Kalyn Hoggard | Monday, 9 February 2026
I’ve heard before that it is quite difficult to maintain “tournament shape” year-round. This seems reasonable, but I am not exactly sure what tournament shape looks like yet, maybe a tesseract. Even if you are doing your due diligence to keep a reasonably healthy body, you still may get injured if you never take a break. I have only fractured one bone from casting so far, but my body knows that I cast everyday. My elbows wish I would learn a better technique for sure, and unfortunately, I waited until I was in pain before I started to take the proper precautions. I’m working on that. It is also necessary for fly people to do fly fishing from time to time. It’s some sort of biological imperative that hasn’t been deciphered quite yet, but we do know that if a fly person doesn’t get to fully involve themselves with pursuing a specie from time to time, then they get a little squirrely. If you are out there fishing right, then you probably lose a little bit of that elusive, “tournament shape” while you are at it. Also, as I am one to consistently complain about it, the weather can also put a wrench in outdoor casting time, which could take away from casting shape, but maybe not. All told, maybe you can’t be in competition shape year-round, but I’m going to find out.
All of my reader: “So, are you preparing us for how the tournament on Friday is going to go?”
Again, to know what tournament shape means for me would imply that I knew what I was capable of, and I also knew that I was or wasn’t maintaining that capability. On that account, I really have no idea if I am or not, but I genuinely feel like I am getting better.
Right now, I think that the number of beers it would take for me to wager on my 5 wt distance cast against most others is low. Same party and there are bets taken for hitting beer cans with a fly… I am in there throwing at it for sure. I’d probably be spending my time finding more of those types of parties and would become a promoter. I guess that is one way of saying that I feel pretty good about my casting right now. But… honestly, I really don’t know how my indoor practicing has affected my tournament casting numbers. When my loop slams the wall at 91’ on the indoor soccer field, I don’t know how far that cast would have gone if there wasn’t a net much less if it was on the pond with a crosswind. I do think that some of my 91’ casts smacked the wall noticeably harder and louder than others. I’ve been trying to cultivate a cast with the loudest wall smacking sound. We will see. “Nice one Rick, that would have been one heck of a wall smacker!”
The plot thickens
When I first started this wild endeavor, there was a plan to get me in competition shape. I didn’t have a long time to prepare for Worlds, but I would be able to compete in the US OPEN and in the Southwestern, which is the tournament that is coming up this Friday. Competing in those tournaments would give me some time in the box with pressure before Worlds without there being anything really on the line other than my pride. Combine some tournament experience along side continually developing my casting abilities in 5wt distance and accuracy and sea trout distance for a year and maybe I won’t make a fool of myself in Italy. That is still the plan, however it turns out that we now have more interested fly casters than we need to fill the roster for the team that will go to Worlds. The ACA has a selection process in place, and this Friday will be a qualifier, or as Paul prefers, “an eliminator.” It doesn’t give me an ulcer that I need to put up competitive scores at this competition. Like I said, I’m feeling good. I have casted or trained for casting as much as I have been able to, and we shall see how it goes.
I am planning to have a few days of casting on the pond prior to the event. My hope is that I have maintained everything well enough that with a few days of practice in warm and sunny Southern California I will be able to overcome my casting issues from before the inside time, the casting issues I have developed during the inside time, and be able to perform better than I ever have during the outside time of year.
“Just remember the ant. Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant.”
High Hopes – Frank Sinatra
I am going to try to video my casting during the trout accuracy part of the event. I may even go live if I can. Typically, there aren’t enough helping hands for there to be a competition without the competitors also judging. So, if I’m too busy judging and casting to set up the IPad, then I wont, but we need to be streaming competitions as often as we can. I do think that there is a live camera at the Long Beach Pond. Theoretically, you could watch the competition Friday, but I am not exactly sure what the video quality is like, and if it is on all the time or not.
Brief this week. Tune in next Monday for a recap and an official set of base line scores for me to work from.