A woman has been killed in a hunting accident on the first day of deer season in Maine.

Karen Wrentzel, 34, was shot dead around 10.30am on Saturday morning in a heavily wooded area near Hebron, Maine, in the first hunting fatality the state has seen in four years.

Family members said that Wrentzel was on her own property digging for rocks and gems when the incident occurred.

Investigators say a 38-year-old man who was out hunting with his father fired the fatal shot. The shooter's name has not been released.

Karen Wrentzel, 34, was shot dead around 10.30am on Saturday morning in a heavily wooded area near Hebron, Maine. She was on her own property digging for rocks and gems, family said

Someone from the hunter's party called 911 after they realized what had happened, according to a spokesman for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.

Wrentzel and the hunters did not know each other, spokesman John MacDonald told WGME.

MacDonald said the incident took place about 200 to 300 yards off Greenwood Mountain Road in a wooded area. A police investigation is ongoing.

A family member said there were no trespassing warnings on the property, and that Wrentzel wasn't wearing blaze orange for safety.

'The land was not posted and she was not wearing bright clothing,' Joan Joy Tibbetts, a relative of Wrentzel's, wrote on Facebook.

In Maine, hunting on private property is typically legal if the land is not posted or fenced.

The the incident took place about 200 to 300 yards off this road. A family member said that Wrentzel's property was not posted, and that she wasn't wearing bright colors

Maine's firearms season for deer opened on October 28 in Maine and runs through November 25. Saturday was 'Maine Resident Only Day' for moose and deer hunting.

Safety experts recommend anyone active in wooded areas wear a blaze orange hat or vest during deer season, whether they are hunting or not.

Maine's last hunting fatality was in 2012. William Briggs, of Windham, Maine, was later convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of Peter Kolofsky of Sebago, Maine.

In that incident, then 62-year-old Briggs said he saw deer antlers moving in the brush and fired, killing Kolofsky, who was also hunting and was wearing blaze orange.

By the body were discovered a pair of antlers, which hunters sometimes use for 'rattling' to attract deer.

Briggs' hunting license was suspended for 10 years and he was sentenced to three years in prison, with all but 45 days suspended.