Rickard Gustafsson | Saturday, 20 June 2026
So I’m going to Italy in end of August to do some casting. The number of people going this year from Sweden are fewer than last time. Reasons being costs and a whole week away. We have been lucky before to have good funding from the Swedish federation. But due to the declining number of nations represented at the World Championships we have lost funding.
Today I had a check in with Paul. Having a look at my casting to see if some adjustments were needed and set a training plan leading up to the WCs. Casting is fine, I have some minor tweaks I want to do. But all in all it is good. I’m not in peak shape and I’m actually quite happy with that. I want to feel that I’m improving and getting into better shape as I get closer to the big competition instead of suddenly losing some edge during the preparations. That feeling I’ve had many times leading up to weightlifting competitions until I found the recipe to keep in good shape that I could get in top shape in 8 weeks or slightly less. That did take some years and competitions to figure out. And I’m not there yet in my fly casting.
I did get some drills from Paul today and we could see that what I’ve done previously have given the impact we are looking for. It is nothing secret really, just things like working on optimising carry but instead of going for maximum carry it is about cleaning it up even more at the amount of carry I want to use for competition. Just some help to steer me in the right direction. Last week I was feeling really lost and just expressing that helped me feel calmer. Sometimes it is nice to just let go and let someone else do the thinking for you.
And we did a bit of talking about snakehead fishing. I really hope I get the chance to go back again to fish in the jungle.
The HTOC is active again. Even if I’m more in the utilitarian camp when it comes to gear I really like these wooden spacers:
https://www.sexyloops.com/htoc/2026/06/18/the-tornado/
And I rarely leave home without one of the HT4, 5 or 6. Maybe not when going to work if I’m not fishing on the way home. But if there is the slightest chance for fishing or casting I bring a rod. I even bring a rod in the winter when I go skiing.
But be careful, if you buy a rod and attends the offered Zoom session you might end up like me. Writing FPs.
This weekend it is time for the second most important celebration in Sweden. Midsummers eve. I’m not doing a traditional celebration. Not even pickled herring this time. I’m just going away to a small offgrid cabin with Minna and the dog. Packing some good food, a muurikka to cook the food. A big griddle pan that is placed over an open fire. I have packed some rods hopefully for fishing and some casting. A box of woolly buggers, hares ears and some floaty stuff. So I hope the small lake/pond we are staying next to has some fish in it.
The cat I tried to help last week sadly didn’t make it. At first it did seem that “only” the pelvis was fractured but later it was found during a CT scan that cervical vertebra was fractured also and impossible to do surgery on.
Cheers, Rickard