Cait & Marty do not hunt, unless you count their scavenging forays at estate sales. Cait’s Baby Boomer friend, Steve, does hunt and knows what he’s talking about when it comes to protecting his hearing. Steve owns Best Days a A field, a fine Wisconsin hunting lodge, and sent us this post about a hearing Gimpliment he uses in the field:

I have been using hearing protection for 40 or more years for shooting, and operating noisy equipment. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to use electronic hearing protectors, one of my favorites is the Howard Leight Impact™ Sport Earmuff with a jack to plug in an iPod.

I love listening to books-on-tape and use my iPod for the treadmill at the gym, for driving, and for the deer stand. If you get engaged in a good story you will probably last longer on the treadmill, and it’s always more pleasant. The iPod also makes driving more pleasant, keeping me awake and alert on longer drives as it does in the deer stand.

I jack the iPod cable into the earmuffs to listen to books-on-tape for lawn mowing and sedentary hunting like sitting on deer stand, or waiting for a turkey. Turn the iPod off and turn the earmuff volume up and you can hear game sneaking around.

A friend missed a nice deer years ago using headphones to listen to a big sports game. The headphones did not have an external microphone, like my Leight earmuffs do, so he didn’t hear the deer sneak up. When he moved slightly, not knowing the deer was practicaly in his lap, he spooked it and the deer bolted.

Eds. Note: Cait thinks bird watchers would find these useful, too.