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TRAVELER'S TIDDLERS TACKLE

© Louis Bignami

Travelers who don't tote minimal fishing gear miss all sorts of opportunities. Such seems sad when a small "packable" spinning or fly rod with reels to match and a few lures and flies tucks into one's luggage. These outfits need be neither fancy nor expensive. In fact you can simply chop an outmoded rod into appropriate bits and glue on some extra ferrules and you're in business on the cheap.

My basic outfit runs to two St. Croix travel rods - one's a medium spinning rod, and the other's a #5 fly outfit. Add a small container of split shot, loose hooks from size 2 to 14, a couple of floats and some heavy leader for bait fishing. Continue with an assortment of smaller spoons and plastic baits that are less expensive and more compact than plugs. Finish off with some spare line and small container of flies - big flies for saltwater a là black bass choices, and small flies for trout and such. If you're fussy add some handiwipes to clean fingers.

I should admit that I own #10, #8 and #6 packable fly rods with gear to match, and some expecially made casting rods as well as a surf rod that breaks down into 30-inch pieces. This to avoid the problems of baggage handlers related to King Kong. Even with the recent crackdown on carry on luggage I can jam most of this into the camera or computer bag I tote on my travel assignments.

What kind of fishing does such gear produce? In 1997 I fished for trout, grayling bream and trench in England and Australia, and added barramundi and an assortment of tropical items. I got skunked in Japan, but caught some interesting carp in China even though I got kicked out of the best looking spot by the Forbidden City

I mannaged some rather odd-looking panfish off a dock in Thailand while waiting for a ferry and got spooled - 200 yards of six-pound test went downstream in two minutes!

On a Paris trip in September, I got skunked in the Seine - so, apparently does everyone else. On the same trip I tried about four casts into a small stream near Chamonix for what looked like trout, and caught some extremely ugly panfish I think were roach out of a ditch near Milan while waiting for a ride. A second Italian trip produced some small, ugly and stinky flatfish out of Venice's Grand Canal. Even in November I'm not brave enough to eat fish from Venice waters! But the locals appreciated them!