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

My fly rod, like a lot of my fishing equipment, is self-built. Assembling things has always been a passion of mine, and I have set up a small workshop where I build rods, tempered stainless steel rings, corks, spigots and reel holders. The size that I prefer is a graphite 7'6" in two pieces, for a wt. 3 line. My ideal fly rod should have the following characteristics: The low section must not be too flexible, in order to have a very hard action. The tip section has to be very sensitive and fast at the same time. Blanks with such an action are hardly available on the market, so I made my fly rods from graphite sections designed for other fishing techniques, and then I cut them properly to obtain the desired action.

The reel is not particularly important in my opinion. It is a simple line collector and even drag is almost never used, so it is only important that a reel is light and well balanced with the rod. The line is a floating DT3, the best compromise between weight, quietness and delicate pose. It must be smooth and not excessively soft, and during the recent years it is difficult to find a good quality floating line on the market.

The fly floatant I use is an industrial quite fluid silicone, just apply a small amount of it and you can also use it for the CDC.

Vest and waders complete my fishing apparel. When the river allows it, I wear hip boots that gives me more movement freedom. 

I don't use polarized glasses, because I only fish dry fly, so I rely on experience and "sense of water" to locate the fish. 

In addition to these tools, my equipment is completed by a small metal hook tied to a nylon cord, which applied on the rod tip, allows me to retrieve the flies that sometimes hook themselves on the many trees that surround our streams.

The choice of the equipment is very much dictated by the environment that I fish, the Apennine streams, very dense of vegetation, where we only can enjoy our passion with a short rod and using the Italian style of casting, developed in order to overcome the many environmental constraints of our waters. 

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

My leader, developed over the years, is a "modified" knotted Ritz recipe, made with Kamoufil nylon thread.

0.45 mm.180-200 cm - 0.40, 0.35, 0.30, 0.25 mm.  - 20 cm. - 0,20 mm. 30 cm. with a perfection loop at the end. The tip, never shorter than 1.50 meters, is connected through a loop to loop connection at the leader. This setting is for “search dry fly fishing”, with quite big flies, and rough waters. 

If I am fishing on the rise and have to use smaller fly and a thinner diameter of nylon, I add 50 cm.  of  0.12 - 0.10 mm. to the tip, using a blood knot.

3. Approach and stealth

In our waters the approach and the discretion are playing a fundamental role. Disturbing the spot, in a shallow water, often means compromising the success of your fishing action. For this reason, the approach is strictly upstream.

4. Reading the water

When fishing on dry fly only, and very often in "search dry fly fishing", reading and understanding the game of the currents is crucial. Combined with experience, it allows us to know in advance where the fish is hiding, and where it should rise up and eat  our fly. It is also important to "animate" the fly to stimulate the fish to bite it.

5. Casting ability which casts are essential.

Casting skills, especially in rough environments, are fundamental. An imperfect fly, if cast properly, is way more effective than a perfect fly casted the wrong way, when you are "search dry fly fishing".

For this reason, I have always followed the developments of the Italian casting technique, which was born with the aim to help you facing the rough environmental situations of our rivers. The basic cast is the angled cast (angolato), from which a whole series of derived cast were born, with the aim to control the leader and deposit the fly where and how we want.... 

The curve casts, the overlapped cast (sovrapposto), the low parallel cast (radente), the twist cast (svirgolato), the overturned cast (ribaltato), both on water and on air, the undertip cast (sottovetta), the double mending (doppia spinta) , are used to overcome the environment constrictions we have to present properly the fly where the fish is feeding. Very useful too are all the casts that let you throw the line upstream, when having brunches above and behind you, such as the wave cast (ondulato) and the cut cast (tagliato). 

6. Entomology, what should we know.

You don't need to be an entomologist to go fly fishing. Of course observing the environment that surrounds you and the river insects, their shape, color an behavior, helps a lot. It is important to understand when and how insects are hatching. 

When I started to tie flies, I tried to imitate the insects I saw on the water, without knowing the basics of fly tying and the historical dressings. The trout rise the same, but with time, experience, and of course the study of fly tying techniques, my results became way better.

7. Rise forms. Can they tell us something?

If the trout is feeding on a spent fly, the rise is almost imperceptible, like a drop of water falling from above. 

The rise on an emergent fly is more like a boiling, and the fish is not coming out of the surface. 

During a hatch, otherwise, the bubbles are more thunderous and the trouts are coming out of the water to catch the flies.

8. Fly selection, Size, shape, materials, which flies are essential.

Talking about fly selection, the first decision to make once on the river is between “search dry fly fishing patterns” and hatch flies. Regarding the first category, I think that parachute flies really have an edge, both in terms of casting and both because they tend to stay a few fractions of seconds more on the fishing spot. For this reason, I have developed “variants” of some classic dressings, such as the Royal Wullf, the Devaux 699, the March Brown and the May Fly (hooks from 14 to 10), adapting them to my dubbing loop parachute technique. All these flies have a visible post in calf tail or opossum. The particular dubbing loop hackle fiber dressing makes them very strong. In addition, with this technique we can also utilize very long feathers, which would otherwise be of no use, and even the cheap rooster feathers you can find on common dusters.

Together with hackles fibers you can mix other feathers, such as partridge, duck and mandarin duck, which contributes to give a sense of vitality to the flies.

Among the “search dry fly patterns”, the bumblebee, the ant (in parachute), the foam ant, the sedge fly and some foam and deer hair stone fly in are always in my fly box.

Talking about hatch flies, I think that one of the most suitable materials is CDC, and sometime, synthetic fibers for the wings. The size ranges from 16 to 24, tied simply with thread or peacock quill body. 

The “Arpo”, italian dressing built entirely with a single feather of CDC, is very effective in many situations.

For larger sizes I often use a thread extended body.

Ephemerella ignita, abrophlebia, baetis niger and baetis oliva are the flies you cannot never leave at home.

9. Presentation and drifts.

All the casts that I mentioned before, shaping the leader the way you desire, help you to present the fly on the fishing spot long enough to stimulate the trout to rise. 

Rather than talking about drift, I like the concept of "animation" the fly; very often a conscious movement of the fly has the result of stimulate the trout that otherwise wouldn’t be inclined to rise on a fly that simply goes down the current. Parachute fly are my choice at this purpose. These flies, compared to the classic dressings, don't "anchor" themselves on the surface of the water, and, in the larger hook sizes, they don’t twist the tip when using a thin nylon.

10. Upstream or downstream?

UPSTREAM!

11. fighting fish

With short rods, wt 3 lines and long leaders, the fighting of the fish is almost always done by hand, without the reel. In the rivers of central Italy big trouts are not so frequent. However, over the years, we have fought and landed even big fishes, despite the light gear. 

Interview and translation in September-October 2020 by Cristian Coppa, board member of the Mosca Club Vallesina.  https://www.moscaclubvallesina.com/