The name is a made-up word, leaning on the Latin cura: care, attention, the trouble one takes over something. Read it as “things done with care”, which is a fair description of fly fishing. The catching is a small part. Most of it is looking: at the water, at an insect on the back of your hand, at a knot before you trust it.
Who publishes this
Curamenti is published by Giulia Romano, who is responsible for its content.
PublisherGiulia RomanoVia Savoia, 78
00198 Roma
Italy
[email protected]
Editorial note
The almanac is an editorial project, not a diary and not a record of anybody’s fishing. Its essays, recipes and tables are written from general, widely shared fly-fishing practice: the methods, proportions, temperatures and timings that the sport’s long literature and its everyday custom agree on.
Some essays open with a scene, a frosty morning or a July dusk, or describe a sample day or a sample diary page. These are illustrative composites, written to make a point vivid. They are not reports of real outings, real rivers or real people, and each carries an “Illustrative account” note beneath its title. Where a fly or a method is credited to a named person, that person is a historical figure of fly fishing and the credit follows the usual published attribution.
The numbering in the masthead (“No. 10”) simply follows the calendar month. If you find a mistake, write and it will be corrected.
What you will find
The journal holds 15 longer pieces on reading water, method, fieldcraft, fish care, grayling and tying. The fly box is a list of 36 well-known patterns, each with its full dressing and plain tying notes. The hatch chart shows what to expect month by month and how to know each insect in the hand.
The field notes are the reference shelf: a fish care guide, leader formulas and knots drawn step by step, river etiquette, a glossary and a page of questions. And Match the Hatch is a small free card game, made because learning which fly copies which insect is easier when it is play.
What the almanac holds to
- The fish comes first. If a method, a photograph or a hot afternoon puts the fish at risk, the answer is to stop.
- Small water is enough. A brook you can step across teaches everything a famous river does, without the travel.
- Simple flies, tied well, beat complicated flies tied badly.
- Rivers are shared. Leave gates as you found them, give other anglers room, and take litter home, yours and other people’s.
- Being wrong is part of it. Corrections are welcome and are made openly.
How it is made
The insects, flies, knots and river diagrams are line drawings coded as SVG, in the manner of an old natural-history plate, rather than photographs; the aim is to show the shape of a thing rather than a trophy. The pages are plain and light on purpose, so that they load on a poor signal in a valley bottom. There are no accounts and nothing to sign up for.
A word of caution
Seasons, permits, catch limits and rules about hooks and methods differ from one river to the next and change from year to year. Nothing in this almanac replaces the local regulations, the advice of the people who look after the water, or your own judgement about wading and weather. Please read the terms of use and the privacy policy.