Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Chiggers and ticks

I am what is known as a magnet for chiggers and ticks. What is teh best wat to share these little guys with others besides myself?

I am a magnet myself. Other than the traditional spraying, which has limited results, there are two other options I have found that helped.

1. Rhino skin. Think I got mine from Cabelas. Really does help keep the little devils out but it is HOT!

2. After being in the woods all day, I take a bath with a capful of bleach. Don't know if it kills them or just makes them drop off but it does work extremely well.

TM

I been lucky so far. Only had one tick. I was on a week long camping trip and was sleeping under a tree each night. I dunno how it got there or why i didnt find it sooner But when I got home and went to take a shower, I found a tick about the size of a jelly bean. He was dead center in the middle of my butt cheek.

I couldnt get a good grip on him so I went in search of help. I asked my dad to pull it off me. You know its not good when you have a grown man standing behind you looking at your bare a$$ and he is giggling. He finally pulled the tick and the tick took part of my cheek as a trophy! Hurt like hell.

Have been very carefull since then.

Mud Bogger,
Not many would admit to that. You 'da man!!

my girlfriend always liked that scar, untill I finnally told her what it was from

I got them one time in my waist band! man, they used to bite the hell out of me when i showered! ouch!

I HATE TICKS!!!
When I lived in southwest Manitoba I would always get them. Emergence would coincide with the opening day for walleye on the Souris River.
Got my truck stuck in a mudhole that was surrounded by tick bearing trees/brush. What a mess, finally cleaned them all out or so I thought. Was driving up the highway in January, temp was -40 plus windchill and a tick went scooting across the inside of the windshield. Heater must have woke it up. Sold that truck shortly after!
To get rid of them, I use lice shampoo. Works pretty well.

I've culled deer as part of a deer management program for over 13 years. This is mostly done thru June 1 when the ticks are out in full force.

The single best product I've ever used to turn ticks away is All Terrain:

http://www.allterrainco.com/catalog_i2232127.html?catId=96003

My wife was working on a college study documenting home brewed bug repellents used by American Indians. She came across documentation of a Cherokee recipe passed along to a living great grandaughter. After compiling research on the igredients of this recipe she discovered that they were near identical to the ingredients found in the All Terrain above. She purchased several bottles to test and gave me one.

To be a good husband, I thanked her and tossed this stuff in my pack but made good humor of this tree hugger dope with my companions. I only took this stuff along in the field as a joke. Well I'll tell you we were covered in ticks by the score on a daily basis and we had every form of military and commercial DEET known to man. While standing at our campsite, I watched "lone star" ticks by the dozen crawl straight out the grass and up my legs which were completely coated in USGI 100%DEET!!! Out of pure frustration I pulled out the All Terrain and found that the ticks could not stand it. It was incredible, they immediately turn away from this stuff and if nowhere to turn they jumped off!

We then began doing various tests where we would coat our legs at the bottom w/ USGI DEET and put one ring of the All Terrain at mid calf. The ticks would crawl all over the DEET up to the ring then would begin doing circles around our legs below the AT. They would not touch the stuff. We would take our fingers and smear a maze on top of a cooler with DEET and with the AT. As we picked off the ticks we'd drop them in the maze on the cooler. The ticks would walk over the DEET as if it was not there but would walk the maze of AT as if it were a wall.

I've now used this stuff during tick season for 8 years and will never go back to DEET for ticks. It does not have a bad smell at all and the version of AT I use has an added sunscreen which is not oily.

The only draw back to this is it does not work on mosqitoes as well as the DEET. As far as the chiggers go, nothing kills them faster then when they bite you. They react to an enzyme from us that proves fatal to them and we react to their bite with a wicked rash. It is my understanding that many products will kill them but they can bite you before they die. The best method to prevent them is to recognize and avoid the areas in the fields and woods where they thrive and to properly cover up. One of the better products I've found to turn chiggers away is Chiggaway:

http://www.chiggaway.com/

Good Luck!
GVA

Pants tucked into boots. Long sleeve shirts tucked in pants.

Cattlemen around here will sometimes use Dog Tick collars around each ankle or sprinkle seven dust on their legs. (probably not to healthy)

I just do my best to avoid areas with them while its hot

Where I hunt in North Carolina the woods are full of ticks & chiggers. We wear snake boots(lots of these too) pants tucked inside & spray with Permathane. Hope I spelled it correctly. We spray up to almost our arm pits until our clothes are really damp. You must respray if staying in the woods all day. If you find a tick don't pull off. The head can remain & cause an infection. Spray with Right Guard or any aerosol. This will freeze the little buggers & then are easy to remove. Treat the area with an antibiotic.

Permethrin for your clothes. Works wonders. No ticks, no chiggers.

+1 on the Permethrin/Permanone. It is appled to your clothes and can last for up to two weeks and through several washings. Standard issue for many conservation agencies for summer work. I've been using it for years and it flat out works.

although not a magnet, i get my share of ticks... chiggers are not an everyday occurrence where i live...
deet is not much help, for ticks... i have quit deet completely in favor of picaridin based repellents, but they don't seem to do much against ticks either...
wife found a tick embedded in the joint crease of my upper leg last night... on came the lights, out came the tweezers.....
she puts them in a little jar with some alcohol in it beside the bed, and dumps them in the morning.....
i dislike the permethrin solutions but use them if i'm in heavy brush in prime tick season...