Tick Information

[blake]

Spring, unfortunately, means ticks as well as turkeys and morels. Tick bites are extremely unpleasant, and can carry some serious human diseases, like Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease. Turkey hunters and mushroom hunters should be extra careful, since they spend so much time in the woods.

Deer Ticks:
link

Precautions:

• Check yourself thoroughly and regularly for ticks while mushrooming!

• Check yourself thoroughly for ticks before getting back into the car.

• Remove your clothes when you return from the woods, and check them for ticks. Some people recommend setting your clothes in a white bathtub, where ticks will be easier to spot.

• Tucking your pants cuffs into your boots and duct tape around the cuff. Also wearing light colored clothing can make it easier to spot crawling ticks.
Treat pants and socks with Permanone. This insecticide must be sprayed on hours in advance in order to dry and permeate the fabric, but then you are well protected. The treatment will last a week or so even if the clothes are laundered. Thoroughly read the instructions on the Permanone label. It’s sold at Wal-Mart in the sporting goods section."

Removing Ticks:

Use tweezers, and grasp the tick by the head, near the point where it is buried in the skin. Kill the tick after removal by burning it, flushing it down the toilet, or dropping it in rubbing alcohol. (If you are worried about the possibility of the tick carrying a disease, you will need to keep the tick alive by putting it in a sealed baggie with a damp paper towel; this way your doctor can figure things out better later.) Wash and disinfect the bite thoroughly.

Does anyone else have any Tips for Ticks?

 

[cybball]

My dad and I started to use the Permanone product a couple years ago. After the day I came out of the woods and counted 17 ticks on me. I usually spray the stuff on the night before and let it dry. There is no odor, and it stays on. Since going to this stuff, I've not had one tick on me. It keeps misquitos and other insects away too. Good stuff. It's in an orange/blue can at Walmart like Blake said. Good luck to everyone out there during bird season. Be safe and be sure of your target.

 

[Daver]

I'll second the permanone spray idea and add that you DO NOT want to get it on your skin. Spray it on your clothes and boots only. It also helps guard against chiggers too and I feel like it has been really effective in repelling ticks. I go extra heavy from the knees on down to my boots.

I have even sprayed it around the lower section of my Double Bull blind, I hate the small deer ticks because they can be so tough to detect.

Also, if you use a stool or strut seat or cushion or whatever keeps your butt off the ground, I think that helps some too.

 

[Daver]

Oh, one other thing... I shave the fine hairs off the back of my neck so I can feel those buggers creeping across the bare skin on the back of my neck trying to get to "homebase", my hair!

I have removed a number of them over the years by catching them on their mad "dash" from my collar to my hair this way.

 

[blake]

Lyme Disease

This disease, rather common in the hunting community, is often mistaken for other ailments and thus is drastically under-reported (as little as 16% of all cases are reported in some states.) Caused by the bite of an infected deer tick, this disease can radically affect the lives of those who have it due to its persistent, pervasive symptoms.

Those afflicted with Lyme often suffer from fatigue, stiffness, headaches, nausea, diarrhea, numbness, chest pain, abnormal heart rate or swollen and painful joints or glands. These symptoms are often misdiagnosed as being either flu, arthritis, or stress-related and can occur as soon as a few days after being bitten.

These symptoms usually disappear after a short time, but if left untreated they can return and get progressively worse, leading to conditions such as migraines, heart arrhythmia, myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscles) or severe arthritis. And while the disease is rarely fatal, this continuous subjection to illness wears down the body's resistance and can cause other minor problems or more major heart- or neurologically-related ones.

Typically signified by a bullseye-shaped rash around the site of the bite (though this is true only 50-80% of the time), most of Lyme's symptoms can be treated by antibiotics. A recently FDA-approved vaccine, though, the first of its kind, offers users full immunity. The vaccine, LYMErix, was approved for anyone ages 15-70 and requires the completion of a three shot cycle in order to be fully effective. LYMErix, 80% effective for those with chronic symptoms, is noteworthy mainly because it kills the disease in the tick rather than in the human bloodstream.

And while the vaccine is highly effective at preventing symptom development, people should continue to take precautions against infection. These include such basics as avoiding tick-infested areas, wearing protective clothing, tucking in pants and shirts, and regularly checking for ticks.

If you should get bitten by a tick, carefully remove it with tweezers, pulling it out as close to the skin as possible. (The tick attaches itself to the skin with the help of hook-like barbs and a glue-like secretion, so pulling at it away from the skin can cause it to rupture, allowing the bacteria within to enter the skin and possibly transmit disease.

 

[kbgibby]

I too have used permanone with great success. I lay the clothes flat on the driveway so the fumes can disipate quickly and spray one side good, then flip em over and do the other side and hang em up to dry. Coats, shirt, pants, socks, T-shirts, caps, turkey vest. Everything but the skivvies.

Also, when I'm sitting in the woods against a tree, I tuck the face mask netting into my shirt collar then button the collar to lessen the chance of them making the jump from my collar to my hair.

Can almost feel the damn things crawling on me just talkin' about it!!

 

[baggin_bucks]

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Can almost feel the damn things crawling on me just talkin' about it!!

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I'm with you threebeards I found myself rubbing the back of my neck while reading the post. It is not a good thing though I have a cousin who's whole family except for one son got lymes from ticks that came off of their dog. Has a pretty big impact on their lives.