Well, I had to look up Buck Fever figuring maybe it’s a thing. And it’s the nervousness a hunter gets when first seeing a deer….. so…. 1) It’s not that common or recognizable a phrase and 2) It’s about hunting bucks so replacing it with becoming a buck just isn’t that an imaginative enough stretch.
Being from Wisconsin, and the city just south of Milwaukee, I immediately thought of Buck Fever having something to do with the Milwaukee Bucks (basketball team. I think), then realized that made even LESS sense than the comic itself. Altho I HAVE heard reference to ‘Buck Fever’ pertaining to that team.
I’ve never hunted, but I know what buck fever is. (I think it’s also used metaphorically.) So for me, it’s not a great joke but acceptable. I think it’s helped by the advice to keep him out of the woods.
There will be a lot of hunting cabins with this comic pinned up next to the rack of antlers or on the beer fridge, for sure. However, I come from a fairly rural area where hunting is a big deal and I’ve never heard of ‘buck fever’. I’m with Woozy on this.
While husbands are gone hunting, wives are available: I was thinking along cuckoldry lines.
I know I’ve encountered the phrase before and probably understood it in context, since woozy’s explanation seemed familiar, but I had no idea what it was just now.
I’m guessing “buck fever” is a regional thing. LIving on the East Coast of North America I’ve certainly never heard it.
Andrea, “you never did the Kenosha kid? “
It’s not so much nervousness as an inability to pull the trigger when you have the deer in your scope’s crosshairs. Why? I think it’s difficult to take a life. It’s also performance anxiety. It’s why I prefer fishing, lots of catch and release, and lots of practice so the impulse to jerk the rod at the first bite is replaced by patience. As to the phrase being a regional thing, I don’t think so, there being deer and other game animals all over the country.
I also live in an area where hunting is common, but I’ve never heard this phrase.
Well, I’m sure Jeff Daniels would understand this comic. I was going to suggest that anyone who didn’t get this comic should watch “Escanaba in da Moonlight,” but on further thought, if you didn’t get the comic, you probably wouldn’t like “Escanaba” either.
I thought it might be just a Michigan thing, but googling “buck fever” quickly uncovered an article written by a noted hunter and writer from Kansas, and an article written on the subject by researchers at Texas A&M. So the term would appear to have a range covering at least the middle of the U.S. from Michigan’s upper peninsula to Texas…
Mitch4: Never heard of the “Kenosha kid”, even tho I was one . . .
Amazed that so many people have never heard of “buck fever,” And I’ve never hunted deer, or anything much larger than a gopher (and even that was fifty plus years ago), nor did my parents hunt.
I grew up in northern Minnesota and knew a lot of people who *did* hunt, not that they would have talked to me about it, but admittedly I don’t recall anyone ever *saying* the term — but I’ve seen it in print all my life. Maybe I just have a history of reading weird stuff?
OED’s first listed citation is 1841:
buck-fever n.
1841 Southern Lit. Messenger 7 224/2 If you see a deer..you’ll be sure to git the buck fever.
“Buck fever” is when a person who is great at the range gets nervous and starts blasting away randomly when they see a live target.
… and I know it from tabletop roleplaying games, where an optional rule in GURPS 3rd Edition Revised allowed the GM to impose a -4 Buck Fever penalty to a character without the Combat Reflexes advantage who had no significant experience in combat or hunting, with the penalty dropping by 1 to -3 then -2 then -1 then being gone as the character gained more live experience.
So… seems that, maybe, it’s not necessarily a universally understood term.
Back when I played recreational soccer, we used to refer to a similar problem that happened to players who suddenly had a clear shot on goal. It seems like they would invariably hit the goalie, or miss the goal entirely.
I figured it was likely in other parts of the country “buck fever” may be more common but more to the point referring to a fever about shooting bucks and replacing it with growing characteristics of a buck is simply not clever or imaginative.
@ woozy – You do realize that we are talking about “Close to Home” here. That’s par for the course.
There was a discussion of buck fever in the movie Deliverance.
“You do realize that we are talking about “Close to Home” here. That’s par for the course.”
Yeah, well, I wanted to make sure that was clear. If I complain “buck fever” isn’t a common phrase an others say “we use it all the time here” then I’m the jerk for arrogantly assuming just because my neck of the woods doesn’t use the phrase only insignificant back waters do. So I just wanted to make sure that the gyst of my complaint is that “buck fever = hunting bucks vs. being a buck” is simply not imaginative or clever. And that’s Close to Home’s fault…. not mine.
It would help if the cartoonist knew how to draw antlers.
In a Ren and Stimpy cartoon, they drank water a beaver swam in and got Beaver Fever which resulted in them growing big teeth and big flat tails.
So this guy grew antlers and had better stay out of the woods during deer season, which is deer mating season. Because a buck would see the antlers and attack him, thinking he was another buck.
@ Mark in Boston – I don’t think you needed to type the word “antlers” in that first sentence.
Kilby, your soccer example is moving into the territory of “the yips”.
@ Mitch4 – There was a specific phrase attached to it (something along the lines of “choking”), but for the life of me I can’t recall the exact wording.
‘Buck fever’ is common enough to be in my 2003 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. (I recognized the phrase but didn’t know what it meant.) ‘Nervous excitement of an inexperienced hunter at the sight of game’.
And it’s old enough to be in the 1913 Websters unabridged: Intense excitement at the sight of deer or other game, such as often unnerves a novice in hunting. [Colloq.]
Olivier – If my husband hunted, trust me, I would have to go along. In addition to him not being happy when he is not driving me crazy, errr, joining him for the fun of whatever he is doing, he would need me to pick to any dropped bullets (shells? I presume that deer is hunted with rifles, not shotguns?)
I have live fired his 18th century repro musket and fowler as well as modern “James Bond” rifle as would not dream of going to the range without my coming along. I have not live fired his 18th century repro rifle as when he went to do so the ball got stuck in it and it could not be fired. (How would you like to drive home with that in the car?) I have also fired the unit cannon (not live fired,blanks) at a football game and at some events when they were short “men” for the crew.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Well, I had to look up Buck Fever figuring maybe it’s a thing. And it’s the nervousness a hunter gets when first seeing a deer….. so…. 1) It’s not that common or recognizable a phrase and 2) It’s about hunting bucks so replacing it with becoming a buck just isn’t that an imaginative enough stretch.
Being from Wisconsin, and the city just south of Milwaukee, I immediately thought of Buck Fever having something to do with the Milwaukee Bucks (basketball team. I think), then realized that made even LESS sense than the comic itself. Altho I HAVE heard reference to ‘Buck Fever’ pertaining to that team.
I’ve never hunted, but I know what buck fever is. (I think it’s also used metaphorically.) So for me, it’s not a great joke but acceptable. I think it’s helped by the advice to keep him out of the woods.
There will be a lot of hunting cabins with this comic pinned up next to the rack of antlers or on the beer fridge, for sure. However, I come from a fairly rural area where hunting is a big deal and I’ve never heard of ‘buck fever’. I’m with Woozy on this.
While husbands are gone hunting, wives are available: I was thinking along cuckoldry lines.
I know I’ve encountered the phrase before and probably understood it in context, since woozy’s explanation seemed familiar, but I had no idea what it was just now.
I’m guessing “buck fever” is a regional thing. LIving on the East Coast of North America I’ve certainly never heard it.
Andrea, “you never did the Kenosha kid? “
It’s not so much nervousness as an inability to pull the trigger when you have the deer in your scope’s crosshairs. Why? I think it’s difficult to take a life. It’s also performance anxiety. It’s why I prefer fishing, lots of catch and release, and lots of practice so the impulse to jerk the rod at the first bite is replaced by patience. As to the phrase being a regional thing, I don’t think so, there being deer and other game animals all over the country.
I also live in an area where hunting is common, but I’ve never heard this phrase.
Well, I’m sure Jeff Daniels would understand this comic. I was going to suggest that anyone who didn’t get this comic should watch “Escanaba in da Moonlight,” but on further thought, if you didn’t get the comic, you probably wouldn’t like “Escanaba” either.
I thought it might be just a Michigan thing, but googling “buck fever” quickly uncovered an article written by a noted hunter and writer from Kansas, and an article written on the subject by researchers at Texas A&M. So the term would appear to have a range covering at least the middle of the U.S. from Michigan’s upper peninsula to Texas…
Mitch4: Never heard of the “Kenosha kid”, even tho I was one . . .
Amazed that so many people have never heard of “buck fever,” And I’ve never hunted deer, or anything much larger than a gopher (and even that was fifty plus years ago), nor did my parents hunt.
I grew up in northern Minnesota and knew a lot of people who *did* hunt, not that they would have talked to me about it, but admittedly I don’t recall anyone ever *saying* the term — but I’ve seen it in print all my life. Maybe I just have a history of reading weird stuff?
OED’s first listed citation is 1841:
buck-fever n.
1841 Southern Lit. Messenger 7 224/2 If you see a deer..you’ll be sure to git the buck fever.
“Buck fever” is when a person who is great at the range gets nervous and starts blasting away randomly when they see a live target.
… and I know it from tabletop roleplaying games, where an optional rule in GURPS 3rd Edition Revised allowed the GM to impose a -4 Buck Fever penalty to a character without the Combat Reflexes advantage who had no significant experience in combat or hunting, with the penalty dropping by 1 to -3 then -2 then -1 then being gone as the character gained more live experience.
So… seems that, maybe, it’s not necessarily a universally understood term.
Back when I played recreational soccer, we used to refer to a similar problem that happened to players who suddenly had a clear shot on goal. It seems like they would invariably hit the goalie, or miss the goal entirely.
I figured it was likely in other parts of the country “buck fever” may be more common but more to the point referring to a fever about shooting bucks and replacing it with growing characteristics of a buck is simply not clever or imaginative.
@ woozy – You do realize that we are talking about “Close to Home” here. That’s par for the course.
There was a discussion of buck fever in the movie Deliverance.
“You do realize that we are talking about “Close to Home” here. That’s par for the course.”
Yeah, well, I wanted to make sure that was clear. If I complain “buck fever” isn’t a common phrase an others say “we use it all the time here” then I’m the jerk for arrogantly assuming just because my neck of the woods doesn’t use the phrase only insignificant back waters do. So I just wanted to make sure that the gyst of my complaint is that “buck fever = hunting bucks vs. being a buck” is simply not imaginative or clever. And that’s Close to Home’s fault…. not mine.
It would help if the cartoonist knew how to draw antlers.
In a Ren and Stimpy cartoon, they drank water a beaver swam in and got Beaver Fever which resulted in them growing big teeth and big flat tails.
So this guy grew antlers and had better stay out of the woods during deer season, which is deer mating season. Because a buck would see the antlers and attack him, thinking he was another buck.
@ Mark in Boston – I don’t think you needed to type the word “antlers” in that first sentence.
Kilby, your soccer example is moving into the territory of “the yips”.
@ Mitch4 – There was a specific phrase attached to it (something along the lines of “choking”), but for the life of me I can’t recall the exact wording.
‘Buck fever’ is common enough to be in my 2003 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. (I recognized the phrase but didn’t know what it meant.) ‘Nervous excitement of an inexperienced hunter at the sight of game’.
And it’s old enough to be in the 1913 Websters unabridged: Intense excitement at the sight of deer or other game, such as often unnerves a novice in hunting. [Colloq.]
Olivier – If my husband hunted, trust me, I would have to go along. In addition to him not being happy when he is not driving me crazy, errr, joining him for the fun of whatever he is doing, he would need me to pick to any dropped bullets (shells? I presume that deer is hunted with rifles, not shotguns?)
I have live fired his 18th century repro musket and fowler as well as modern “James Bond” rifle as would not dream of going to the range without my coming along. I have not live fired his 18th century repro rifle as when he went to do so the ball got stuck in it and it could not be fired. (How would you like to drive home with that in the car?) I have also fired the unit cannon (not live fired,blanks) at a football game and at some events when they were short “men” for the crew.