cover image Buck Fever: The Deer Hunting Tradition in Pennsylvania

Buck Fever: The Deer Hunting Tradition in Pennsylvania

Mike Sajna. University of Pittsburgh Press, $29.95 (231pp) ISBN 978-0-8229-3645-9

You can almost smell the bacon frying in Sajna's ( Pennsylvania Trout and Salmon Fishing Guide ) account of a buck season in Pennsylvania's Allegheny mountains. The book weaves one hunting trip with a large dose of well-researched history. The chapters on history and tradition provide a solid context for the narrative of the hunt. In turn, the narrative often gives a welcome break from sometimes burdensome facts and statistics although the plethora of g vignettes risks turning the work into a scattershot blast of reminiscences, polemics and numbers. Nevertheless, there are plenty of interesting pellets of information that strike the mark: pioneers indirectly used wolves to hunt deer, spreading deer organs to entice wolves into scouting; Teddy Roosevelt and his son shot 468 game animals on safari in Africa at the same time Roosevelt was pushing for tough conservation laws at home; one 19th-century Pennsylvanian managed to kill 3000 deer. Highly recommended for hunters, but lay readers not turned off by descriptions of carcasses g will gain respect for the hunting tradition. (Sept.)