Writer's ‘book of a lifetime' a mountain fisher's delight

By Gary McCann - gmccann@heraldonline.com

Rock Hill's Jim Casada, a former professor of history at Winthrop University and an award-winning outdoor writer, has written or edited more than 40 books, but his latest – “Fly Fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: An Insiders Guide to a Pursuit of Passion” — is, he says, “my book of a lifetime.”

And Casada remembers when the first words were planted in his head, although it would be years before the words would make it to paper.

He was a lad of 6, and his father, Commodore, who recently turned 100, let him tag along on those fly fishing trips not far from their home in Bryson City, N.C. By the age of 9, Casada had his own “hand-me-down” rod that would land his first trout and help begin a love affair with fishing those mountain streams.

He caught his first trout, a rainbow of “about seven inches,” on Deep Creek. He can take you to the spot even today.

“It was barely big enough to keep,” Casada said, and his father teased him a bit about the size and hinted he might need to release it.

“But,” Casada said, “one of the men fishing with my dad said ‘let the boy eat his fish.'”

The fish was hooked and so was the young mountain lad, who has spent countless hours walking the trails — marked and unmarked — within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. While the book has been rattling around in Casada's head for quite a while, he decided to finish it to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the park, a milestone being celebrated throughout 2009.

The final product started coming together about five years ago, with Casada's goal “to make sure everything's right.” He self-published the 448-page work so he could “do it my way.” After spending most of his childhood roaming the woods and streams in the park, Casada wanted the book to reflect all that he's learned on his own, from his dad, his childhood fishing friend Bill Rolen, and from the countless old timers who offered wisdom along the way.

“By the time I was 12 or 13,” Casada said, “my dad and mom turned me loose and I'd ride my bike or hike into the park. I could be there all day, by myself. In the summers, I'd probably average six days out of seven in the woods and that continued into my late teens.”

A 14-mile round trip hike was nothing back then, and a lot of that time was spent getting to what Casada calls “back of beyond,” those places that are far off the well-worn trails. Casada loves the solitude of fly fishing and the Great Smokies offer plenty. The book takes the reader to some of those spots.

The work is more than a how-to book about fly fishing, although it covers lots of ground with tactics and technique, equipment and safety. His brother, Don, a nuclear engineer, provided dozens of paragraphs on changes in stream elevation and temperature. And there are notes on campsites, trail crossings and directions on how to get to some outstanding fishing spots, along with more than 30 pages of photos and a pull out, color map of the park which straddles the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

But after growing up in the mountains, Casada, who counts around 1,000 books on the Smoky Mountains among his home library of around 15,000 books, also wanted it to be more.

In the first chapter, he provides an overview of the history of fishing in the Great Smokies. He also uncovers some the history of the creeks and streams with names such as “Twentymile” and “Forney” and “Beech Flats Prong” and “Kephart Prong.” “Twentymile,” for instance, isn't 20 miles long. It may be about half that. But it is 20 miles from where the Tuckasegee and Little Tennessee rivers came together before the flooding of Fontana Lake. Forney Creek got its name from a man who fell in it, and Kephart Prong got its name from Horace Kephart, a key figure in the birth of the park.

“My intention,” Casada said, “was to provide fishermen, whether newcomers to these storied streams or veterans who have fished them for years, with a truly comprehensive guide. The park provides the finest fishing for wild trout east of the Rockies.”