April 2009 NewsletterJim Casada
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www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com Ambling Through AprilYesterday saw the opening of the turkey season here, and predictably I greeted dawn in the greening-up woods. In terms of bringing home a turkey the outing was singularly unsuccessful—but then, as any die-hard turkey hunter knows, most of them are. The woods were exceptionally silent. I never heard an owl, the normally raucous crows seemed to have chronic sore throat, and even cardinals, usually full of song at dawn, were quiet. The explanation, I suspect, focused on miserable weather with overcast skies, rain, and a generally grey day. Turkeys kept company with their feathered brethren as well. Nary a gobble or cluck did I hear. Still, it was an eventful and enjoyable morning, as is ever the case with turkey hunting. Long ago a man who has always interested me keenly, Horace Kephart, wrote: “In the school of the outdoors there is no graduation day.” I’ve always concurred, and yesterday I certainly learned something new. Namely, Crocs may be fine for walking around the yard or going to the store, but they aren’t made for the turkey woods. The reason I know is that I arrived at my intended destination plenty early, assembled my gear, loaded my gun, and then reached in the back seat of the truck for my boots. A mad scramble ensued, and only after searching three times did I come to the sad conclusion that I was bootless (they had been left next to the stoop at home). Never mind it was drizzling rain, I determined to go into the woods in my Crocs. After all, it was opening day. A few miles and several hours later, with soaked and aching feet, I drove home—tired, turkeyless, and thoroughly disgusted with myself. All of it was wonderful, and if you don’t understand that, you just aren’t a turkey hunter. Trolling for turkeys is an integral part of April for me, as it has been for decades. Yet my love of fly fishing for trout goes back even farther, all the way to boyhood. My whereabouts on the first weekend in April in those halcyon days of youth was completely predictable. That was when trout season opened in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (it is now open year around), and a backcountry trip was mandatory and a meaningful way to put an end to the accumulated miseries which had been building up for weeks after the end of squirrel and rabbit hunting seasons. Never mind that temperatures might dip below freezing (I remember one time when there was a half inch of ice in the camp water bucket) and that 30 minutes of wading wet would leave you half hypothermic, such trips just had to be taken. The flip side of them would include balmy afternoons when trout rose readily to Deerhair or Royal Wulff patterns, those self-same trout adorned in cornbread dinner jackets and fried to a golden brown, and the camaraderie of an evening meal cooked over an open fire. Accompaniments would include what locals called branch or bear lettuce (saxifrage) and an indescribably delicious and wonderfully potent wild vegetable, ramps. If you are familiar with ramps, they are a wild cousin of the leek. Mild to the taste and delicious whether eaten raw in a salad with “kilt” branch lettuce (“kilt” means anointing it with piping hot bacon grease as a dressing) or cooked with trout or eggs, the humble ramp has a decidedly Jekyll and Hyde character when it comes to its olfactory after-effects. Quite simply, anyone who has dined on raw ramps reeks. They make a buzzard seem almost like the essence of blooming narcissus by way of comparison, and even if you have a nose-blocking cold you can’t stay in the same room with someone who has eaten ramps. It was an automatic three-day suspension from school when I was a boy, and even in a backwoods camp if one ate ‘em all did. It was necessary for survival, but I should also add that the vegetable is delicious and that cooking it magically mitigates the way it redefines halitosis. Again, much like I noted when I mentioned turkey hunting above, if you’ve been around ramps you will know whereof I write. If you haven’t, strange as it may seem, you have lived a life of culinary deprivation. A meal of fried wild trout, nicely browned potatoes, a ramp and branch lettuce salad, with some sort of toothsome sweet for finishers, all of it consumed with fire dancing before one’s eyes and warding off the chill of an April evening, is as good as it gets for the outdoorsman. Matters of this sort course through my mind as I contemplate the past, something I think we are all prone to do with greater frequency as we age, and deal with the present. Over the coming weeks, my ambling through April will follow a predictable and in many ways delightful pattern which is a blend of my boyhood and my adult fixation with His Majesty, the wild turkey. There will be too many early morning risings in order to be in the woods before dawn, and I long ago concluded it was a toss-up as to whether I anticipated the opening day of turkey season or the last day of the season more eagerly. One is Christmas in April, the other a matter of exhaustion and relief. Blended in with these will be time spent on the streams of my beloved boyhood stomping grounds the Great Smokies. I’m off up that way in two days to spend some time with my 99-year-old father. While there I’ll find a way out to nearby creeks, without doubt, unless they are flooded by spring rains. There will also be a chance to enjoy the splendor of early spring wildflowers, maybe do a bit of turkey scouting (North Carolina’s season opens a week and a half later than ours here in South Carolina), and probably make a hike to the remote location where my father grew up. That old home place, now marked only by half-hidden stone walls and a rock-encircled spring, lies back of beyond. In fact, other than my brother and me and our children, I doubt seriously if anyone else has visited the site for at least two decades. Yet just hiking there and pausing to ponder in amazement how a family of eleven eked out a hardscrabble existence in this high elevation cove is a sobering experience. That’s doubly the case in our country as it currently exists. I normally avoid veering off into political thoughts in this monthly offering, but I’m going to ask your indulgence in this regard for a paragraph or two. I am 67 years old and I’m more concerned for the future of America than I’ve ever been. Our national leadership, in my humble view, has lost its moral, economic, and philosophical compass. This isn’t, to me, really a party matter. I just don’t think either party has a clue. Somehow a solid work ethic, frugality, spending only what you have (and doing that with due care), and a sense of decency have vanished. I’ll simply offer one example. I cannot imagine anyone signing a document they hadn’t even read. Yet that’s precisely what happened with the stimulus bill, and when I challenged the office of my congressman on this, I was initially lied to and then treated as if I was an idiot. I still harbor hopes, although they grow a bit dimmer each day, that our country, or at least enough of its population to matter, will come to its senses. We can’t keep throwing money away, taking in illegal immigrants by the untold millions and throwing money after them, and watching the welfare state expand forever. When we reach a point where there aren’t enough of us hardworking folks being taxed to death to support those who aren’t working at all, aren’t here legally, or depend on big government for everything, we are doomed. In the final analysis, it’s actually pretty simple—return to the rule of law and cling staunchly to the Constitution. I had to get that off my chest, and now it’s done. Better still, I can be in the woods or wading a creek and not think such stuff for a moment. Rest assured though, that I’m going to keep what I catch and freeze anything not cooked forthwith. Likewise, there won’t be any wasted turkey (providing I can close the deal with a few of ‘em), and that doesn’t just mean the beast meat. It means dark meat for soup or sandwiches, organ meats for pate, and nothing wasted. Add to that two gardens (one at home and a second at my father’s), a good stock of ammo, and a lifetime of acquired skills involving living close to the good earth, and I think this country boy will survive. That brings me to what I consider one of the finest ways to weather hard economic times with minimal expenditure of money and maximum enjoyment. A good book makes a mighty comforting friend. As someone who writes and sells them as a fair part of my livelihood, I’ve obviously got a vested interest in book readers. Indeed, I hope some of what you read comes from me, and I will once again note that what I consider the most important book I’ve ever written will be out before long. I’ve made a final decision on the title, which will be Fly Fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: An Insider’s Guide to a Pursuit of Passion. The text went to the fellow doing the layout and design earlier today, and things should move quite quickly from this point forward. I’ve decided to do the book in two versions—hardback and paperback. The former will be for reading and keep on one’s shelves, while the latter can be carried in a backpack or thumbed, used, and abused as the reader sees fit. There will be at least some color in the book along with a lot of special features you won’t find in most fishing books and not in any of the existing ones dealing with fishing in the Smokies. My brother, Don, an inveterate hiker who loves the Smokies as much as I do, has used his expertise and technical knowledge to good effect in providing graphs of individual streams showing gradient (most useful when you are considering just how rugged a backcountry experience might be); waypoints such as designated backcountry campsites, bridges, foot logs, feeder streams, and the like; charts showing monthly rainfall and temperature averages; and a bunch of other useful information. I’ve worked in a lot of human and personal history, detailed how to and where to information on every major stream in the Park, plenty of coverage of things like suggested equipment and effective techniques, and insight from the angling ramblings of a remarkable fellow named Bobby Kilby. He’s fished in more places in the Smokies than anyone I know about, and he has been wonderfully giving in letting me share his knowledge. Finally, I’m deeply honored that fly-fishing icon Nick Lyons has written a Foreword for the book. Many of you are already on the notification list to receive the book, but if you aren’t and want to know when it is published, just drop me an e-mail. Those of you who have already contacted me and want to get a hardback might also want to let me know. I don’t plan to print as many of these. That’s about enough promotion for this month, although as is almost always the case I’ll conclude with a few recipes, and if you want a lot more Ann and I have a whole bunch of cookbooks you can order through this Web site. By all means enjoy April. In my view, although it must take a bit of a back seat to May and October, it is one of the most joyous months of the year. It brings the ever-enduring promise of the earth’s reawakening, and later today I’ll celebrate one small aspect of that with the first picking of spinach from my garden, and messes of lettuce and turnip greens lie just around the corner. In the woods loveliness greets you at every turn. Dainty bluets along pathways, violets winking at one with tones of white and purple, delicate white blossoms from various flowers ranging from the dogwood to tiny wildflowers, and the numberless shades and hues of green as buds swell and trees begin to leaf out. There’s promise and peace in earth’s reawakening, and I’m convinced that if those mindless minions of a misguided national policy who spend most of their time in Washington could just spend a week fishing backcountry streams or half that time in a turkey camp filled with salt-of-the-earth folks, they would understand and appreciate both the earth’s beauty and something of the mess they are making. My advice, in closing, is to lose yourself in communion with the good earth. Unlike national leaders, properly treated it never, ever lets us down. The same is true for the bounty nature produces, and here are some recipes from that bounty. They focus on the sustenance of the season. RANCH TURKEY STRIPSCall them turkey tenders, turkey nuggets, or strips—it really doesn’t matter. The breast meat from a wild turkey fixed this way is pure culinary bliss. It is my favorite way to eat the white meat, and you can’t get much simpler than this recipe. You can turn into a kitchen wizard in rapid-fire order. 1 teaspoon of a packet
of Ranch Original Dry Salad Dressing mix Combine Ranch dressing mix with olive oil. Marinate turkey strips for 15-30 minutes. Frill for 10-12 minutes in frying pan, grilling pan, broiler, or over an outdoor grill. Serve immediately. Serves two, and recipe can be expanded as needed. Tip: Slice turkey strips about an inch wide and cut across the grain. It helps to whack them a bit with a meat hammer. WILD TURKEY TENDERSHere’s a variation on the use of breast meat suggested in the previous recipe. 1 egg Beat egg with water. Dredge turkey strips in flour, dip in egg mixture, then again in flour. Fry in canola oil in cast iron skillet until brown and tender. Season with salt and black pepper. Serve piping hot. Serves three or four. Tip: If turkey is no sufficiently tender, or if you have doubts, cover and steam for a few minutes after you have browned the strips. The turkey will not be as crisp but the steaming will help tenderize a tough old gobbler. TURKEY PATEBe sure to save your organ meats from the turkeys you are fortunate enough to kill (I refuse to use the politically correct term “harvest” to describe a gobbler I shot). You might want to carry a heavy-duty Ziploc bag in your vest so you can set aside the organ meats in it if you field dress a gobbler. Just get them on ice or in a fridge as soon as possible. It will take three or four turkeys to provide the essential ingredient for turkey pate, but I’m betting that if you are in a turkey-hunting camp you will find that most hunters throw these goodies away. Politely ask if you can have them. Turkey giblets
(hearts, livers, gizzards) Cook the organ meats whole, making sure you have cleaned the gizzard thoroughly in advance. Once removed from the cooking water, place in a blender or food processor and grind until finely minced. Add chopped boiled eggs, capers, salt and pepper. Blend briefly. Serve with crackers or toast wedges. CAMPFIRE TROUTTrout are best when cooked soon after caught, and for these wonderfully tasty wild morsels, bigger isn’t better. Indeed, just the opposite is the case. If they are legal, I’d rather have five- or-six inch fish any time as opposed to a lunker. Release the big trout and follow my dear late mother’s philosophy for the smaller ones; namely “release to grease.” Forget cholesterol and that sort of thing. Fried trout are too good to be stymied by the food police. Cleaned trout (I leave the head on because it makes a good “handle” as you work along the backbone while eating them like corn on the cob)—I can eat half a dozen little ones without a second thought, but when that many aren’t available I’ll take what I can get. Stone-ground,
slow-ground corn meal (you won’t find this on store shelves as a rule,
but visit some old-time grist mill and it may well be available) Wash cleaned trout under water and then pat semi-dry with paper towels. Coat thoroughly with corn meal, and be sure to get a bit in the open body cavity. Pre-heat your oil in a skillet until just short of smoking (if a tiny drop of water “pops” when dropped in the oil, it is ready). Place trout in pan and cook until golden brown and crisp, turning only once. Remove and place atop paper towels to drain extra oil. Quite small trout cooked this way can be eaten bones and all, and don’t neglect the tail. It is a crisp delicacy which makes the tastiest of potato chips pale by comparison. Thank you for subscribing to the
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