Fly fishing: Bacchiglione River

Intro

The story I tell you today is set in May 2020. We are in Phase 2 of the Lockdown for Covid19 and since you can only fish within your region, in our case the Veneto, and having the dark water on Adige (rightly, given the period of snow melting) and the Brenta, which is also dirty from the rains. We opt for the Bacchiglione in Vicenza. An excellent opportunity to see it, since I had never been there and many friends and customers had always spoken to me very well. So a couple of phone calls on Friday evening to friends Kim (colleague of the Aigu.pp guide group who will guide us) and Matteo, meeting in the shop on Saturday morning at 6:30 with the latter, and off we go direction Vicenza. In 50 minutes, going calmly, we are on the spot, Kim arrives, well loaded and with a bag of fresh croissants for us! What a service guys! We couldn't have started better.

Story, equipment, techniques and flies

Very well, let's take a look at the river, and opt to fishing with a streamer given the slightly veiled water. So we change, we make the permit online on the Hooking App, and off we go fishing. But after a few launches something is wrong, we stop immediately because the equipment we put in hand is disproportionate for the place! Big streamers, sinking lines, and #9 rods! In addition, some rises were glimpsed! So we decide to go back to the car and I understand that I will do the day with the classic 8'6 "#4 to be ready for anything: dry fly, light streamer, nymph with the strike.

Which will prove to be a good move until the evening!

Let's go back to the river, I start with a light streamer with a wiggle tail but I see that the current is not high, so it is not exactly the ideal fly for this spot. After that, we run into some sporadic rises, we try it without success, but for the rest there is little activity and on the other hand many fishermen (who like us have done the same reasoning, Brenta dirty then go: all on the Bacchiglione!) . We try to fishing with nymph, both high sticking and with the strike, and being able to use only one artificial fly, we opt for large nymphs or perdigons that manage to get into fishing quickly. But also fishing underneath, quite a fact.

We take the opportunity to make beautiful walks and discover the three areas (to date that I am writing to you) that make it up: the downstream trophy, the no-kill zone only fly in the middle, and the upstream trophy. The trophy areas are fly and spinning managed, but if a person like us fly fishing in nokill mode, they can practically fish all 3 areas without distinction. The river has some deep pools whose bottom cannot be seen, and very long flat water areas. In some ways it is similar to a spring, in others to a small stream. Let's say that it is the classic watercourse at the bottom of the valley of the high plain, which reminded me of certain conditions found in Friuli a few years ago. The ideal of course is to face it with the waders to be able to fish from the middle of the river, but there are some spots that you can even fish on dry feet if you want. It always has a strange effect to find salmonic areas, whose surrounding landscape is made up of reeds, nettles and agricultural crops.

It is managed very well by the P.a.b.a.t. (Pescatori Associati Bacchiglione Astichello Tesina), the accesses are there, as far as you can, the banks are clean, and above all there is no lack of fish! In fact, in this river we can find barbs, chubs, but above all really in quantity, many brown trout of various sizes! From 20 to 50 cm, and perhaps even more for the lucky ones! Unfortunately there is no grayling, it would be a sight to see them rise on these long stretches of low and flat water!

The day took place just before lunch (12:30), which is usually the worst time to be fishing. From a bridge we see some trout active in the shade of the trees.
So I decide to try from the distance by throwing a small streamer in the zonker. And in 5 minutes I get 3 chases and 2 strikes, unfortunately not successful, but we insist! The key is that!
Lunch with a quick sandwich, and we go back to fishing for 13:30, plus a sun comes out that breaks the stones! Icing on the cake no???
Oh well let's try, the stretch of river "No-Kill only fly" at that moment is strangely empty, and always with the same streamer, in about 20 minutes they reach the landing net 3 brown trouts one more beautiful than the other! It's been a while since I did a good catch like that!

After this window, we remain without fishes practically until 18, when we decide to find a flat, position ourselves and make the coup de soir in dry fly.

Rises begins, the river lights up! It is the classic moment that fly fishing lovers await: being able to fish on dry fly!
But this river does not give anything!
In fact, for practically an hour we launch, change flies, go down in diameter with the tips ... but nothing. Trout are eating emerging flies, in fact the ephemeral in the adult stage can be seen parading away on the water and being completely ignored by the trout. I continually change flies between emerging and dries I arrive to put a tip of 0.10 with the Ephemera Cdc Beige on #18. Until, a light summer rain begins (yes just like that of advertising!) And I hear them from the distance that Matteo misses one, but it is too far to scream "with what fly ?!" I would have frightened the 8 trouts that were rising in front of me a few steps. So we insist and after ten minutes Teo have the strike and I hear scream: it's a tuna! Not even the time to start enjoying his fight, which strike me also! My trout is a brown of about 40 cm more or less, that I wade "quietly" while I enjoy the scene and the laughter over between Matteo and Kim to be able to earn the big: they make it! It is a male, slightly hybridized between brown and marble, over 50! So I reach them, ritual photos with the fish, and go free!

End of the rain, end of the rises, and here ends our fishing day. There were more fish that we saw rising than those we caught, but it doesn't matter: after two months locked in the house we went back to fishing. This was the important thing!

Conclusion

A very technical place, certainly not easy to read, so not really ideal for beginners, but certainly a great school! Excellent for those who love long nymph fishing (New Zealand style), but also dry fly fishing both on rises and hunting, and as you have read, also for those who like to fish with streamers. Very easy to reach, in fact it is only 10 minutes by car from the Vicenza Ovest motorway exit, and from Verona we have seen it to be very comfortable, we will definitely be back! I leave you below with some of the most beautiful photos of that day.

To fish together and experience these emotions go to page contacts.

Thanks for reading and see you soon :)

Matteo Lavezzini