You got me there! I always have my .38 Special Airweight on my hip while bowunting. I've never used it for signal shots though.You don't carry a sidearm... out in the woods... with critters... both 4 and 2 legged?
Radios/GPS are on "vibrate" setting. We take them off of "mute" when needed. In fact, the opposite problem is usually what happens. I could have saved my son a long walk a couple of years ago if he hadn't missed feeling the Rino's vibration when I was calling him to tell him I had a bull down. I was still able to poll his location and head him off, so it worked out okay. Heck, he's young. The extra walk probably didn't hurt him much.Turn your radio on, making a bunch of noise in the middle of your hunt just to see if you need to go help?
Oh, so you've hunted with my buddy Bruce before? If I had a dollar for every time I told him, "You know, those things are a lot more helpful/useful when you turn them on." He's 78 years-old, so we're not really counting on him to carry that much of the load. But it is nice to have an extra set of hands for quartering and de-boning. Even worse, he has a bad ticker, so it's nice to be able to "poll" his location when he doesn't show up on time. The "poll" function only works when the unit is actually turned on.Did everyone remember to turn their radio on?