I know nothing about Pickwick Lake, but the thread seems to be more about the monitoring of VHF by recreational boaters, so I'll comment from that perspective. Please forgive my contributing to thread drift. if that's what I'm doing.
My experience in Maryland on recreational power and sail boats that primarily navigate the smaller waters in Chesapeake Bay tributaries and in California in similar conditions is that those boaters rarely have a VHF radio, and if they do, they don't bother to turn it on. Those were my formative boating years, and I didn't know it was unusual. Sure, we got into jams on occasion and needed assistance while on the water, but we were always able to flag someone down, and we were flagged down to assist others more than once.
Since moving to a big boat on bigger water, I wouldn't consider being out on any water without VHF on anything larger than a jet ski, but I wouldn't hesitate to wave someone down for help if I had to.