Me and Team USA are on our flights home now from the World Masters Fly Fishing Championships in the Czech Republic.  I expected to be in deep sleep in this little tilted back seat on the 10 hour flight between Amsterdam and Salt Lake City, but I’m so overtired I can’t sleep.  Competition uses every ounce of energy and unfortunately, not sleeping is my life story these days anyhow.

The trip and our performance was a good one.  For us to compete in Eastern Europe against entirely European teams was a challenge we accepted a few years back (this competition was postponed twice due to Covid).  Honestly, deep inside I was expecting a top 10 finish to be a task, but we ended up with 4^th place.  4^th is somewhat annoying because we barely missed a trip to the podium – as a team that is.  We are extremely proud of Bret for carrying the team with his perfect performance the last day and therefore taking home the Bronze Medal.  Congrats dude!  This is an amazing accomplishment!

I can’t express what a great trip this was.  Not only do I have fun teammates, but a big thanks belongs to our manager and sponsor, Jerry Arnold, for going out of his way to make sure we enjoy this trip to the fullest.  Our host/guide David Chlumsky is unreal.  He’s a gentleman, cool dude and superb angler all in one.  And he’s a huge reason we ended this with a 4^th place finish.

Last but not least, the people of Czech were kind and amazingly friendly and that’s probably the biggest reason we had such a super time on this trip.  This goes right from the day Jerry and I arrived to our final dinner in Prague last night.  This is truly a top country to visit not to mention the great fishing.

That’s all for now.  I actually feel as though this glass of red wine has put me down.  Sleep is on the menu.  Hopefully I’ll wake up in SLC and catch a smooth flight back to Idaho tonight.  Tomorrow its back to the grind of packing up my life to move out of Victor.  But also, packing for a short speaking tour through Cape Cod next weekend that will include lots of fishing.  False albacore . . ..? stripers. . ..?  Stay tuned!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing