We started discussing ticks in the thread about Ohio Hunting, and I thought I'd share something that I've been experiencing for a long time now...33 years to be exact, and I don't understand it and can't explain why.
My 31 acre property in SW Pa is in the middle of tick central. There's ticks pretty much all around my place.
A few years ago, I helped a buddy blood trail a buck thru a neighboring property on a chilly 37 degree November day. In 3 hours, I picked 58 ticks off of me. So I know there's a healthy population of ticks around.
But my acreage has no ticks. It's prime tick habitat, too. I maintain a variety of cover. Everything from mowed lawn to various food plots to high grasses to thick bedding cover and also fully mature forest. I've spent thousands of hours maintaining all aspects of my acreage year round so I'm in or around pretty much every nook and cranny on a somewhat regular basis.
In the 33 years I've lived here, never, not once, zero times, have I picked a single tick off me that came from my property. Even our spring spaniel, who was always in the weeds, ever had a tick on her from our property. I've shot hundreds of groundhogs here, same thing, no ticks. But the deer that I've handled that come and go on my property do have ticks, sometimes a few and sometimes a lot. So ticks are indeed transported thru my property but they don't set up home here.
Believe me, I'm not complaining about the situation and I assume that some day I'll run into some ticks on my place, but so far, there just aren't any. I have people tell me that it must just be me, and that ticks must not like my blood, or whatever. But if I venture off my place a few hundred yards, ticks do indeed climb aboard so I know it's not just "me" or my " inferior blood". My wife and I pick lots of raspberries on our place and she's never had a tick either.
Why is my property void of ticks while surrounding properties have a healthy population?
Any tick experts on this site that have any input on this?
