Jim Casada Outdoors

October 2009 Newsletter

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

October’s Marvelous Mystique

Although May runs a close second, all things considered October ranks as my favorite month of the year. It offers so much of great appeal to the outdoorsman that sometimes the biggest issue focuses on deciding what to do. For my part though, this October is pretty well laid out before me. The start of the month finds me and the missus headed down Florida way for the annual meeting of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association in Punta Gorda. It’s an event both of us love, with ample time to visit with old friends and make some new ones, pick up plenty of professional tips, check out all that’s new and noteworthy in the way of outdoor equipment, listen to some fine pickin’ and do some grinnin’, and more.

Once back home there’s a talk and book signing for my new book, Fly Fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: An Insider’s Guide to a Pursuit of Passion, at Jesse Brown’s Outdoors in Charlotte, N. C. (October 15, 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.). Thus far reaction to the book has been quite positive, with nice reviews on a couple of Internet sources (The Outdoor Wire and MidCurrent.com) and in several newspapers. I also had a first-ever experience through participating in what I think is known as a web cast (all this twittering and tweeting, FaceBooking and MySpacing is pretty much a mystery to me, with the word twit and its derivatives having connotations I prefer to ignore). You can, should you perchance want to listen to a hillbilly talk about his scribblings and love of the Smokies, access the entire Web cast here (to the right of the video screen, scroll down to "The Smokies, Jim Casada").

I’ve got a number of upcoming events connected with promotion of the book, realizing as I do in all too keen a fashion that if I don’t publicize it no one will. In addition to the event at Jesse Brown’s I’ll be hyping the book (and others I have written or edited) at the South Carolina Writers Conference being held October 23-25, where I will be talking to would-be scribes on the freelance life, authoring cookbooks, and more.

Then, in the first half of November, I’ll be appearing at the Western North Carolina Fly Fishing Expo at the Agricultural Center just outside Asheville (November 7 and 8). I’ll be at the Hunter Banks booth both days and will also join longtime friend and expert angler Roger Lowe in presenting seminars on fishing in the Smokies). This is a first-time event, and I’m excited to be a part of it. In my studied opinion the region offers the finest fishing for trout east of the Rockies, with a little bit of everything—hundreds of miles of wild trout water, fine tailwaters, heavily stocked delayed harvest streams, hatchery-supported “catch and keep” waters in abundance, the glories of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the special fly fishing only waters on the Cherokee Reservation, and much more. If you live in the area, make it a point to attend. You can find details at www.wncflyfishingexpo.com.

Following this event, I’ll be doing talks and book signings for the Nat Green Flyfishers in Greensboro (November 10), the Pisgah chapter of Trout Unlimited in Hendersonville (November 12), and an all-day event, the Great Smoky Mountains Book Fair in Sylva, N.C., on November 14. The latter event features more than 50 authors who have written on the Appalachian region.

Additional details on all of this scrambling and rambling are available on my Web site, and as much as I regret the degree to which this will pull me out of the deer woods, I’m quite anxious to see how folks react to my “book of a lifetime.” Of course while I’m home for a day here and there, I have every intention of spending some peaceful afternoons in the whitetail quest, and a backpacking trip in the Cataloochee area of the Smokies in mid-November with my brother, one of his boys, and a cousin will provide me a grand break along with the glories of fall trout fishing.

Now, if all of this hype and hoopla hasn’t proven to you that I’ve discovered a surefire cure for insomnia, let’s get down to some of the reasons I treasure October.

It’s a wide-racked old buck, neck swollen with the rut, easing along a woodlands trail while the hunter hopes against hope shifting winds don’t betray his presence.
It’s busy bushytails raining hickory nuts down from trees bedecked in brilliant gold.
It’s fall flowers—Joe Pye weed, goldenrod, ironweed, wild asters, and the last cardinal flowers showing their finery.
It’s a boy walking home in the gloaming, a brace of squirrels in his pocket and a chest bursting with pride at having done it all on his own.
It’s persimmons turning from yellow to gold, ripening as the nights lengthen and cool weather strengthens.
It’s the odor of a patch of pawpaws, ripe and inviting as their fruit falls to the earth.
It’s a hardwood ridge ablaze in an array of colors no artist’s palette or talent can quite match.
It’s hook-jawed male brown trout on the prowl, with redds in the making and magic for the angler in the air and in the water.
It’s the visual glories of a hunter’s moon, seemingly filling the whole eastern horizon with gold and orange as light gives way to night.
It’s the juicy tang of a Red Delicious apple, cold, crisp, and indescribably delicious.
It’s the heady aroma of sweet potatoes roasting in their own skins with caramel-like sweetness oozing out.
It’s a mess of baked squirrel to go with those sweet potatoes.
It’s fresh venison backstrap, properly cooked and served with side dishes such as just-picked turnip greens, baked cushaw (a type of winter squash), and October beans.
It’s the excitement of scattering a flock of turkeys on a fall hunt and listening to the woods ring with clucks and kee-kees as they try to reassemble.
It’s a fleeting glimpse of a grouse taking flight from an old logging road.
It’s hazelnuts littering the ground along the banks of a creek, inviting squirrels and humans alike to sample and savor their rich flavor.
It’s black walnuts falling to the ground, with husks beginning to rot away to leave a nut which, once tediously hulled, amply justifies all the painstaking work required to get its meats.
It’s bass schooling to chase and smash baitfish as they feed voraciously against the coming lean, mean times of winter.
It’s a frosty morning late in the month, with a golden field of broomsedge sparkling with a million diamonds in the rising sun.
It’s a country boy taking a journey back to yesteryear by “sledding” on a piece of cardboard on a hillside in that same broomsedge field once warm sun as dried it out.
It’s that same country boy taking a page from my boyhood by working on his accuracy with a slingshot he made from a carefully selected fork of dogwood.
It’s the sound of beagles, training for the rabbit season which lies not too distant, hot on the cottontail trail in the chill of evening.

October, in short, carries so full a measure of pleasure it has a mystique which is an enduring marvel. The fullness of another season of growing lies before anyone who ventures outdoors, and at this season if you fail to feel a connection to the good earth somewhere deep in your soul, you have problems. The solution is most likely right there in nature. For October offers all of us a chance to escape from the madness which has gripped our country’s leaders—with their obsession with “czars,” votes on stuff they haven’t even read but which one and all know we can’t pay for, hyped hope which to me seems hopeless, change which equates to chaos, and, in my view madness. I’m not a political animal, but I do cherish my Second Amendment rights, my right to speak out through forums such as this newsletter, and my right to hunt.

These things, I genuinely believe, are in grave danger, and it isn’t a Democrat or a Republican thing. It’s a loss of connection to our roots, failure to love links to the land (how many of those Beltway bums do you think have even modest woodscraft skills?), and abandonment of our heritage. I somehow cling to hope it will change, but meanwhile I find succor in the sweetness of October, and I hope you will do the same. Let’s wrap up, as we normally do, with some recipes suited to the season.

PEAR AND HAZELNUT SALAD

4-6 cups mixed greens such as spinach, red-leaf, Boston, bibb, or romaine lettuce
2 fresh, ripe pears (Bosc or Bartlett varieties work especially well)
1 cup toasted, coarsely chopped hazelnut meats
3-4 tablespoons mild blue cheese

Arrange greens on salad plates, sop with chopped pears, toasted hazelnuts, and blue cheese. Drizzle with a dressing such as oil-and-vinegar or raspberry vinaigrette.

ORO WITH HAZELNUTS

8 ounces orzo
¼ cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon lemon juice
¼ cup finely chopped hazelnuts
Salt to taste
Few dashes black pepper

Cook orzo according to package directions. Meanwhile, mix softened butter, lemon juice, hazelnuts, salt and pepper with a fork. Stir into drained orzo and serve immediately.

BLACK WALNUT BARS

Crust
½ cup butter
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 cup flour

Filling
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs beaten
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ cups shredded coconut
1 cup black walnut meats

Cream butter and brown sugar. Slowly add flour and mix until crumbly. Pat into 7 x 11-inch baking dish. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees until golden.

For the filling, combine brown sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla. In a separate bowl, add flour and baking powder to coconut and walnuts. Blend into egg mixture and pour over bake crust. Return to oven and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes or until done. Cut into bars and place on wired racks to cool.

BACKSTRAP WITH RASPBERRY SAUCE

1 pound backstrap
1/3 cup Dale’s steak seasoning
1/3 cup water
½ stick margarine
1 garlic clove, minced
½ cup raspberry jam

Marinate backstrap in Dale’s steak seasoning and water, then drain. Melt the margarine and add garlic. Sauté briefly. Add backstrap and cook to desired doneness. Remove loin and de-glaze pan with jam. Serve as sauce for dripping bites of backstrap.

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Feel free to contact Jim with your comments, questions or suggestions at jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com.

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