WC - overall

[Lasse Karlsson]

Most people will compete, but also, most people will not enter if they know they haven't got a snowballs chance in a hot place....

Lasse, what's your solution if they don't want to compete because you are too good?

And how does changing the equipment rules at the WC-level help with that?

best,
Nils

Hi Nils

Those that won't competet because they aren't guaranteed a first place, won't compete ever. Those that wouldn't mind competing, but have to fork out a serious amount of money at gear they will never use otherwise, will just opt out of competing. I see them every time at the Danish championships, and at the Swedish fairs where there are competitions.

Seatrout fishing with shootingheads are done in a very small region of the world, and we live in the middle of it. What kind of gear do you see most used in Norway for it? Here in Denmark, southern Sweden and the German baltic coast it's 9 feet rods with shootingheads around 8-10 meters or similar WF lines with belly weights around 14-20 grams. In the Danish rivers it's mostly 10 feet rods, and short headed WF's. my personal favorite has a 6 meter head around 13 grams... In the WC most use 18-20 meters shootingheads of 27 grams, that would never see water with seatrout in it. Ditch the seatrout moniker and call it what it is, casting sport event 2 light There's enough bollocks in advertising of flyfishing tackle, why let it flow over to competitions too...

Cheers
Lasse

[Lasse Karlsson]

I would happily throw 5WT over grass, Lasse, but I’m in the minority. It is nice to throw over water but the measuring is inaccurate. I do like Bernt’s idea, where instead of casts being measured, we have to cast over a certain distance, that continues to increase with every round. I just don’t know how long that would take. Perhaps not so long with 3 casts or 1 minute!

I would also like the rods to be closer to a “6WT” stiffness, as we were using 20 years ago. But if you are going to do that then I think everyone should use the same tackle in the same way that BOW had a choice of provided rods from sponsors, perhaps not even knowing what those rods will be. That’s probably the fairest of all but I don’t think that most people would agree with that either.

I’m just looking at the bits that we can change and what everyone I think would agree with. Ie heats and knockout.

Cheers, Paul

Hi Paul

How big is your carry when wading knee deep? And do you think a rod that says 12 above the handle is a great tool there?

Personally, I don't care if people think they get a better tool with a broomstick, by all means go for it. For me it's the line that sets the point.
And I was sorry when the vote for changing the ST27 to ST24 was voted down because "people had already spent alot of money on gear for the 27..." That was several championships ago
Not so sure heats and knockouts stand a chance even of we agree it would be a good idea..

Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

Yep no question it’s harder to carry the head when knee deep. And casting up a slope makes things more difficult again. I’m not sure why wading is so important to you; for me it would make no difference so long as it’s the same for everyone.

8655A196-FCEA-4E46-B310-60A13B2AD8C7.jpeg (203.5 KiB) Viewed 839 times

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

Lasse, what's your solution if they don't want to compete because you are too good?

The entry point to competition here is national/international level, I can’t think of any other sport that doesn’t have intermediate levels of competition. I understand that there are not enough competitors to run separate competitions but it’s a bit of a doom loop.

There’s also an issue of why very competitive casters stop competing, I can think of 4 or 5 here off the top of my head and I would suggest canvassing them to find out why they stopped.

And how does changing the equipment rules at the WC-level help with that?

I’ve got 3 boxes of fishing lines, none of which are competition standard, I wouldn’t buy more stuff that I don’t fish with, just to take part in Sunday league shootouts. I have enough instructor stuff that I bought and don’t use on the water, I don’t need any more. Following on from Lasse’s point, sea trout standard here seems to be centred around the barstool 40+ in a #7, heads are rarely used.

I would suggest that if you are serious about recruitment into the sport and generating viewers, you need to know who your target audience are. From this thread, it doesn’t appear to be fly anglers.

Regards

Vince

[Michal Duzynski]

Ciao
Here are my another 2 cents.
Lots of talking, bla bla bla.

The thing that is missing here is
THE CARROT IN THE END IF THE STICK.
Few might not agree, but that is the truth.

You want a new guy to buy 1000€ rod and 100€ line, combo just for casting and that is only TD event, so double, or triple it up when you want to train and compete in more than 1 event. Spend time( lots of time) and money for training. And when the newbie ask you what he/she can win - you tell them " a medal and a handshake "
It sounds a bit poor compared to what Americans do with their BASS COMP ( posted here earlier)

I'm talking from mine post of few, where I don't belong to any National Casting Association that pays for everything, and all you have to do is turn up and cast.

I've been told we do that for love to this sport- yeah, maybe on the beginning.

Love doesn't exist without money
( just an expression- don't quote me)
If I seat on my sofa and scratch my balls, no income , but tell my wife( all the time) I love her very much- that is not good recipe for happy relationship.
It is WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS we talk about, people/competitors from all over the World, and you telling me that there is no one FlyShop, no one rod maker that can provide a prize for the first 3 competitors, and promote their shop/product???

Yes, I understand ICSF is voluntary with low budget, but contacting possible sponsors doesn't cost money.

Just to back it up, what I'm writing here.
When due to covid 2020WC was cancelled, Bernt Johansson and Swedish Casting put the virtual casting competition with an awesome prize pool of 2000€
Suddenly we have ladies, teenagers and people whe never post any casting videos competing just to be in the draw.

Bring the

Cheers
Mike

[Paul Arden]

Totally agree. I’m sure lots of manufacturers would provide prizes if asked. They have in the past for SL shootouts. And the WCs is a far bigger event. Money would be nice too. Bang on the nail with that comment Michal. That’s why I think we need to really push things along to make things interesting for spectators. It’s far easier to attract cash for prizes when it’s being watched.

Cheers, Paul

[NM]

Club level activity is the key to recruitment, not equipment rules for the WCs, I think. What people are mainly using for their fishing varies around the world and it therefore would make sense for the club-level competitions to adjust the equipment rules to the local circumstances.

We also need to make sure that cost does not become the obstacle. We should not Sakke give people the impression that for the average Joe competing at the club level the optimal “…the tackle is (quite) extreme”. Although the very best in the world are using stiffer and stiffer rods, for most club-level casters, a 6-7 weight rod would still be optimal for TD and a 9-10 weight for ST27 (and there’s a lot of decedent and relatively inexpensive rods on the market that can be used for those events). They would also be better off with a shorter shooting head (e.g., 14-15 meter) than what the very best use. You can get very inexpensive DT lines from China that can be cut into nice shooting heads for the ST27. Spey is really the only event that’s requiring non-fishing relevant rods. As argued earlier, putting a 55-grams max on the line would make it optimal to use an ordinary 15-foot fishing rod for that event. Having club rods (and lines) that everyone can borrow, if they want, also help reduce costs for those just starting out. We even use the club T120 rod for the WCs when I was young.

It would be good to share experiences with trying to recruit people into the Casting sport, whether it be the light line Flycasting events or traditional Casting. What's been working and what seems to be the obstacles? Why are competitive casters leaving the sport? We do want both traditional Casting and the flycasting events to be interesting for more than a narrow group of (grown up) instructors if we want to sport to survive.

Best,

Nils

[Michal Duzynski]

Why are competitive casters leaving the sport?

Best,

Nils

Hi mate
For me personally it is 90% financial issue, and the rest would be divided by lack of duringcompetition, and complete lack of interest where I live. Brisbane Australia.
I tried ( I might continue at some stage) really hard, but I can't be only 1 person in entire, huge Australia interested in competition distance casting.
Ok, there is 1 person more John Waters, but he is 4h flight from me and 2h drive with a rental car, plus I would have to get accommodation if I just want to have few casts.
I tried to organize a small comp in Brisbane. I said I will provide the tackle, and prepare everything, and even provide some prizes. I said I wouldn't compete, I just wanted for them to cast under a comp vibe, maybe 1-2 would discover an intrest in them without knowing they have a talent for distance.
I got few thumbs and then it died completely, but like for real- dead end
Last year I spend 4000USD to be there- and they lost my luggage.
I managed to get transfer to the location, only because Swedish team was waiting for few more guys. If I was alone, trying to sort my luggage, the transfer would not wait- don't want continue on that matter.
Even Paul Arden did not participate because of financial issue at that time.

You say recruitment by the clubs. Now we have 4 nations that actually take it seriously and pay most of the participants costs. Sweden, Norway, Italy, USA, 4 out of entire World- it look more like an European sport then Worldwide event.
It would be lovely if every country has a fly casting club, and has casting team,but people prefer to fly fish than cast, sport is not popular, so why bother.

I wonder if the World Champion is held in Australia, if the National organisations would easily book 8 return tickets to Australia

Those are my thoughts, I don't have the solution, but now I prefer to save money, buy a boat and go fishing.
I don't want too, but I feel like I'm slowly drifting away from that distance casting. I don't even feel like going for a cast.

Cheers
Mike

[HenryM]

Hello Mike,
I feel with you. Even for those of us who have a dedicated casting pond and a "casting" club with >100 members (mostly fishermen or "knife-and-forkers"), it is a rare thing to find someone new who is at least temporarily interested in casting competitively. Several of our casters (who participated in Norway or might go next time) are teetering at the edge of giving up because they live a bit on a casting island (they need to fly to meet other casters). It does take a bit of a critical mass - something like several people being really interested at the same time. If I look around at our competitive casters, they all got started as part of a small group - at first just worried about comparing to each other while sharing the excitement of learning and getting better at something.

A small correction though: Team USA has practically no support. The best we can hope for is a paid-for uniform. For Norway, one of our team members got Simms to sponsor our jackets. Yippee! The hats and other uniform items were paid for individually. Of course, the travel and tournament fees are also paid by individuals. This is the reason some of our team members came late and on a tight time budget - and shared your fate of not having their own equipment.

Henry

[Michal Duzynski]

Cheers Henry, thank you for correction on USA team, so it's even less support than I thought.
Cheers