I am undecided on the use of radios while hunting.  I’ve been grateful to have a radio in my hunting jacket pocket when someone needed help dragging a deer out of the woods.  And I’ve been relieved to check in and get a small burst of human contact to break up a long day in the woods.  But I can also see how radios can get you into trouble.  And I’m not talking about the kind of trouble where a human gains an unfair advantage by knowing an animal is in the area.  I’m talking about the kind of trouble that comes from having a young female with a girly voice show up on the radio waves for just anyone to hear.

Our family used to turn on the radio every few hours to see how people were doing.  “Are you warm enough?  Have you seen any deer?  Is there fresh sign near you?”  I checked in at the agreed upon time and heard an unfamiliar voice.  “Adam is that you,” I asked.  The voice said, “Yes.”  And then Cousin Adam responded with, “That is not me…….” “Jennifer, I know where you are sitting,” said the creepy voice. 

Who would mess with a girl in the woods no matter what her voice sounded like if she had a gun?  My dad reminded me when we met up for lunch that no one would give me a hard time in the woods given that I had a gun, and whomever it was, was simply bored.  After lunch, I headed back out but elected to forgo the use of the radio. 

Perhaps I dozed for a bit leaning against a stump.  But without too much warning there was a person in the distance who was not familiar and who was not wearing hunter orange.  The person didn’t have on the attire of the Amish either so I knew they were trespassing (we had permission to hunt on Amish property).  I calmly placed my shotgun on my lap and watched the person make a wide arc around me.  I’ll never know if this was the guy who pretended to be family on the radio.  I’ll never know if my shotgun being trained on him scared him.  But I do know that had I needed it, the deer slug in that gun would have protected me.