Mick ‘the Fish’ Flanagan of Midland Angling has had some old friends return this week for more great fishing in the midlands. We’ll let him tell the tale:
Great to spend a day with my good friend Stefano Belisario and his pal Antonio Candidi of Abruzzo, Italy.
I have been fishing with Stefano for years, and yesterday with J.J. they struggled on the pike scene on a fantastic lake that Stefano caught many doubles on the fly during previous trips. Today was a different kettle of fish, and the pike were locked on to Stefanos’s colourful flies.
Antonio was spinning lures and actually got the first fish, but we put a pike fly on his spinning rod, and as they say, the rest is history! Antonio had the best pike at 102cm.
Lunch was priceless, and Stefano brought me over his famous Italian homemade sausages, pigs he breeds and olive oil he makes at home in Abruzzo. We had what he calls normal sausages, liver sausages & crazy sausages; Sylvia better mind herself when the crazy sausages kick in!
Marty will be back tomorrow for a few days after trout & he’ll sample a few of Stefano’s Abruzzo sausages in the coming days. Stefano and Antonio will be back at the pike with Damian Grifferty – let’s hope the weather is not too bad!
Earlier in the week I wanted to fish Derravaragh, but it got choppy and I headed for the River Inny. I had planned to troll & spin small lures for trout, but that was knocked on the head. I just had one small paddle tail lure in the box & a few 2-3 inch hard baits and they did the business on the Inny. The perch-coloured paddle tail accounted for 4 pike, one nice double.
