Thursday 12 July 2007

La Spezia

While on holiday in Italy recently I was invited to go fishing in the Gulf of La Spezia by two friends from the MedFlyFish forum, Marco and David.

We headed out early in the morning from where David's boat was moored:



We headed out of the gulf passing in front of beautiful Portovenere:




The church on the promontory was where Byron used to get his inspiration from, or so they say:



Moments after going past Portovenere we found what could have been a school of bonito but they disappeared never to show again. We then headed north opposite the Cinque Terre, and then back south, into the gulf again and eventually ended up fishing a beacon where we caught lots of Sugarelli, a type of horse mackerel that were very tasty when they ended up on the barbeque later that evening.

All in all we didn't catch anything else, but as my first boat based saltwater flyfishing trip off Italy it was fascinating, especially being confronted with amazing landscapes and vistas, so different from my usual haunt of Moreton Bay.

David said that in September/October there is much more activity, they catch dolphinfish, bonito and other tuna species. I must get back there at the right time.