Jim Casada Outdoors



May 2010 Newsletter

Jim Casada                                                                                                    Web site: www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
1250 Yorkdale Drive                                                                                           E-mail: jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com
Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638
803-329-4354


May: A Month of Memories, Magic, and Marvels

If you really pushed me to make a decision on my favorite month of the year, May would have to be my choice. There’s a lot to recommend October, and I love the gobbler turkeys and blooming wildflowers of April. But when all things are considered, May holds the most for me in equal portions of memories, magic and marvelous experiences. It was the month when I caught my first trout (and, a year later, my first limit of trout), it was the month when I killed my finest ever wild turkey, and May has been the setting for grand camping trips without number.

Mind you, as these words are being written May in its 2010 version, at least at the start, includes a bit of misery. I’m at my father’s home in the Smokies where I grew up, and last night it rained somewhere between three and four inches. I got out and drove around in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park a bit today. Streams are rolling, black with dirt and well out of their banks. It will be at least three days, and likely more, before they are even wadeable.

Nonetheless, I have other options. One is getting ready for Troutfest in Townsend, Tennessee on May 15-16. I’ve never attended but will be there speaking and operating a booth offering my books as well as some items from Sporting Classics magazine. If you are a trout fisherman and live anywhere reasonably close, I would urge you to attend. From all I can ascertain it is something to tickle the fancy of every serious trout fisherman, and I look forward to seeing old acquaintances and angling icons such as Lefty Kreh and Joe Humphreys. Speaking of icons, I’ll also be seeing another one a few weeks later when the annual Southeastern Conclave of the Federation of Fly Fishers holds its event at Unicoi State Park near Helen, Georgia on June 4 and 5. Gary Borger, with whom I spent three delightful weeks in South Africa some two decades ago (Lee and Joan Wulff were also part of the group), will be there. Again, it’s an event to put on your calendar should the place you live or your personal wanderings happen to make the events convenient.

For me, over the course of my life, May has been first and foremost a month for fishing. It’s a time when the full moon brings bedding bream activity to an annual peak, and if you’ve never hooked two hump-backed male bream simultaneously on a popper-and-dropper rig, you still have some fun ahead of you in life. They will make a lightweight fly rod bend in a most satisfying way, and if you manage to land a bunch of them bream fillets make some mighty fine table fare.

This Month’s Special Offering

Although I had harbored a secret desire to write on the outdoors from the time I was a teenager, my first breakthrough came with an article which was a direct outgrowth of my academic specialty. I wrote both my M. A. thesis and my doctoral dissertation on aspects of African exploration, and anyone familiar with the subject realizes that most of the explorers were also keen hunters.

One such individual was Frederick Courteney Selous, who set out for the South African interior, alone, while still in his teens. His life’s saga is an amazing one, and my first published article was a profile of him for Sporting Classics magazine. The article drew great reader response, and soon I was a regular contributor and a masthead presence with the publication. In time I became a columnist (I still write the Books column) and the publication’s Editor at Large.

I have done a bunch of work connected with the magazine over the years including writing Introductions to a whole batch of books in the Premier Classics series in the 1980s and 1990s, serving on the Advisory Board for that series, contributing many feature articles, and perhaps most significantly, editing or co-editing a number of books published by the magazine. The most recent of these is Classic O’Connor, and it is available online for $35 plus $5 shipping.

But this month’s special offering takes us back to Fred Selous. Eventually my interest in him and study of his career led to the publication of two anthologies bringing together his forgotten writings along with profiles of him by contemporaries. Both were published by Safari Press. The first of the pair, Africa’s Greatest Hunter, has long been out of print although I still harbor hopes the publisher will bring it back.

However, I do have a good stock of the second work, Frederick C. Selous: A Hunting Legend. This hardback normally sells for $35 but this month’s special will send it your way for $22.50 postpaid. Orders by check only.

Payment should be sent to me c/o 1250 Yorkdale Drive, Rock Hill, SC 29730, and you can call or e-mail to reserve books if you wish (jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com or 803-329-4354).

Most of my May angling, however, has focused on trout. Indeed, later today I plan to head out to the Nantahala River, a world-class trout stream and a rare example of a tailwater you can actually wade when the water is “On” (i.e., the power plant upstream is generating). It will just be a matter of whether or not it is clear enough, after heavy rains over the weekend, to make fly fishing worthwhile.

I would actually prefer to sample and savor one of the many freestone streams nearby here in the Smokies, but I suspect all of them are bursting at the seams and pretty well unfishable. Still, I have memories of days in May aplenty to warm the cockles of my heart. I don’t need any of the anarchical craziness associated with May Day (in nearby Asheville, which has gone from being a great mountain town to a sort of San Francisco East, anarchists ran rampant three days ago), although I suspect if got some of those loonies out in the natural world they might actually discover that life has purpose.

Never mind such bad thoughts though; May provides good ones in great abundance. For example, fishing in Indian Creek, a small stream which was home to one of the great old mountain characters, Mark Cathey. I never knew “Uncle Mark,” as he came to be known, but my father knew him well. A man who lived to fish and hunt, Cathey spent an idyllic life in the woods and waters of the Great Smokies, and there are tales aplenty about him. An entire chapter in a recently reprinted book for which I furnished an Introduction, Jim Gasque’s classic Hunting and Fishing in the Great Smokies, is devoted to Cathey. Incidentally, I have copies of the book available for $20 postpaid (just call 803-329-4354 or send me an e-mail at jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com).

One of my favorite Cathey stories, and you won’t find it in Gasque’s book, involves a May trip to a famed backwoods cabin in the heart of the Smokies known as the Bryson Place. It was when Raisin Bran cereal had just come on the market and the occasion also happened to coincide with Mark having just gotten dentures.

When the party arrived at the Bryson Place Uncle Mark, as was his wont, headed to nearby Deep Creek to catch a mess of fish for the group. He performed admirably in that regard, being a master of the dry fly which he “danced” (the only pattern he ever used was a Grey Hackle Yellow). The six hearty souls dined wonderfully well on fried trout, taters, ramps, and branch lettuce, and then enjoyed a leisurely sharing of tales while imbibing ample quantities of anti-snakebite medicine.

Uncle Mark was the first to call it an evening, climbing into one of the top bunks in the row which ranged all along one wall. His last act before closing his eyes was to remove his new dentures and lay them conveniently close atop an exposed two by four. Soon he was snoring. Meanwhile another member of the party, Mack Gossett, had also retired, and like Cathey he had dentures. These he duly removed as well.

You can probably guess what happened next. One of the still awake if somewhat inebriated fishermen switched the two sets of teeth. Next morning Mark got up and put Mack’s dentures in his mouth while Mack did the same with Cathey’s plate. Amazingly, both of them set down to breakfast using the other man’s dentures, and for Cathey, it only got worse.

Upcoming Schedule

May 14-16 – Troutfest in Townsend, Tenn., where I'll fly the flag a bit for Sporting Classics magazine and hopefully sell a few books of my own.

June 3-6 – Federation of Fly Fisher’s Southeast Conclave in Helen, Ga.

June 19-20 – Smoky Mountain Field School class on fly fishing in the Smokies. There are still openings in the class.
www.outreach.utk.edu/smoky.

June 26-27 – Speaking and hosting a display at the Trout Festival in Bluff City, Tenn.

Get more details here ...

The man who had brought the Raisin Bran cereal along said: “Mark, would you like to try some of this here new bran cereal?” Cathey indicated he would and proceeded to consume the entire bowl, but every second or third bite he would turn away from the table and expectorate (for those of you who didn’t take Thad DeHart’s 9th grade English class, that’s a ten dollar word for spit). When he had finished, the man who had provided the cereal asked: “Well, Uncle Mark, what do you think of that new bran cereal?”

In his keen mountain accent Cathey replied: “Weel, hit’s right tasty, but I reckon the rats has been at it!” That image of mistaking raisins for rat pills tickles my funny bone, although one has to ask why, given his misconception, Uncle Mark kept eating. Whatever the case, his miseries didn’t end there.

With the raisin bran finished, along with what a fellow camper described as “two pounds of bacon and a settin’ of eggs,” Cathey exited the sole door in the cabin, with Mack Gossett close behind. Their mischievious companions, who had somehow managed to keep straight faces throughout a breakfast which Cathey and Gossett consumed with the other man’s dentures, followed them outside. There they discovered the two on opposite sides of the building and out of sight of one another. Each had his pocket knife in hand trying to reshape ill-fitting dentures.

Stories and experiences of this sort are part and parcel of backcountry camping, and there are few things more satisfying that sitting around a flickering fire which is just right for breaking the chill of a May evening (here in the N. C. high country May nights can be cold—I woke up to 46 degrees this morning and the weekend forecast calls for low 40s at night), with a fine meal under your belt, sharing tales and telling of the day’s experiences.

Most of all though I love the solitude of a clear, tumbling mountain stream or the symphony of a May dawn as I sit against an old oak, high atop a ridge, hoping to hear a gobbler. In May the world is alive with a vibrancy that pulsates to one’s very soul, and it doesn’t take a literary genius to appreciate the truth inherent in the old English phrase, “the merry month of May.” I hope yours will be joyous, whether it involves rising trout, bedding bream, post-spawn crappie, strutting turkeys, wondrous wildflowers, quiet woodland walks, a thriving garden, or maybe a combination of all of these.


Since I’m at my Dad’s right now, that means, among other things, that I am the chief (and sole) cook and bottle washer. We may not consume five-star fare, but by golly we eat pretty well. Here are two recipes which have graced this week’s table.

SWISS STYLE OVEN VENISON STEAK

1 pound cubed venison steak
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 14-ounce can tomatoes
½ cup chopped celery
½ cup chopped carrot
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese

Cut meat into two portions. Mix flour and salt; dredge meat and set aside remaining flour. Brown the venison steaks and place them in an 11 x 7 baking dish. Blend remaining flour with drippings in skillet. Add remaining ingredients except cheese and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture boils. Pour mixture over meat, cover, and bake in 350 degree oven for an hour or until meat and veggies are tender. Sprinkle cheese on top and return to oven for a few minutes to melt cheese.

SIMPLE WILD TURKEY TENDERS

Cut half of a wild turkey breast into small pieces, being sure as you do so to remove all silver skin. Cut across the grain. Next, using a meat hammer or the bottom of the handle of a table knife, turn the turkey pieces into holy turkey (in other words, pound the hell out of them).

Make an egg wash by thoroughly whisking one large egg. Dip all of the turkey pieces in the wash, then coat them with flour. Fry in olive oil (be sure it is piping hot before you add the turkey) until golden brown. Turn the pieces frequently during the browning process. Drain briefly on paper towels.

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