The Happy Camper: I Found a Tick Embedded in My Under Luggage. Yuck!
Is it just me or are the ticks worse than ever this season?
I recently spent a day out in the woods north of Frontenac Park in Ontario. I needed a day to soothe my soul and calm my nerves after a number of weeks travelling to shows to present on the joys of time spent in nature. I found myself talking about it more than doing it. So, I went off to search out a remote Crown land or lake that could quite possibly be home to some brook trout.
The day of tranquility quickly turned into an absolute horror flick.
I found the lake, about two kilometres down a very rough bush trail. Then went back to my car to get my canoe and gear. When I got to the car, the door wouldn’t open… my car keys were no longer in my side pocket. I remembered taking tweezers out of my side pocket to pull a tick off my dog Angel’s snout, back at the lake. I didn’t close the side pocket zipper. The Sherlock in me concluded my keys were lying somewhere along the bush trail. It was hot and buggy, and my water bottle and bug repellent Ben’s Tick & Insect Repellent were locked in the car. There was no cell reception on the back road I was on, and it was a good walk out to any homes or cottages.
Luckily, I found the keys when I backtracked, about three-quarters on the way to the lake. Thank goodness!
Angel and I returned to the car and called it a day. It was way too hot for the fish to be biting at this point anyway. I drove back home and did my regular tick check—yep, one dug into the back of my neck, one embedded in the inside of my right knee and one borrowed into my right giggleberry. I hastily yanked it with the tweezers, too hastily. I began to bleed like a pig. I guess a man’s giblets are sensitive. So, I now ended my day with no trout for dinner, a wad of gauze and an elbow bandage stuck across my bollocks, a nasty condition of phantom tick-syndrome, a double Scotch poured and a lesson learned to never wander into the bush without your day pack full of good things (including an extra set of car keys).
I can handle my fair share of blackflies and mosquitoes. But the thought of a tick burrowing its head into your flesh just freaks me out! And it seems there is more of them now, and even in places where they never once existed.
The only saving grace is that of the 200 species of ticks in America, only a handful spread bacterial or viral pathogens. They vary by region. The mid-West has Rocky Mountain spotted fever spread by dog ticks. The Heartland virus is spread by Lone Star ticks. In the northeastern states and parts of Canada, Lyme disease is spread by blacklegged ticks.
To make matters worse, it’s estimated that the blacklegged tick population has more-than-doubled in the last couple of years. And its range expands north at a rate of 25 to 50 miles (40,000 to 80,000 metres) a year. In the ‘70s, there was just one known colony of blacklegged ticks in Canada, located on the north shore of Lake Erie. However, now blacklegged ticks are found all over southern Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and the Atlantic provinces, and huge swaths of those provinces are now considered Lyme disease risk areas. According to scientists, the increase of ticks and their expanding range is partly due to milder winters.
The good news, if there is any, is that even with the expansion of the ticks’ ranges, the methods to prevent a bite remain the same. Long, light-coloured pants with socks tucked in and long sleeves will help protect paddlers, as will applying bug juice with DEET around the ankles. Some paddlers prefer clothing impregnated with the pesticide permethrin. I find that type of clothing too heavy, especially in the summer heat.
Since my “incident,” I’ve been using Natrapel repellant which contains 20 per cent Picaridin.
I’ve even been told by my vet that this is safe to use on my dog. It is, however, poisonous to fish, so don’t let your dog go for a swim after you’ve spayed it.
It seems to be working. BUT… I still recommend performing tick checks at the end of each day. It’s crucial in heavily tick-infested areas. And it’s best to use the buddy system to check each other over if you can.
Check out the video of my day with ticks and trout at my KCHappyCamper YouTube channel:
Ticks…yeah…I have had too many bites to count now. Here is a great tip to pass on. Ticks don’t usually attach immediately, they will crawl to find the perfect spot…often up your pant lane as you experienced. What I do, is change my clothes…shoes, shoes, pants shirt BEFORE the car ride home. Do a brush down of your body as you change. Still do the tick check when you get home.
It has always been the times I don’t change that I find a tick later!