Last week was an interesting week at the WCs in Italy. Really sucked regards Rickard’s delayed luggage. Similar thing for Michal last time in Norway. That’s totally disruptive. Not only terms of having to cast with unfamiliar (and poorer quality!) gear, that you haven’t been training with for the last two years (and more of course), but also it’s just awful mental preparation. Rickard is up there with the best of the best and wants a shot at Gold.

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Tracy and I are keeping a keen eye on the results coming from the World Fly casting championships in Italy this week. We would have loved to be there in person, however the decision to extend the programme to over a week makes things impossible for us as we use most of our leave on an extended fishing trip in the spring. From what we've seen online, Vinadio looks like a stunning venue and we hope all the casters present, from whichever country, have a great time competing there. Maybe Tracy and I will be back when we retire – or maybe there will be an alternative competition that goes back to a long weekend format that we can travel to compete in.

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I’m a bit behind schedule this week with the jetlag from returning to Japan. But fear not, a fly of the week you shall have! A modern classic this week; the Serendipity.

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Sunday we had picnic day with Satu. Short afternoon out, we had masseur on Saturday, so just little hanging and some time together. Water levels were high everywhere after rain whole week. So Satu decided to concentrate for mushroom picking and I fished.

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The alarm goes off at 3:45 Sunday morning, 4:15 I jump in the cab that will take me to the airport. 04:45 I enter the airport the line to KLM doesn’t look like the service line I had last week when I flew to the Swedish nationals. It’s long. So I try the self service kiosk. It doesn’t work. Cannot find my booking. I go to the line and I’m not sure I will get to the front before bag drop closes. So I try the kiosk again. I get my baggage tags and drops the bag off and goes to the special luggage handling for the rod tube. There they won’t accept it. I need to get it stamped somewhere. And now I start to feel a bit stressed. 

I go to the side of the line and asks if I can get the stamp needed. I get pointed elsewhere and get the needed approval. Dropping of the rod tube in good time. 

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I have a problem extending my carry. I assumed that it involved poorly formed, inconsistent, backcasts and designed a practice accordingly. Of course, on taking it to the grass, it morphed into something else - it was easy enough to practice picking leaves and monitoring the loop but only in a closed stance. Alternatively I tried performing the triangle drill - it’s easy enough to craft a clean stop, maintain a little tension, and get a loop to move to the end of the line but these loops aren’t the bedrock of my fishing stroke. When the rod is moved in the horizontal plane gravity tends to separate the plane of the rod's arc from the plane of the loop. The planes merge if more energy is added to the stroke. Only in the vertical plane are they completely aligned. For me it requires a little more tip-speed to get things right overhead. 

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