One day in 1960s a chief of local angling association Mr. Zabloudil came to Václav Musil with strange information. He was advised to start with casting in Jihlava and Mr. Musil should take care of it.
"This week Žďár nad Sázavou town is going to organize national championship of adults, go there and check it out" was told to Václav.
So Václav took his motorcycle and went to Žďár located about 40 kilometers north-east of Jihlava. He liked the sport so he went there the second day too. Finally he decided to take care of the sport in Jihlava.
Mr. Zabloudil informed Václav about some Karel Steklík, a guy already teaching casting inside the area of association ground. Václav came there and watched Mr. Steklík and about 5 or 6 young casters trying to hit old tires with plugs.
After a few minutes Karel noticed Václav and asked him why Václav was there. He answer that he should start with this sport.
At this point a cooperation of two Jihlava casting founders begun...
The start is never easy. No big know-how in the game. The true is that Karel Steklík came from Jindřichův Hradec, the bastion of castingsport in Czechia during first half of 20th century. Thanks to this, Karel had some information about casting.
But it was not big enough so Karel and Václav were wondering how to find out more. Finally they decided to call to Mrs. Věra Čapková and ask her if she could come to Jihlava and make some briefing about the sport.
Věra Čapková came and brought a book of rules for both men to know how each event should be prepared and how they should learn small caster the casting on targets.
Věra Čapková came to Jihlava three or four times more later and the cooperation was going on with national children competition Zlatá udice (could be translated like ""Golden Line"").
Local angling association of Jihlava was very interested in the casting that time and was helping in any needs of the team. When Karel and Václav came with request for obtaining the fly casting and plug casting targets including the arenberg cloth target,
nothing was problem and everything needed was bought. Then the training plan was being created. At the beginning the training was done twice a week, later on three times a week. But not only casting was trained. Besides this children started to learn float fishing
on the Jihlava river flowing through the town. With training of the last part of Zlatá udice, the fishing rules, fish and water fauna and flora knowledge, Karel and Václav were thinking about participating on Fishing Olympic Games on Czech angling association.
Later, the games were renamed to Zlatá udice. On the first competition the Jihlava visited the young casters was in the better part of final ranking list.
Each training was located in area of association ground and during time the amount of complains was growing. It was necessary to find another place.
During one of Zlatá udice competition Karel and Václav found nice place near local dockyard. So they asked the paddlers if it would be possible to share the place with them.
It was no problem, paddlers even gave casters a small caravan for storing all casting stuff.
Jihlava casting team made several great young casters winning Zlatá udice whole district competition and successfully supporting district team on national round of Zlatá udice.
After several years it was really hard to do casting and float fishing together. A decision was made, the team was divided into casting team and float fishing team. Karel and Václav was taking care of casting, Mr. Lícha was taking care of float fishing and Zlatá udice team.
Casting team was moved to another place again. That time it was area of south part of Jihlava called Pančava. The caravan moved with the team too.
A warder, Mr. Hodboď was taking care of mowing the grass so court was always prepared perfectly.
In 90s of last century the team had to move again. New place was located behind Březinova school and team was training there till 2016.
Trainings during weeks were never enough. Best results were obtained by intense training at training camp being two or three weeks long. So summer camps were being planned.
In Czech republic there was a special youth center collecting tens of various sport and art clubs and people from Jihlava youth center were very helpful, especially Mr. Vlastimil Janovec and Mrs. Soňa Semerádová.
First camp was located in Smrčná, area near Světlá nad Sázavou town. Later, south of Dačice town, they found a nice place near Janov was found. It came a regular place for two weeks long casting camps for more than 10 years.
The true is that people of Janov liked the Jihlava casting club. Everyone tried to help the Václav and Karel and other adult trainers to make the camp as best as it could be for the children and youth.
Local ranger was preparing wood for the camp, chief of farmers took care of mowing the land, everything was perfect. The reward was typical for Czechia - a bottle of something good... :)
Casting club had problems with casting accessories. It was hard to obtain it the time before 1989. Club started with classic fishing rods, proved to be inappropriate very soon.
So Václav and Karel we thinking how to obtain equipment. Václav decided to make rod and during time he got great knowledge about this work.
Problem was also with reels, no place where to buy them, very expensive when there was an option to buy. A decision was made - one reel was bought, disassembled and completely copied.
Thanks to this almost every Jihlava caster had his or her own reel. And because team had lot of copied reels, it was able to change the reels for fiberglass rod blanks with a team that had lot of blanks but no reels.
That time Václav Musil was spending much more time with making new rods than being home.
The big knowledge with making rods from fiberglass blanks was helpful at time when carbon blanks came to team. There was no place to make a mistake as it was very expensive for czech people to buy carbon blank in 60s and 70s.
Similar problem was with plugs. Hard to buy, very expensive when there was and option to buy. Well, Václav Musil and his abilities to create anything came again. With friends and fathers of young casters
they created a form for making plugs that are used as standard now, on World Championships too.
During the time of Karel Steklík and Václav Musil leading the team, there were lot of casters. The best of there were Renata Michálková, Hana Hromádková, Radka Zajícová, Petr and Jan Menšík.
Jihlava had several great casters participating European youth championship, like Lenka Příhodová (4 silver medals), Pavel Vaněk (1 gold, 2nd place in pentathlon), Michal Přibyl (1 gold), Karolína Kotrbová (1 gold).
The best of the best - Martin Musil, Pavel Kobliha were also casting on world championships in men category.
No surprise that Václav Musil as also national trainer of youth caster for some time.
Václav Musil was also talking about all the trainers growing up during the time they only came with their children and the beginning. Several of them were training the young caster even their own children were casting no more.
At least the trainers like Mr. Hromádko, Mr. Příhoda or Mr. Smejkal should be introduced. When Karel Steklík and Václav Musil retired, those great men took over the leading.
Václav Musil also talked about Mr. Jaroslav Lexa, a person that did for czech (and Jihlava too) casting a lot of great work. For Václav, Jaroslav Lexa is the person that person that raised the casting from funny activity to real sport.
