Hello, my name is Alberto Calzolari and I was born in Bologna, Italy where I have lived for the past 43 years. I don’t recall when I started fly fishing and tying flies, but it should have been around the age of 14 when I was trying to do everything but study. With the first small amount of money that my parents gave me, I bought the first available book in the Italian language on fly fishing, and then, using bait hooks and wool taken from my mother (like many others did), I started making my first flies. From that day my life has been always revolving around fly fishing and fly tying, although my job has nothing to do with them. For the last 16 years I have been travelling around the world and being in so many places has given me the chance to learn foreign languages, and most of all to meet new people everywhere and indulge in my favourite loves: the fish and the fly. This, I think, has been the most precious gift: to meet fishing and tying friends from Japan to the U.S., sharing with them my passion while improving my knowledge through their experience. In the past 10 years my skills have definitely increased, and I am no longer using my mother's wool and thread.

Apart from having friends worldwide (a fantastic collector's item!), I have been lucky enough to have two main mentors in my home country. From the fishing skills point of view I must say thanks to my old friend Massimo Masi, who was an enormous source of inspiration. He is one of the grandfathers of Italian fly fishing and I have great respect for him. He taught me on the field (our field being the water) the secrets of casting, of fly selection, and most of all, respect for the fish. He also taught me the fine art of making beautiful fishing flies: flies with a soul. The other man I wish to thank is my good friend Fabrizio Gajardoni. As far as the artistic side of tying salmon and realistic flies is concerned, he was the one who taught me the secrets and inspired me the most. His critics were the fundamentalist classic salmon fly tiers, and his continuous pushing to improve his tying gave me the fortitude to keep on trying. The only thing I hate is the way he always finds defects in my flies, but I accept this as the price of learning.

Framed Flies by Alberto Calzolari

In the past two years I have been so lucky as to attend the Somerset show in NJ. Difficult to put into words the pleasure and the feeling of having met so many people all at once. I shared this experience with Fabrizio and I hope we will be there many more times in the future. We met and spent time with friends like Paul Schmookler, Ingrid and Paul Rossman, Roger Plourde, Jeans Pilgard, Ted Patlen (and his nice brother), Keith Fulsher, Paul Ptalis, and Charly Chute. A special thank goes to John Maclain, and he knows why. Many more should be on this list and my thanks goes to all of them for everything that, without knowing, they have passed onto me in terms of knowledge and experience. I think that our eyes and ears are the first source of knowledge.

In terms of fly tying I like to dress almost every kind of fly, but I have a special love for classic salmon tying because of the colours, the skills required, and the always present challenge of searching for (never to be found anyway): perfection. But most of all I like the flow and the tradition laying behind this unique piece of art. Next to salmon tying I really love to collect books (especially rare ones), old fly fishing memorobilia, and flies tied by other tiers, famous or not.

I wish to thank Mr. Don Williams for giving me the chance to be here in this lovely site together with other nice people. I hope you will enjoy my flies. If anyone would like to contact me to talk about salmon flies and fly fishing, I can be reached at my email address: a.calzolari4@tin.it.

Thanks,
Alberto Calzolari