Blaze orange won't save you, but it keeps you from being mistaken

Quick answer: Wear solid blaze orange on your head and torso, skip anything white, tan or brown, and hike where hunting isn't allowed on opening weekend. Stay on marked trail, talk out loud, and put your dog in orange too.

The trailhead lot at 5:40 on a November Saturday tells you most of it. Six pickups, no minivans, a thermos on a tailgate, and a man in camo pulling on his boots in the dark. You didn't make a mistake by showing up. But you're now a guest on somebody else's workday, and you should dress like it.

The hunter's job and yours

A hunter's first obligation is to positively identify a target and know what's behind it. Every safe hunter you'll meet has that drilled in. Nothing about orange changes that rule.

What orange does is shorten the odds on the rare day somebody's tired, cold, or hoping too hard. A flash of movement in brush at last light is where mistakes happen. Your job is to make sure the thing moving looks unmistakably like a person.

Hunters are the reason a lot of this ground exists for you. License fees and the federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition have paid for habitat and wildlife management on public land for generations. Show up as a good neighbor. They're doing a legal, honorable thing, and most of them would love to help you get home safe.

What to wear

Blaze orange is the fluorescent kind, not the burnt-pumpkin shade of a fall sweater. Buy it solid.

• A hat and a vest. The hat shows over brush and from a treestand. The vest shows from the front, back and sides. A mesh safety vest costs about what a lunch does, and it goes over whatever you're already wearing.
• Cover your torso, not just your head. A hunter sees a body shape first. A lone orange beanie above a brown jacket helps, but it's the weaker half of the job.
• Put your pack in orange too. A pack cover in orange does the work when your vest is stuffed in the bag because you got hot.

And the colors to leave home. White looks like the flash of a whitetail's tail. Tan and brown look like a deer's body. In spring turkey season, hunters key on red, white, blue and black, the colors of a gobbler's head, so keep those off your hat and bandana. Camo is out in every season. Hunters wear it for a reason.

Does orange fix everything? No. It's a layer of protection, not a force field. Hunters in treestands may be looking at a field edge, not at you. That's why the other steps matter.

Pick the ground before you pick the trail

Every state wildlife agency publishes its season dates, and they run longer than most hikers think. Archery season can start in September, well before the first leaf turns, and it often runs for weeks before the gun seasons begin. Spring turkey season is its own separate window.

Look up three things before you go:

1. Season dates for deer, turkey and bear in your state, on the wildlife agency's website.
2. Who owns the land. National parks generally ban hunting. National forests, state game lands and wildlife management areas generally allow it. State parks and county parks vary, and some open for managed hunts, so check the park's own notice.
3. Sunday rules. Some states restrict Sunday hunting and some don't. Don't bet your weekend on a rule you haven't confirmed.

The safest move on opening weekend is simple. Pick a park where hunting is off the table, or a trail that's clearly marked as closed. You can still get a good day in October without sharing the ridge with fifty hunters. A busy ridge isn't more fun than a quiet one.

If you do hike open public land, choose a well-traveled, marked trail over a ridge line or game path. Hunters set up where deer travel, and that's often exactly where you'd like to walk.

Timing, noise and the dog

Dawn and dusk are when deer move, so dawn and dusk are when hunters are sitting still and watching. If you can, hike midday. Be back at the trailhead with an hour of light to spare, and carry a headlamp anyway. The Ten Essentials cover the rest of what belongs in the pack, and a whistle is cheap insurance.

Don't hike silently. It sounds backwards, since the old advice is to be quiet in the woods. But in hunting season you want to announce yourself. Talk with your partner. Whistle. Let your boots crunch.

Your dog is the most overlooked piece. A brown dog moving through brush is a deer-shaped problem. Put it in an orange vest, keep it on a leash on public land, and don't let it range.

If you hear a shot

Don't freeze, and don't dive into the brush. Stand where you are and call out in a loud, clear voice: "Hiker on the trail." Say it again. Then keep walking, and keep talking.

Hear gunfire close by? Don't wave your arms and run. Stand still, make noise, and be visible. If someone is near, they'll respond. If you have no choice but to cross a hunter's line of sight, wait until you're sure they know you're there.

Leave it better than you found it

Give hunters room. If you come across someone in a stand or blind, say hello, then keep a wide berth and move on. Don't touch trail cameras. Don't walk through a food plot. Don't carry out anything that's not yours, and pack out any trash you find, theirs or somebody else's. A clean trailhead is a good advertisement for hikers.

The weather matters more in November than in July, so read the forecast the way hikers who survive it do. If you step off marked trail and lose your bearings, the first hour after you realize you're lost is the one that counts.

Throw a vest in the truck now. It weighs almost nothing. The hunter on the ridge at first light goes home with a story, and you go home with yours.