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ooks B By Jim Casada F In The Last Best Day, Michael Altizer shares moments and meditations from a lifetime of fly fishing on streams from the Appalachians to Alaska. or the first several decades of my life, the greening up time of spring meant singleminded obsession with sparkling waters and rising trout. Then wild turkeys laid hold of my being with such tenacity that I lost a corner of my sporting soul to America's big gamebird. Thus, each year earth's rebirth finds my plate full to overflowing. That delightful dilemma looms even larger because the two sports continue to produce adventure aplenty for armchair anglers and fireside turkey hunters. Let's peek at some recent offerings. While I've never met Michael Altizer, there's little doubt we are kindred spirits. There's the obvious link provided by this magazine's masthead, but beyond that, reading his book, The Last Best Day, reveals the similar manner in which fly fishing for trout molds and moves our existences. One reason the book captures my fancy is geographical – goodly portions of it have the southern Appalachian waters of Virginia and Tennessee as a setting, streams similar in nature to those of North Carolina's Great S have fished many times, and more. Most of all, though, there is meditative common ground. Each of us has found fishing a metaphor for life and have a compulsion to share its meanings with others. In that regard, what I consider one of the two most important books I have ever written, Fly Fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: An Insider's Guide to a Pursuit of Passion, is, as the subtitle suggests, a personal memoir. Altizer's The Last Best Day is also part memoir, but more significantly it is a deeply personal, intensely and intelligently reflective examination of the way in which fly fishing can weave golden threads through the fabric of life. Fly fishing has often been described as the contemplative man's sport. In The Last Best Day we are given an abundance etching by brett james smith of opportunities to Smokies, which have held me in pause and ponder, often with minds thrall from early boyhood. full of wonder, as the author shares Then there are factors such as moments and meditations from a brothers and fathers with whom lifetime of fishing. we shared times astream, While fly fishing binds the book's Tennessee tailwaters each of us 34 chapters together, this is in reality P O R T I N G C 159 L A S S I C S