Let’s start at the beginning. Claudio Tagini is an Italian fly fishing junkie who moved to the US way back in 1978 and began to fish intensively across North America, particularly the American West, with an eye toward offering complete-itinerary-type fishing travel services for Europeans. To that end, he formed a company called American Western Adventures.

Tagini has copied us on one of his Western fishing itinerary packages, and it is indeed something to behold. The one we perused, for a party of three Italian anglers, comes in a hard-cover notebook with a color photograph on the cover and page after page of detailed instructions on how to go from point to point, what flies to use, who to call. Nearly all the pages have a map of some sort on them, or one or more color photographs. No American agent we know of is producing anything like this.

The trip began with the Italian anglers arriving in Idaho Falls, renting a Ford Explorer and heading toward West Yellowstone where they stayed in a cabin with a kitchen on the Madison River. From there, they went into the park, visiting the geyser area and on into Mammoth Hot Springs/Gardiner where they fished the northeast section of the park before going on to Jackson and back to Idaho Falls. One of the highlights of the trip was a horseback/day-fishing trip up Slough Creek.

As this is written, Honor Roll subscriber Andrea Fioretti is sending us an evaluation of a Western itinerary package Tagini prepared for him a few years ago. We’ll let you know what he has to say. In the meantime, Tagini says he has looked hard at the way Americans book Western fly fishing trips, and he thinks a lot of us would want to use his service if we knew about it and understood its value. He says he is continually surprised at how little American fly fishermen really know about the West and the wonderful variety of fishing if offers. The problem is too much information and too little knowledge, he says. Plus, most agents who book Western travel are dependent on lodge and guide-service commissions to cover their costs and create a profit. The result is most Americans wind up booking single-destination trips to single lodges, or to limited areas where they contract with guide services to take them out. This is one of the things that bunches anglers up on famous waters, he says.

We’ve asked Tagini to create an itinerary for us here at The Angling Report for the following hypothetical angler: age, mid-50s; skill level, moderate; primary interests, mostly on-your-own fly fishing for trout in remote, scenic parts of Wyoming; budget, on the Spartan side; duration of trip, seven days. We’ll digest this itinerary in next month’s issue of The Angling Report and let you know how much the trip would cost our hypothetical angler. As regards cost, by the way, Tagini typically books all accommodations and in some instances all guide services and adds that to the single fee his customers pay him on receipt of the itinerary. He does not prepay for meals, but he does suggest restaurants, as well as fly shops, rental equipment companies, non-fishing activities, etc.

Tagini says the smallest fee he has ever charged is $500 for a weeklong trip for two clients whose preferences, skill level, and so forth he was already familiar with. Actually, the bottomline cost to the clients was less than $500 because Tagini was able to buy some of the necessary services at a discount, which he passed on to the clients. The upshot is, the total trip cost, excluding airfare but including his fee, was about $2,000.

He says the highest fee he has ever charged is $11,000 for a month-long trip out West for 14 Italian anglers. I came along on the trip as tour director, and I wound up hiring additional help, Tagini says. On a few occasions, I personally helped cook meals, including a dinner of paella Valenciana one night in Fairplay, Colorado. I had fresh seafood brought in from Denver that day and used some of my own Italian saffron.

Indeed Tagini’s approach to arranging Western trips is intriguing. By charging his clients for his services, he is not dependent the way most agents are on earning commissions from service providers. This allows him to work as a travel planner for his clients, not as a marketing agent for various lodges. The economics involved here are the same economics involved in hiring a financial planer. If you don’t pay for your planner’s services, he is going to be inclined to sell you the products that earn him the most commission, not necessarily the ones that are best for you. It will be interesting indeed to see what Tagini comes up with for our hypothetical angler.

So, what about Tagini’s European travel activities? Again, he approaches this as a fee-for-service business, creating all-inclusive itineraries, not just for fly fishermen but also for non-fly fishermen and fly fishermen who want to combine fishing with various kinds of other activities.

Tagini sent us a brief description of a 12-day itinerary he created recently for three non-fishing couples from Virginia. The trip involved a week-long stay in a castle near Siena, museum and winery visits, cooking classes, two days in Umbria and so forth. He says he could easily have incorporated several days of fishing into this itinerary, either in Italy or elsewhere in Europe, including Slovenia. The all-inclusive cost of the trip (excluding airfare, meals and car rental) was $4,570 per couple. His company’s fee (included in the total) was $2,000.

Here at The Angling Report, we aren’t about to give Tagini’s European services the nod, as we do not have any feedback from paid clients. We will say we are impressed by the fee-for-service business model Tagini uses to create his itineraries. If you hire him to create an itinerary for you in Europe next summer be sure you file a report. As for his Western US itineraries, stay tuned for a follow-up next month.