Who knew that Sicily has a native, near-endemic trout? I didn’t, not until I started planning a recent trip there to attend my nephew’s wedding (his father, my brother-in-law, is Sicilian). I’ve always enjoyed traveling in Italy, even though the place can pretty much be summed up as old buildings, pasta and bureaucracy; a museum with nice food (and sometimes difficulty in buying a ticket). Still, with a bit of online investigation before this trip, I discovered something else interesting about Italy, and Sicily specifically: Mediterranean trout, a.k.a. Salmo cettii, a brown trout cousin endemic to southern Italy (including Sicily and Sardinia) and Corsica (trout on the other, south side of the Mediterranean in the mountains of Algeria and Morocco were formerly considered conspecific, but have now been split as a separate species, Salmo macrostigma).
With some further riffling through the ether’s electrons I found one Peppe Torre, the only official fly fishing guide in Sicily. By email we arranged to meet after the wedding, in the ancient city of Siracusa on Sicily’s southeast coast, and go in search of trout.
Going in search of anything in Sicily will likely take you in some way past or through the Italian trio of old buildings, bureaucracy and, grazie a Dio, some good food. The best of the old buildings on this trip came on the drive from Palermo toward Siracusa, with a stop to see the extraordinary Villa Romana del Casale, 1,800 year-old ruin of the home of a Roman high official. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is distinguished by its extraordinary floor mosaics, more than 35,000 square feet of them, the most extensive and best-preserved of such Roman mosaics. They largely depict wild animals, including images of the chase, both hunting and fishing. And they reveal that something akin to tenkara perhaps took hold in ancient Rome before Japan… Check it out (and I like the commentary that the angel wings make about we fixed-liners):
Onward to Siracusa I checked into an Airbnb, and the next morning I met Peppe just a few minutes’ walk away, near the remains of an ancient Greek temple (history is very, very deep in Sicily). Peppe was pony-tailed, tattooed, outgoing, and the only fishing guide I’ve ever had who cranked AC/DC out the car windows. This was fun already. As we drove inland from the coast, he pointed out various points of food interest along the way, such as groves of oranges, peaches and, of course, olives and lemons.
Our first stop was a village with small mom ‘n pop deli, to order sandwiches – panini – for our streamside lunch later in the day. To layer between the slabs of good bread, we chose local cheese, salami, and a green olive relish. We added a couple of Italian bottled beers to the order and were good to go.
Almost… First came an amusing (it helps to hold that perspective) traverse of the Sicilian bureaucracy. Anyone who fishes Italy, resident or non-resident, must purchase a license from the province in which they either live or fish, and the license is then good throughout the country. A problem we had is the way the province of Siracusa does it: anglers must apply in person for a fishing license, and it takes from a week to a month for the application to be processed and the license issued – hardly conducive to the business of a fishing guide. Peppe’s workaround (a particular skill of Italians) was to have me go online with my phone and purchase a license from the more efficiently run northern province of Lombardy (home of Milan). He just shrugged at the fact that my license fee would now go into the coffers of Lombardy, not Siracusa – what are you gonna do?
Panini and beers secured, license sorted, we continued driving inland on the bright morning, ascending through dry, scrabbly, chaparral that didn’t look much like trout country. Sicily wasn’t always like this. Although somewhat hard to imagine today, dense forest covered much of the island when the Romans arrived. Over the following centuries the empire cut most of the Sicilian forest for lumber, especially for use in shipbuilding. A hotter, drier climate ensued, as did more agriculture and herding, and the forest never recovered. Still, some Mediterranean trout managed to hold on in streams at higher elevations, where air and water stayed cooler. That’s where Peppe and I (with Angus Young) were headed.
We parked along a narrow road, and as we geared up a car slowed and the man at the wheel asked us if we had seen his cow. We hadn’t, but I felt as if somewhat comfortably home back in Wisconsin. As we walked down a rocky trail toward the stream, Peppe pointed out a fragrant shrub in flower – wild oregano.
At the stream, the Manghisi, I was struck first by how small it was – just a shallow creek, no river here. Sicily is surrounded by water, the sea, but fresh flowing water on the island is a premium. Although we’d climbed switch-back roads in his car to get here, we were now on a plateau, not in the steep folds of a mountain. Consequently, the shallow Manghisi flowed leisurely, without extensive riffles or turbulent runs – which would give any trout in the shallow waters a good look at us from quite a distance. And towering along the banks were thistles taller (and spinier) than I’ve ever seen, well over my head. This was going to take some careful, technical fishing.
I rigged up a new rod, a recent acquisition I was trying for the first time, Tenkara Rod Co.’s “Teton” model. I fixed a length of Shimotsuke 3 level line, some 5x and a prince nymph, and extended the rod to its full 12-foot length. At the very first stretch of water, a long, gentle run, I impressed Peppe with the possibilities of tenkara by landing two trout. He said I was the first of his clients to ever take a fish from this shallow run. Although the fish were small (about 8 or 9 inches), the catches were exciting – a new country in which to catch trout, and what I thought was a new species. Alas, Peppe soon educated me on identifying Salmo cettii: the fish I landed showed a mix of red and black spots, marking them as brown trout/Mediterranean trout hybrids. Purebred Salmo cettii lack any red spotting.
I spent a lot of the next hour or so on my knees, and sometimes even on my belly, to get casts undetected into the long, gentle runs and the occasional pools. The Manghisi’s pools, such as they are, are wee bullseyes, and so accurate casting is essential, and the Teton did well. I landed and released a few more hybrids, and Peppe then suggested we hike back to the car and give the next stream a try.
As we drove, Peppe told me about the cooperative efforts of Sicilian anglers and conservation groups to safeguard and restore populations of Mediterranean trout, including addressing the issue of hybridization with browns. The news sounded good, that they’ve really been at it and have made some progress. And I could hear in Peppe’s voice his pride for these fish, his fellow Sicilian homeys. Small surprise that one of his largest tatts is a Mediterranean trout.
The next stream, the Anapo, was also small, and ran through a beautiful small valley framed by chalky cliffs. Before rigging up, we paused for our streamside lunch. As I worked on my panino and beer, I heard a creaky cackling overhead and thought, ‘I know what that is!’. Sure enough, I looked up to the pristine blue sky and a peregrine falcon was sailing overhead. Fantastic. Given the season (summer), the habitat (cliffs), and its behavior (vocalizing), it was almost certainly nesting nearby. A fine initial gift from the Anapo. In fact, here’s a peregrine-eye view of the Anapo and its rugged, beautiful country, taken by Peppe’s drone:
More gifts followed as Teton and I, under Peppe’s guidance, soon got into some pure Salmo cettii. The Anapo had some small yet deep pools, and I switched up to a tungsten, a #14 Egan’s Red Dart, to get it down quickly to fish, and the trout responded. And this time they were true-blue Mediterraneans. Peppe was as excited as me as he showed me how to identify my special catches: spots of black only (no red), and the spots larger than those of a typical brown trout (hence the scientific species name given to populations of these trout in North Africa, S. macrostigma – ‘large spots’).
I ended the afternoon with about a half dozen Mediterranean trout netted from the Anapo. Given that the water was not large, neither were the trout. No matter. In the life of an angler, there will come only so many times to catch a new species of trout, and so grazie mille Peppe – and Salmo cettii – for an exceptional day.
Getting there: I had a fine day with Peppe. In addition to Mediterranean trout, he knows where to find rainbows in some larger waters further north in Sicily. You can find him and book a trip at www.flyfishingsicily.com.
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