I received a ‘Tick Warning? article last week and it reminded me of the tick attacks we trout fishermen suffered last May.
(I actually intended to tell you about it at the time, but waited until I was sure it’d get the most readership. You know, like after summer and before Christmas.)
Every day in trout camp someone would complain of an itching sensation, show off a little black thing that came out from the heat of the fireplace or show us how this bug couldn’t be killed by pressing it between finger and thumb.
These little meanies have to be pinched between your thumb and something very hard. Still, we couldn’t hear them squish. We found them on our clothes, under our clothes, in our beds and in our briefs.
They were one grand nuisance.
Getting ready for bed the first night home, I found three of these things clinging (burrowing?) on my belly. I reasoned the best thing to do was shower. Therein I felt an itch on my lower back (not that much lower!) and tried to reached the bothered spot.
I felt a bump and grasped it. Appearing between thumb and finger was a quarter-inch round, light grey bug. Fascinated, I saved it in wonderment, then showing it to, among others, daughter Susan.
She of Internet (why is that word capitalized?) experience, gave me a printout of Soft Tick.
‘Soft ticks feed for short periods of time on their hosts,? the article read. ‘It may increase its body weight 5 to 10 times and reproduces repeatedly.
The female may lay several dozen eggs after each meal.?
(No telling how many meals she enjoyed on Big Jim’s back fat.)
Further, ‘Many soft ticks have an uncanny resistance to starvation, and can survive for many years without a blood meal.?
Knowing this, I put my find in a small bottle and put some of my blood in with it. My intent was to enter its longevity in Guiness? Book of Records
Alas, I forgot it might need oxygen for its survival, and two days later my mourning started.
We’ve opened trout fishing season in this same area of theU.P. for over 50 years and have never been bitten, let alone seen a tick. Last summer, when Susan and family visited Seney Wildlife Refuge near — would you believe it — Seney, Michigan, an agent told them ticks, hard and soft, were extremely prevalent this year.
Next year, when you find a tick attached to your skin by the barbs of its feeding tube and the glue from its salivary glands, you should first remove it promptly, but very carefully.
Grasp it with tweezers as near to the head as possible, lay it on a stone and smash it with a 5-lb sledge.
Now, back to the ‘Tick Warning? which started this column. This one is for real.
The writer wrote: ‘It’s important, so please tell this warning to everyone on your e-mail list. If someone comes to your front door saying they are checking for ticks due to the warm weather, or new infestation, and asks you to take off all your clothes and dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!
‘THIS IS A SCAM!
‘They only want to see you naked.
‘I feel so stupid!?