Ticks

[greenblade]

After a few days rat hunting near Crane, I find a tick in my apartment, luckily not on me. That was 3 weeks ago....
I just found another one walking across my bathroom counter.
I used all the normal sprays walking thru the sage when we were after the rabbits but obviously I brought a few friends home.
My question is, do they multiply? would a "bug bomb" do the trick? My place is clean and it freaks me out knowing those little critters are on the prowl looking for a new home in my hairy, warm belly button (sorry, too much info)
What can I do?

Thanks in advance

[tailchaser]

Talk to your nearest pest killing company and they should be able to recommend a smoke bomb that gets rid of them. I had the same situation a few years ago scouting elk and had to do it to my place. Seemed to work.

tc

[ehunter]

Another thing you can do is change your clothes and put them in a plastic bag and wash every thing when you get home. They can live in a your car truck for a while we have to really watch our dogs this time of the year.

[raptorschild]

Me and a friend pulled over 30 off of us while coyote hunting last year.
I went bass fishing last weekend and found about 10 between me, my buddy and his dog. Also found 2 crawling in the house.

In reality Ticks are a very minor problem. They won't "duplicate", and they won't live all that long. When you find em, just flush em.

Worst case scenario, you get one attached to you. Just work em out slowly and make sure you don't rip it off you which will leave the "head" of the tick embedded in your skin.

Really not much worse than a mosquito. In fact i' think i'd rather get hit by a Tick than a mosquito.

You don't need to "bomb" your apartment. Just find them, save them, and put em in a stew if your in need of protein.

[Fishing With Larry]

When I come home from a hunt that involved ticks on clotheing, animals with ticks, or ticks found on my personal body, I usually put the bag of hunting clothes on the back porch for the next couple of weeks to let them get out if they are there. I strip on the back patio and let my wife do some inspecting, which after I describe how drastically important it is to find them all, has been fun so far. I also carry the clothes directly to the washing machine in a garbage bag when I wash them so that I don't leave unwashed clothes around the house where they could get out. So far my home has been with out incident.

A few years ago, during a bear hunt in SW Oregon ,down in TailChasers country, the ticks were horrible. We pulled hundreds off of us in a matter of several days and the bear that we got was infested. There is a picture somewhere in my posts. When we placed the meat in the cooler and the hide in the back of the truck, the truck was literally crawling in an hour. My buddy took duck tape and rolled it sticky side out and stuck it to the bed till it was so covered with ticks it wouldn't stick any more. Again, no incidents on that trip with ticks once I got home.

[DAB]

Ticks make my skin crawl just thinking of getting one on me.
DAB

[BigSkyHunter]

Just got back from antler shed hunting and pulled 17 off me between the truck drive home and now. I hate those things but it could be worse.

BSH

[QH's Paw]

Yep, came back from Klickitat scouting turkeys yesterday. Plenty of ticks to go around this year. I try to check my clothes for as many as possible before I get in the rig each time. When I get home I strip right away and get the clothes in the wash. You have to do that anyway because of all the poison oak.
As for ticks and mosquitos not being a big deal, I used to think that too. After watching my sister on life support almost two weeks and her being in the hospital 2 1/2 months for West Nile virus I no longer feel that way.
174 people died from it last year and over 4200 people were confimed to have it in the USA alone in 2006.

[Buckhuntraj]

Personally I would much rather get hit with a skeeter than a tick by a long shot. Lyme disease is pretty scary stuff plus the other diseases those nasty little buggers pass around. Got one in me last Turkey season. If you do get one in you, Do not Burn it out! Worst thing you can do. It will make them release all their nasty crap into you. Make sure you use tweasers and pull it out slowly and then keep an eye on the bite spot.

[duckdog310]

For those of you who are pulling that many ticks off of you. . .are you using any type of repellent?

[BigSkyHunter]

Originally Posted by duckdog310

For those of you who are pulling that many ticks off of you. . .are you using any type of repellent?

Yep, 90% Deet repellant. Spray pant legs, boots, hats, shoulders, pretty much everywhere but exposed skin. 90% is pretty potent stuff but these ticks are so thick it doesn't phase most of them.

BSH

[SeaSparrow]

This is a must have for ticks, especially if you have dogs. Slide the fork under the embedded tick, rotate counterclockwise and unscrew the tick.
Got this tool from the vet for under ten dollars.

[BigSkyHunter]

That is a pretty neat tool. I am going to try and get one of those this next week, espescially since the ticks are only going to get worse before they get better the next couple weeks.

BSH

[HuntnCoug]

I was hunting turkeys opening day last year on up above Hellers Bar on the Grande Ronde. Hunted for about an hour and realized my pants were covered in Ticks. I counted over 50 just on my legs. Between the ticks people and the rain I packed up and went home.

[captain cluster]

Anybody heard the new country song " I'd Like To Check You For Ticks"
Pretty catchy tune and a reminder that I need some better looking hunting partners before I go out into the tick infested woods again. CC

[MarlinMark]

Ticks "breathe" from there posterior. They can be fully drilled in and hard to "pinch" but they have to breathe. So, they have holes to the rear. Just put enough peanut butter on them so they aren't getting any air and they will back out. No risk of busting one off. Thick viscous things like mineral oil, vaseline, all of these will work. But, everyone has peanut butter don't they?

Mark

[HuntnCoug]

I probably pulled a hundred ticks off my lab last year. Do any of those over the counter products work like Frontline?

[ehunter]

We also have tick problems with our dog I have never seen that tool but I am going to ask the vet on the next visit. Thanks

[tracker]

When my friend and I were 16, a long time ago, he got a tick, well lets just say in a very sensitive place. We were hunting pigs on Fort Hunter Ligget. It was early in the morning when he found this tick. He was yelling and asking for a match! All this before I knew what he was yelling about was a tick! Well I found a match and handed it out of the camper shell and and he lit it and tried to burn the tick off with the flame! Well he was never that hairy and still is not, but what hair he had down there went up in a hurry and he was running around hoping up and down and screaming that he was on fire. I was laughing so hard I could not get out of the truck to0 help him. The flame was out nearly as soon as it started anbd the tick was still there. He wanted me to come and pull it out! I told him I would go and find the nearest medic but was not going to pull it out! He did it and swore me to silence which lasted till the next time we saw someone, then the story just blurted out of me! We are still friends and I try not to tell the story too often!

[Slow and Low]

Originally Posted by HuntnCoug

I probably pulled a hundred ticks off my lab last year. Do any of those over the counter products work like Frontline?

I live in the gorge and they have ben terible since Februaury. We used the cheap stuff for my lab and ticks flocked to him. Frontlined him last time. Just got off a four day John Day float and no ticks on the dog or us. We did pick three ticks off the dog but none had imbedded.

I highly recommend frontline fpr yur hound but get the strongest stuff.

BTW, your dog wil still pick them up so have a wire dog brush and check him often, or he wil bring some new friends to you. Dogs are tick transport machines.

[SeaSparrow]

Just wanted to show what the tick puller looks like after a successful hunting trip over the dog's skin. Works well!

[toas243]

Originally Posted by Buckhuntraj

Personally I would much rather get hit with a skeeter than a tick by a long shot. Lyme disease is pretty scary stuff plus the other diseases those nasty little buggers pass around. Got one in me last Turkey season. If you do get one in you, Do not Burn it out! Worst thing you can do. It will make them release all their nasty crap into you. Make sure you use tweasers and pull it out slowly and then keep an eye on the bite spot.

Lyme disease can be treat quit easy with a year long treatment of antibioctics ,and it is succsessful ,( I got this info from my sons cardiologist after I got bit by one where the Lyme ridden ones live in So Cal) as with the new west nile virus ,it affects people diffrently

[Fish_N_Russ]

The tick puller-offer tool pretty much only works on engorged (ie female) ticks. Small males would be very hard to get (since they are much smaller).

Also the BEST way, bar none, for getting ticks off is pulling slowly with a fine point tweezer. The idea about putting stuff on them so they cant breathe is an old wives tale, so is the burn em off story as well. Ticks can live for days in water because they will trap microscopic amounts of water next to their body, so smothering them in vaseline or peanut butter or whatever does nothing to them. I used to work for OSU Extension and we got questions like that very often.

[adobe wall]

Originally Posted by toas243

Lyme disease can be treat quit easy with a year long treatment of antibioctics ,and it is succsessful ,( I got this info from my sons cardiologist after I got bit by one where the Lyme ridden ones live in So Cal) as with the new west nile virus ,it affects people diffrently

Most people who have Lyme disease never know they have it. The disease has really spread back where I used to live- 5 of my former coworkers have it. One of my best friends tests positive for it- he's an avid hunter- but has no ill effect at all from it. His wife, however, has been in an utterly debilitating three year fight to recover. If you are showing symptoms (and they're bad), fighting the disease can be very tough. There is growing evidence that it can be spread sexually (my friend's wife never goes in the woods and hasn't been bit by a tick in decades).

Anyhow, about ticks. Serious stuff. There is no effective tick repellent- they don't find people the same way that mosquitos do so forget anything with DEET. What will work is Permanone (under various brands now), anything that contains Permethryne (sp?). Permethryne will kill the ticks as they crawl on your clothing. The instructions say hang your clothing up, spray it, let it dry, then put it on. Per the directions it will last a couple weeks on your clothes- absolutely wicked stuff. I've hunted where you could not bow hunt or turkey hunt without it- just no way, you'd be covered with tiny deer ticks when you got home. What we actually did with the stuff is hose down our pants and boots with the stuff every time we went out, while we wore them, and then taped the pants cuffs. That will work.

There have been times, before Lyme disease, that I've come home completely covered with small deer ticks. The bites last a long time and really itch but the Lyme thing and the experience of my coworkers is what finally got my to stop hunting back east. It ain't worth it. The areas I hunt out here have no where near the tick problem.

I've never seen the need to fumigate the house after finding a tick- they don't seem to multiply in your house. However, I would never bring hunting clothes into the house unless they were bagged and went straight into the washing machine, and I always went straight into the shower.

regards, aw

[Clamman]

Ah man this is not the kind of post I needed to read. Now I will never get to sleep especially after the belly-button reference. That just opened up a memory that I had repressed and hidden years ago. All I can say is they love the donut hole.


Clam