April 2010 Newsletter

April does not rank as my favorite month. That’s a toss-up between May and October, but for a lot of reasons it doesn’t fall far behind. Certainly I’ve never seen any reason, other than the infernal Internal Revenue Service, to accept the questionable wisdom suggesting “April is the meanest month.” I was reminded not long after dawn on All Fools’ Day, in delightful fashion, of how much there is about April which is attractive. Taking advantage of clear skies and a moon just waning from late March fullness, I entered the woods on a 100-acre piece of property we own. It was earlier than even the most compulsive member of the “be there early” turkey hunting persuasion would have required.

But it was opening day, and I wanted to savor every moment of the joy provided by awakening woods in early spring. When fiction writers offer phrases such as “hushed woods” or “silent woodlands,” they immediately reveal profound ignorance of the wilds. Dawn at any season is, for the wayfarer in the backcountry, a cacophony of sounds, and on a warm spring morning, which April 1 was here in South Carolina, the biggest problem is trying to distinguish between a myriad of sounds—peepers by the hundreds, whippoorwills (the word we use here in the South to describe nightjars), barred and great horned owls, all tuning up before daylight.

Then, as night gradually gives way to light, the variety and intensity of noise ratchet up appreciably. Cardinals are usually the first songbirds to start singing, and the “pretty, pretty” of the male is a signal that the time to start listening for a distant gobble has arrived. Soon towhees (their two-note song sounds more like jo-ree to me, and that’s what the mountain folks where I grew up call them) join in; somewhere off in the distance one raucous crow voice sets a whole host of these black busybodies to conversing in their fussy, garrulous fashion; a hawk screams; robins sing; and a pileated woodpecker adds its strange voice (Blacks in this part of the world found the sound so startling they once called it a “Lord Gawd Bird”—as in “Lord Gawd, what was that?”). All the while I’m listening, so intently I often fool myself, for the telltale rattling of a distant gobbler declaring dominion to all within earshot.

Bargain Buy of the Month

Beginning last month I promised to offer regular specials with each new newsletter, so before turning to the month at hand, April, let’s address that first.

This month’s special, in keeping with the fact that turkey season is either already open or will open sometime in April all across the country, focuses on that sport. With that in mind, I’m offering two specials (or a third which is a combo of the first two) connected with turkey hunting and books I’d done on the sport.

The first involves my book, Innovative Turkey Hunting, which features the wisdom of two high-profile figures in the sport, Mark Drury and Brad Harris, with my own insights. The book normally fetches $20, but for this newsletter only it is $14, postage paid.

A second offer focuses on a work I edited bringing together some of the finest writings of one of America’s great sporting scribes, Archibald Rutledge, on turkey hunting. It is America’s Greatest Game Bird: Archibald Rutledge’s Turkey-Hunting Tales. This hardback incorporates thirty-four of his grand stories along with various editorial input from yours truly including a lengthy Introduction, commentaries with the book’s sections, and a detailed bibliography essay. Normally $29.95, I’m offering the book for $22 postage paid.

If you want both, I’ll make things a bit more appealing still by offering the pair for $32 postage paid. Payment by check or money order only, please. At these prices, I simply can’t afford to let PayPal take a cut.

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).

There’s nothing more gratifying in the world of turkey hunting than succeeding on one’s home stomping grounds, especially when they’ve involved payment through lots of years of work. Or, to look at it another way, at moments such as this one “putting meat on the table” becomes a truly special feeling. The thought, if not the phrase, almost certainly goes back to a time when our ancestors lived in caves or beneath limestone overhangs such as those described in Jean Auel’s wonderful fictional work, Shelters of Stone. Incidentally, if you haven’t read Auel’s books, give yourself a treat and do so. They are lengthy but written in wonderful fashion and deeply appealing to anyone who feels a sense of connection with the good earth.

As for the opening day turkey, it has already been, in part, consumed. I’m not one of the breed which breasts out a bird, pulls off the beard and cuts off the legs, then throws everything else away. Sure, the dark meat on a turkey tends to be tough and dry, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t tasty. The same thing goes for the organ meats (heart, gizzard, and liver).

Upcoming Schedule

May 1 – 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. at Great Smoky Mountain Trout Festival in Maggie Valley, N.C. (www.gsmtroutfestival.org).

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.

Get more details here ...

For all that I love turkey hunting, and for me it is an abiding passion, I’m also powerfully partial to trout fishing. That’s a sport which goes squarely to the heart of my sporting roots, since I cut my angling teeth dealing with trout on my native heath in the Great Smokies. My Dad was an avid fly fisherman, my mother never met a trout she didn’t want to dress in a cornbread dinner jacket and introduce to a pan of hot grease (i.e., for her catch-and-release meant release-to-grease), and the only two things I know which meant more to my paternal grandfather than fishing was the vanished American chestnut and a red, ripe, properly iced watermelon on a hot August day.

Accordingly, there will be some trout-related action for me this month. I’ll be spending some time with my 100-year-old father, and while he requires quite a bit of attention, it is possible to slip away for a few hours to one of the many streams near his house in my boyhood hometown of Bryson City, North Carolina. My boyhood may not have been graced by a great deal of material wealth, but a youngster who has two trout streams within walking distance and a dozen more within a 30-45 minute drive is rich beyond measure. I may not have been fully aware of that situation as a youngster—I just loved to hunt and fish and never gave much thought to the fact others might not have been similarly blessed in terms of access to sport—but time has revealed to me just how blessed was my youth.

April has other appealing faces as well, many of them simple yet supremely satisfying. Here are a few of the month’s blessings in no particular order than how they come to my admittedly cluttered mind.

 New Book, Now Available!

Southern Sportsman: The Memoirs of Henry Edwards Davis

The book has a bit of everything. Davis lived in a time when it was legal to hunt owls; and he did so with a vengeance. Similarly, there’s a chapter on hunting hawks, one devoted to the quest for bobcats, and plenty of somewhat more predictable fare in the form of coverage of hunting whitetails, squirrels, quail, and, of course, turkeys.

I’ve got it in stock, signed by both Moise and me. The 400+ page book is $29.95 plus $5 shipping and handling, and I think you’ll agree with me that it takes the reader back to a world we have largely lost in extraordinary fashion.

You can order by sending a check or money order to Jim Casada, 1250 Yorkdale Drive, Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638 or through my Web site using PayPal.