A Hunter's Road : A Journey with Gun and Dog Across the American Uplands (An Owl Book)

From Publishers Weekly
In September 1990 freelance sportswriter Fergus bird-hunted during the opening days of the sage grouse season in Wyoming, blue grouse season in Colorado and chukar season in Idaho. Five months later, this first-time author and his yellow Labrador, Sweetzer, had hunted (and retrieved) 21 species of game birds in 24 states during a 17,000-mile journey recounted here with asides providing recipes for how to cook the various catches. Man and dog tramped in woods and fields, through swamps and deserts; they observed a shoot on a private game ranch and met hunters (and dogs) from all walks of life. Fergus gives a splendid tour of the countryside and a spirited defense of hunting as a sport, sharing his worries about the growth of anti-hunting sentiment and the decline in bird population due to loss of habitat. A fine travel-and-adventure tale, both for hunters and readers who enjoy the outdoors. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In middle age, the author fulfilled a childhood dream by spending five months Fergus hunted and spoke with famous and infamous hunters, with biologists, authors such as George Bird Evans, and land owners. Like another Fergus (Charles, A Rough-Shooting Dog , LJ 8/91), he writes lyrically about the hunter's role in conservation, the relationship with his dog and with other hunters, the anti-hunting movement, and the very nature of hunting itself. Missing his targets frequently, sometimes admiring rather than shooting, he demonstrates his own axiom that "grace is a quality central to sport and art." This book is highly recommended for public libraries where upland bird hunting is pursued (and also where it is attacked).- Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., CarbondaleCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Wonderfully evoked natural scenes and portraits of hunters from a free-lance writer. Fergus was 39 when he developed a ``strange, overpowering obsession with bird hunting''--which he hadn't thought about since he was a boy--and came home with a shotgun and a yellow Labrador puppy, Sweetzer, named after a mountain ridge in Idaho, where Fergus and his wife lived. Once Sweetzer and Fergus learned the fundamentals, the author decided they would attempt to hunt as many bird species in different habitats as is possible in a season. Thereupon hangs Fergus's picaresque tale, in which he and Sweetzer cover 17,000 miles in five months, from stalking chukar partridges on rocky Montana mountainsides to shooting snipe in the steamy Mobile delta. Fergus paints wonderful portraits of his hunting companions--from novelists Richard Ford and Robert F. Jones to Florida blue-bloods, from dirt farmers who gladly stop their work to take Fergus and Sweetzer on a quick grouse hunt to ``slob'' hunters who ride the roads drinking beer and shooting birds on the ground. The dogs here are also all memorable personalities, as befits bird hunters' closest partners. To his credit, Fergus presents the current antihunting arguments and talks them over with leading bird biologists; most contend that habitat loss, rather then hunting pressure, has been responsible for the declines in bird populations. Among his adventures, Fergus goes on several organized hunts in preserves (one with a group of grim big-city detectives, who blow every bird to shreds) and laments that so much habitat in the US is becoming privatized--a situation long extant in Europe, where bird hunting is an exclusive pursuit of the rich. A top-notch dog-and-gun-book, with sympathetic focus on humans and animals as well as some fine nature writing. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"An absorbing, provocative, and even enchanting book. "-Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

"A Hunter's Road is that rarest of books, a word journey that can one minute have you doubled over with laughter, and a few pages later leave you wiping a tear from your eye. "-Tom Dodge, Heartland USA



Review
"An absorbing, provocative, and even enchanting book. "-Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

"A Hunter's Road is that rarest of books, a word journey that can one minute have you doubled over with laughter, and a few pages later leave you wiping a tear from your eye. "-Tom Dodge, Heartland USA



Review
"An absorbing, provocative, and even enchanting book. "-Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

"A Hunter's Road is that rarest of books, a word journey that can one minute have you doubled over with laughter, and a few pages later leave you wiping a tear from your eye. "-Tom Dodge, Heartland USA



Book Description
In an epic season of sport, Jim Fergus and his trusty Lab, Sweetzer, trek the mountains, plains, prairies, forests, marshes, deltas, and deserts of America.



About the Author
Jim Fergus is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Esquire, Newsweek, Outside, and Fly Fisherman. He lives in Colorado, Idaho, and Florida.



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In middle age, the author fulfilled a childhood dream by spending five months Fergus hunted and spoke with famous and infamous hunters, with biologists, authors such as George Bird Evans, and land owners. Like another Fergus (Charles, A Rough-Shooting Dog , LJ 8/91), he writes lyrically about the hunter's role in conservation, the relationship with his dog and with other hunters, the anti-hunting movement, and the very nature of hunting itself. Missing his targets frequently, sometimes admiring rather than shooting, he demonstrates his own axiom that ``grace is a quality central to sport and art.'' This book is highly recommended for public libraries where upland bird hunting is pursued (and also where it is attacked).-- Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale


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