I found myself in a situation in which I had two characters pointing their guns at me. I was along the banks of a river holding two heavy bags of water with the first larval hickory shad to be stocked in the state. I was alone, at about midnight (my choice to reduce exposure of the fish to visual predators) in the rain (also my choice to allow for dispersal). I chose the stocking site because it was the last place where the species had been reported at that life stage (about 1 to 2 days old) over 30 years earlier. I had not researched nor considered my own safety - a mistake others here have pointed out. Having slid down a hillside of wet broken glass and trash, I was about to allow some river water into the bags to acclimate the tiny fish when I heard a moo behind me. I turned to find a very large man pointing a semi-auto pistol at me. Another moo'ing sound (some kind of code there) revealed another large guy behind him also pointing a gun at me. This was not private property but part of the National Capital Park & planning commission land. My mind flashed to an incident the previous week, forgotten until now, about a body pinned to a bridge piling downstream and if that might have been connected to these characters. I had no concealed weapon, and even if I had one, i would likely have been shot while attempting to reach it in a holster, if my chief special, or a pocket, if my hammerless revolver. And I was outnumbered and caught by surprise. In this situation, I did the only thing I could think of and explained that I was a biologist out here stocking fish. As they got closer, it appeared these guys were under the influence of something and were unable to see the nearly microscopic fish in my fish transport bags. So I went for broke and exclaimed something to the effect of "Man, you guys are so lucky to see this. This is a historic moment - the first time this species, cultured in our hatchery, has ever been stocked - and here you are to see something nobody else has ever seen!" This seemed to disarm them a little, so I followed it up with "Not only can you see this historic event, how would you like to help me stock them?" Both grunted yes to that, and we spent the next two hours climbing up and down a hillside of broken glass in the rain carrying down insulated boxes of bagged fish until we had stocked all 1.3 million into the river. Later, I told two different law enforcement agencies about what happened and they both told me it was a major meth lab and too dangerous to send their officers there.
Silly bird...
