. So, within a certain limit, it’s better to be silent and move slowly than to dress like a Ninja or a deer hunter. Again, waving arms everywhere in, often, unnecessary double hauls and standing high on the riverbank can send all big fish to hide away. Of course, with dry fly fishing it becomes even more imperative to adopt every means to conceal our presence. Difficult to establish precise rules as the situations can be very different and can affect differently the level of suspiciousness of a fish. The degree of wildness of the animal, the environment itself, the type of management applied to those waters.

Stocked fish are ready to accept human presence more than wild fish, trout living in stretches of rivers flowing in densely populated area and in water regulated with Catch and Release systems have a particular and somehow unnatural behaviours shaped by those environments and by having been released several times.

Therefore, in the end, stay low, move slowly, be silent and walk like a heron in the water, as it was cleverly suggested by Gary Borger in his magnus opus Presentation. If you don’t understand what I mean, watch a heron walking in the water and you’ll get the point.

4. Reading the water.

The correct interpretation of every stretch of water, from the tiny bushy creek to the big rivers, from the smallest of ponds to large lakes, is a combination of two key factors, experience and a bit of scientific knowledge. The second one is quite easy to get, read some good book on the subject or fish often with an old-time friend and expert fisherman and you will learn what authorities says, where the fish lies, feeding zones, different fish reactions to different water levels and temperatures and climatic conditions, feeding habits. The first mentioned factor, the experience, is a different story; the more you go fishing the more you accumulate experiences, positive or negative it doesn’t really matter, the more you read waters and the more you understand them. Very much the same of what happens when you study and read books. I have noticed that those fishermen who started their experience at a very early age, even with different techniques, have got a sort of natural and instinctive mindset when it’s time to read the water. It is somehow like learning a language when you are a kid, you do it better and quicker and it stays forever.

The famous sense of water that is talked about so much is, in my opinion, something difficult to explain rationally for the simple reason that irrational is the way our brain judges a certain fishing situation. And this goes beyond the capacity to read water that I wrote here above. I like to think that when we do something we cannot explain logically it is because our brain has got recollections of ancestral moments, like we were thinking like a fish. After all, life began with water.

5. Casting ability

There are two distinguishing components that makes fly fishing so different from any other fishing methods, the fly and the cast. Those friends who know me are aware of my maniacal attention to flies but I also keep casting in great consideration, but not at the point of transforming it in an activity standing alone and dissociated by fishing. A dry fly fisherman cannot perform well without mastering a number of basic casts as they are very functional to bring the fly in the right place and in the right manner. I always thought that the best rod in the world will never perform well in the hands of a poor caster, while someone mastering the cast can transform a wooden stick in a magic wand.

Let’s say I am better in casting precisely to the target than excelling in super long distances and mostly for two reasons, because between me and those distant spots there are normally several fish that deserve better attention and second because when I first learnt to cast a fly line I was a child with no one teaching me and I accumulated a number of mistakes which I have partially corrected during the years, but not completely removed. Have you ever tried to learn how to cast for the first time in the 70’s with a wobbling fiberglass fly rod of 9 feet for a #6 line, with a dusty booklet in one hand trying to decipher a clock-shaped diagram with the typical English casting positions and puzzling words. I am sure you can get the point.

Therefore, whenever you are about to cast to that distant spot on the other bank, ask yourself if you properly covered all the possible spots closer to you. They might conceal some nice surprise.

Our life is a continuous learning process and also the fly fishing sport respects this rule; it’s never too late to refine ourselves and, even though I cannot consider myself a master caster, I have finally improved to a quite good level especially thanks to my friend and business partner Marco Terzani, one of the finest casting instructor I ever met. He is an expert of the use of short 7,5 feet dry fly rods for fishing in the small free stone rivers of our mountains but his tips resulted extremely valuable also when applied to the longer rods which I more often use.

One of the biggest problems I am observing in fishermen of the new generation is that they don’t put enough attention to the cast and the main reason is to be found in the way most of them are approaching fly fishing nowadays: most of the time they start their journey in this sport with nymph fishing and very long rods, very often used in high stick and taking advantage of the weight of nymphs to “throw” the fly on the water. Instead we should always remember that a correct casting technique is essential to each single method of fishing, not just for fishing the dry but even when doing the so-called Euro Nymphing style. Especially with dry fly fishing, mastering overhead, under the tip, reach and curve casts is by far more important than going straight to the distance and functional to increasing our catching chances. Controlling the line and leader and let them do what you want is the key, as well as controlling all the slack line casts.

Photo: @Hookuna y @AlbertBlanch

6. Entomology, what should we know.

It sounds quite amazing that average fly fishermen of the new generations don’t have a clue of the real meaning of “fly-fishing”. Without entering the world of salmon flies and all the streamers for big freshwater and saltwater predators and as far as trout and grayling fishing is concerned, the evolution of fly fishing has gone for centuries through wet flies, dry flies and nymphing techniques and, starting with Alfred Ronalds in early 19th century, there was always an important link between the mere action of fishing, the tying of the flies and entomology. To be honest, if we hadn't been dealing with insects of different species we wouldn't have called it fly fishing from the beginning and much of the charm of this technique would perhaps not have existed.

The connection between flies and insects in fly fishing is essential and, although we don’t need a master degree in entomology, an elementary knowledge of the aquatic trout food is not only complementary but also very much functional to a correct fishing approach to rivers or lakes and to different situations, especially when we found ourselves in those difficult moments where luck and approximation are no longer enough.

My personal approach to fly fishing tends toward the idea of the complete angler and I take this sport in a damned serious way. So, whenever it is possible I try to have the wider possible knowledge of the various aspects that make up the whole picture. And understanding trout behaviours in respect to food is certainly a major key to success and add to my pleasure. I am quite sure that you can have enough fun while fishing a dry fly on some rising fish even without distinguishing a mayfly from a grasshopper but I personally prefer to know what I am doing and why I choose a particular pattern instead of a generic fly.

A trout, a grayling, a chub or any swimming quarry lives in very tight connection with its food; if we know their food we also understand our preys. If we have a minimum clue of the emerging way of some mayflies, for instance, we will better read those rises and chose our strategy accordingly.

So, to answer the question – do we need some entomological knowledge – the answer is definitely yes. Even without learning the Latin names of each insect, a minimum of study on the subject can make the difference between guessing and being really aware of what we are doing on the river.

7. Rise forms Can they tell us something?

As we said before, each water and each situation speak to us in some way and send important signals. The more we understand them and the more we add to our success possibilities. Rise forms are part of those signals and indeed very important ones for us, dry fly fishermen. A correct interpretation can tell us at which level the fish is eating, if he is rising on fully emerged insects or on emerging bugs, if he is concentrating on mayflies or jumping on sedges, we can even interpret fish’s moods and guess its size.

At times we can also understand that a rise is actually not a real rise but the result of a fish feeding on emerging caddis pupas or on tiny mayflies nymphs just inches below the surface. So, the message for the beginners of the dry fly mania is, make a good investment of time in observing what’s going around you and on the water instead of searching the catch at all costs.

8. Fly selection, size, shape, materials, which flies are essential, favourite fly.

It is said that more books have been written on fishing than on any other sport. And probably, remaining among those works dealing with fly fishing, a vast quantity of the pages has been filled with dressings, tying instructions, dissertations on the colours of bodies and wings, on the characteristics of the tying materials and their use, more than the fishing technique or the cast. I don't think there is anything that has fascinated fishermen more than the artificial fly. Try to think to the perfect fly, obsession and sort of Holy Grail, always sought by fly tiers in every newly invented fly and rigorously never found, luckily for us. The love I have for the art of fly tying, for its history and tradition, for the materials and the tying techniques, goes almost beyond the fishing act itself to the point of becoming a passion that could take on a life of its own. I really believe that the best way to replicate nature is to use nature and that’s why the flies I love most are made with natural materials or generally with a high percentage of furs and feathers. In these flies the synthetic materials become an accent, something we add to improve the light reflection and the creation of a correct texture. Fly tiers should try to consider the importance of physics in the design of a dry fly, for instance how the light plays a major role on the perception a fish has of a specific fly or, again, how important is to have an idea of the surface tensions and how each material and tying method performs when the fly really lands on the surface. A fly must be effective in the water and not on the tying desk. It sounds like a commonplace but in truth a vast majority of the flies we see on the web nowadays are surely beautifully tied but lifeless, just crafted for “social purposes”. As a general rule, and especially on dry flies, I reject rigidity and I always try to give a lifelike appearance, taking advantage of the natural characteristic of the materials and their behaviour on the water. My rule of thumb when I tie fishing flies is to make them reasonably quick and expendable. The more time you spend tying a fly and the more your brain will remind this to you during your fishing action. Especially in bushy rivers or when you need to get close to your target, underneath tree branches for instance, there is a strange and unconscious process that can cause you to refrain from attempting difficult casts for the fear of losing your precious fly. You may not believe it but this theory is shared by many respected fly fishermen and it is worth of consideration. Another reason why I prefer simple and reasonably “quick to tie” flies is because I usually spend quite a lot of my tying time in working on classic flies and antique salmon flies for historical researches and projects and when I tie a fishing fly I am not ready to waste time in too complicated dressings, but this is a completely different story.

Talking about patterns and styles, I don’t really have a favourite group and I admit I feel lost without a few thousands of flies traveling with me on every water I fish, even though I might already know which flies will be more effective on that specific water. Most of the times those flies remain sleeping inside the boxes but there are occasions when they can turn a bad day in something epic. It is exactly for those special day that most of these patterns have been created, for when the going gets tough with heavy hatches and super selective fish, my favourite situation ever, when I fish dry flies.

In fast moving waters I like to use a vast array of parachute flies, deer hair patterns or some big CDC flies. I love CDC in every fishing situation, especially when combined with turkey, goose or other bird’s biots, but I also like to play with furs of different kind, like the snowshoe rabbit foot for wings or the amazing qiviut wool for bodies. For difficult hatches in slow moving waters sometimes I favour the use of hen hackles which are soft and capable to perfectly sit on the water surface. It is exactly in low to medium gradient rivers in presence of fish in moderate to high activity on various hatches that I find my favourite conditions. When it becomes damned difficult, with raising fish and high levels of selectivity. It is in these circumstances that I have the most fun using a vast array of dry flies of different constructions and materials. I have always loved what Vincent Marinaro stated about the average size of insects during heavy hatches and I follow a rule of thumb where most of my flies for difficult situations are very small to medium sized. Again, when we talk about mayflies and considering that we would never be able as fly tier to exactly replicate nature, we almost always end up fishing with flies that fit better in the category of emergers than of real duns. If you carefully observe a tiny dun resting on the surface you can get the point. Moreover, other authors and fishing authorities agrees on the fact that big trout and graylings tends to focus on easier meals, giving preference to insects trapped in the film, cripples and partially emerged bugs. And we better consider this when we fill our boxes.

But there are also days during which I leave the “match the hatch” approach at home and simply go on the river with a bunch of classic Catskill style dries and few wet flies, combined with an old reel and one short bamboo rod. During late spring or summer time, sharing a couple of fish caught on the dry fly and a cane rod with a good friend is a real pleasure.

One last suggestion, keep your fly sparse, less is best when talking about quantity of materials on a fly. Too often I see overdressed flies which are far from what a natural should look. Observe, look at the natural insects, see how ethereal they are, both emerged adults or nymphs. If you once try to gently check the content of a trout stomach with a stomach pump or if you carefully collect some mayfly or an emerging nymph from the water, you will immediately realize the lightness of this tiny bugs.

9. Presentation and drifts

Everybody agrees that a good presentation of the fly plays an important role in the achievement of the best result. Correct casting ability and knowledge of flows and currents might sound logic tools of the game. But I would prefer to broaden the idea even more and I consider presentation as the set of components that make the whole concept of fly fishing, where each of them has to be prepared or mastered at our best. Tackles, clothing, casting skills, fly tying and fly selection, entomology, stealth, sense of water and correct approach. All dressed with a good dose of respect for the environment and for the fish itself. And if we want, we can add a pinch of poetry and halieutic romanticism.

The rise of the fish, the final prize, will be the result of the total mastering of the whole presentation in its entirety.

Every piece of water can be different and different can be the approach depending on the situation. The choice of upstream or downstream presentation should have nothing to do with anachronistic self imposed rules of the past but ought to be dictated by the correct assessment of the fish feeding areas, distance, flows, fish behaviours and species and by several other factors. I don’t particularly like a straight downstream presentation but I found a slightly down and across drift very useful on spooky fish. Generally speaking, a river is a dynamic ecosystem and we can try to merge in it as much as we can, adapting ourselves to the variegated conditions.

11. Fighting fish

It is difficult to explain those sensations caused by that moment, very short or long it doesn't matter, during which the world of humans comes into contact with the aquatic world. A thread connects them, on the one hand the struggle for survival and on the other the ancestral hunting ritual. The rise of the fish on our fly and the first sign of tension on the line are the conclusion of a journey, the reward for the effectiveness of our technique. Everything worked fine. Most of the enjoyment can come from just this conclusion as well. The fight with the fish is a world apart and whatever its conclusion will be, whether the fish frees itself or is freed by us, we will have already won. It will be the epilogue of our story.

Fly fishing has always been imbued with a certain poetic note, more than any other fishing method. The intrinsic beauty that fly fishing possesses, its poetry, is the aspect that make it even more fascinating to me. But beauty must also express itself in the highest respect we must have for the environment that hosts us, the river, the stream or the lake, and for those animals that on the other side of the line will never be able to understand this, in some ways cruel, game. Knowing the reactions of the fish, the effects of the pressure exerted by our rod in relation to the currents, the correct tensions that can quickly guide the fish to the landing net, are fundamental aspects to ensure that as little time as possible passes from the moment of the bite to the release of the fish.

it is essential that a modern fisherman acts in the water with the utmost respect for his prey. What for us is a game must not turn into a tragedy for the fish, for him it is not a game.

My great prayer to all fishermen is not to photograph every single fish, there is no need and the damage that is done to the animal handled badly or kept out of the water for too long is enormous and increases the percentage of mortality. If once the emphasis could be limited to a conscientious "limit your catch", today we must say to ourselves more than ever "limit your photos".

Photo: Barry ord Clarke

10. Upstream or downstream?

Every piece of water can be different and different can be the approach depending on the situation. The choice of upstream or downstream presentation should have nothing to do with anachronistic self imposed rules of the past but ought to be dictated by the correct assessment of the fish feeding areas, distance, flows, fish behaviours and species and by several other factors. I don’t particularly like a straight downstream presentation but I found a slightly down and across drift very useful on spooky fish. Generally speaking, a river is a dynamic ecosystem and we can try to merge in it as much as we can, adapting ourselves to the variegated conditions.

11. Fighting fish

It is difficult to explain those sensations caused by that moment, very short or long it doesn't matter, during which the world of humans comes into contact with the aquatic world. A thread connects them, on the one hand the struggle for survival and on the other the ancestral hunting ritual. The rise of the fish on our fly and the first sign of tension on the line are the conclusion of a journey, the reward for the effectiveness of our technique. Everything worked fine. Most of the enjoyment can come from just this conclusion as well. The fight with the fish is a world apart and whatever its conclusion will be, whether the fish frees itself or is freed by us, we will have already won. It will be the epilogue of our story.

Fly fishing has always been imbued with a certain poetic note, more than any other fishing method. The intrinsic beauty that fly fishing possesses, its poetry, is the aspect that make it even more fascinating to me. But beauty must also express itself in the highest respect we must have for the environment that hosts us, the river, the stream or the lake, and for those animals that on the other side of the line will never be able to understand this, in some ways cruel, game. Knowing the reactions of the fish, the effects of the pressure exerted by our rod in relation to the currents, the correct tensions that can quickly guide the fish to the landing net, are fundamental aspects to ensure that as little time as possible passes from the moment of the bite to the release of the fish.

it is essential that a modern fisherman acts in the water with the utmost respect for his prey. What for us is a game must not turn into a tragedy for the fish, for him it is not a game.

My great prayer to all fishermen is not to photograph every single fish, there is no need and the damage that is done to the animal handled badly or kept out of the water for too long is enormous and increases the percentage of mortality. If once the emphasis could be limited to a conscientious "limit your catch", today we must say to ourselves more than ever "limit your photos".