June 20, 2025 • 21 mins
It’s creepy crawly season in most places and that means, among other things, that ticks are on the prowl. Aside from staying indoors, there’s really no avoiding these obnoxious little parasites. Brent’s talking about a time 20 years ago when they were at nightmarish levels and so bad, in fact, that he got sick from a bite! With the potential threat of the many diseases and illnesses that ticks bring, Brent's giving an overview of how to deal with these stinkers to help both you and your dogs. Grab a partner because it's time to check for ticks on MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves.
From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented
by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The airwaves have to offer.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate.
I've got some stories to share. Ticks, ticks. I can't
think of a creepier topic to talk about other than
rats and dangs. You ain't talking about them, and I
(00:48):
don't know which I hate worse, But this time of
year where I live, they are an issue we deal
with daily. I'm going to tell you about some stuff
I learned while prepping for this podcast. But first I'm
gonna tell you something I learned the hard way with
this story. That Turkey season wasn't especially warm, cool, or
(01:13):
anything really that stood out one way or the other weatherwise.
It was just another spring turkey season, and I was
doing my dead level best to keep the wild turkey
population of Missouri in Arkansas in check. I was doing
some filming with a friend of mine, the friend I
talked about in episode three twenty one entitled West One
(01:33):
Bob Zero. Bob was the guy who I was filming
with and who was my initial mentor old filming hunts.
Now he shuns the spotlight now And as I explained
in that episode, I referred to him as Bob, which
isn't his name, and I offer that info only because
I don't want you wondering why I didn't include his
(01:54):
last name. Bob doesn't have a last name. He's a
man of intrigue and mystery, much like the sudden onset
of terribleness I felt after returning to Arkansas from a
trip with him in Missouri. That trip was etched in
my mind not because we'd had bad luck. We'd killed
the turkey and gotten some decent footage. It was an
(02:15):
absolute great hunt that has never seen the light of day.
We could never broker a deal with anyone to sponsor
the airtime during the pioneer days of outdoor television, A
bunch of that video just sitting in the cans. And
that's not the reason that trip was so memorable. It
was more haunting than anything else, and it was because
(02:36):
of the ticks say what you want and chunk rocks
at me when you see me coming, if you feel
the need. But you have never never seen ticks any
worse than we did that spring a decade or so ago.
Now I'm not saying you haven't seen them bad in
your corner of the world. I said, you ain't never
(02:58):
seen them worse. And I'll go to my grave saying
the same thing. Fortunately, you could only hunt half a
day in Missouri back then. Now I say fortunately because
it took the last half of the day to get
all the ticks rounded up and all my person that
had laid the claim to their own little piece of
(03:19):
reeves land, a neighborhood of which they were not welcomed.
It was every day, all day up and until the
point of my tenure in this realm.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I had never seen them that bad. I've only seen
them as bad as that once.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
That would be a few years later in the Ozarks,
were my friend Michael Meeks and I used to camp
and chase turkeys annually during the open week. But that
would be a few years later. But back in Missouri,
the turkeys were gobbling and the ticks were crawled and biting.
No idea how many I pulled off me during that trip,
(03:58):
But I bet the farm during those three days it
was well over one hundred.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I actually counted the first day.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Then I lost track during the next morning when I
heard one tick say to a host of others, y'all
want to eat him here, I'm just taking him back
to our place and finish him there.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
The ticks were bad, real bad.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Now. The last statement was confirmed when we sat on
the back patio after a day of chasing turkeys and
killing ticks. We were frying fish, playing music, and visiting
with neighbors and relatives. We'd invite it over for supper.
It had become an annual event of sorts, with the
crowd growing bigger each year. I was paying particular attention
to the brim I had swimming in that hot peanut
(04:43):
oil when something just happened to catch my eye, and
I looked at the back wall of my friend's white house.
What are all those dots? Why are all those dots moving?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Lord, say it ain't so, Joe, say it ain't so.
Upon closer inspectually, my fear was confirmed. There were ticks
crawling on the outside of the house. Sweet Jesus, that
was creepy. I just got a chill, thinking about it.
Apossum ran over my grave. They were everywhere. Every itch,
every tickle of a breeze, every sensation felt like a
(05:19):
tick crawling on me. If you only listen to a
few of these episodes, you have no doubt figured out
that I grew up in the country. The name of
this show is a perfect descriptor of my literal being
and my place in humanity. I am a country boy.
I've been dealing with ticks. My whole life is just
another part of nature. However, that spring in Missouri still
(05:41):
gives me the hebe jebbies. There won another possum over
my grave. A few days after I got home from
that trip, I started feeling bad, like really bad, like
I had the flu bad, or what I would assume
the flu would feel like.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I ain't ever had the flu. I've seen other folks.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Waller around in the throes of despair having had it,
but me, I'm seldom, if ever sick. To this day,
being sick wouldn't even make a blip on my earthly
timeline at that time, outside of having a hernia when
I was three, an appendicitis when I was sixteen, jobbing
my thumb in a copperheads Mouth when I was nineteen.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
My visits to.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
The hospital had been for reasons other than my lack
of health. I hadn't been burdened by or susceptible to
the maladies that plague are planted as the rest of
you mere mortals have been.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
At least that's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I was about to find out that the rumors of
my immortality were based on lies, a literal pyramid of
inaccurate assumptions about my tear one abilities to fight off
infection and dodge the bullets of sickness. I went to
the doctor and he said, looks like you got the flu.
I told him I never had the flu of my life,
but my symptoms were just like my brother Tims, who'd
(07:03):
gotten Rocky Mountain spotted fever the year before. My doctor
looked at me with the here we go again look off.
Thank goodness you called your brother and let him diagnose
you over the phone. I forgot that the state police
sent all their folks to the medical school.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
That doctor was a good friend of mine, a former
combat pilot in Vietnam. He was rough as a cob
and didn't mince words when he spoke. The one thing
he did, though, was listening to his patience, and I
reminded him that he was working for me and I
wanted to be tested for tick fever. He humored me,
had the nurse draw blood, and ran me out of
(07:40):
his office, saying that he'd called me when he got
the results. A week later, he called and he said
he was sending all my charts to my brother. I
had Rocky Mountain spotted fever. He nailed my diagnosis. After
a steady diet of doxy cycline. I was good as
new almost. Doctor told me that I could possibly always
(08:02):
test positive for it, and then there may be flare
ups of muscle and joint aches for the rest of
my life because of it. He also said I should
always inform anyone when and if I ever donated blood. Well,
I haven't noticed enough flare ups over the last twenty
years to even remember a specific time, and I've donated
(08:22):
enough blood during that time to float that sea arc
boat out there in my yard. But I'm ever vigilant
these days, and I have been since, and I've had
dreams over the last twenty years of sea and those
ticks crawling on the side of the house.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I have been within arm's reach of enough bears to
fill up a Greyhound bus and never gotten so much
as a scratch and a tick. A lowly tick tried
to kill me. That's just how that happened. The CDC
(09:00):
reports around six thousand cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever
each year, But despite its name, you're more likely to
get it in North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and wait
for it, wait for it, Missouri. The chances of you
getting sick remain small percentage wise. If you get bit
(09:21):
by a tick, only certain varieties carried disease and you
have to be susceptible to catching it. Normally, the infected
tick has to be attached for a prolonged period of
time before the transference occurs. If you figure out all
the folks that are outside where takes can be found
in those states alone, your chances of getting sick from
a tick bite are extremely remote. Fortunately, Rocky Mountain spotted
(09:47):
fever is highly treatable with antibiotics. Unfortunately, Rocky Mountain spotted
fever is the least of the issues when it comes
to tick born diseases. There are twenty t different pathogens
that can make humans sick, including erlichiosis, lyme disease, to laarhemia,
and tick paralysis. In two thousand and nine, if of
(10:09):
gall syndrome joined the chat and if all that other
wasn't enough, that condition is that forced to be reckoned
with And doing just a modicum bit of researcher for
this podcast, I discovered illnesses I'd never heard of. But
I'm amazed I never contracted, just by the sheer number
of ticks that I've hosted over my lifetime. In the
(10:32):
opening story, I told you about getting Rocky Mountain spotted feverbody.
I didn't tell you the circumstances. It was a tick
on the backside of my ribcage that I found by
accident a day after I got home from that trip.
Had I noticed it when it bit me, I doubt
I'd ever had gotten it. That's why checking yourself and
especially the little folks that hang around with you, is
(10:54):
so important in prevention. Back during the conflagration known as COVID,
my daughter Bailey and I did a project of making
a coon feeder to concentrate the bandid. It was to
a certain area to help train our coon down Whalen
we failed it, and I shared that video from five
years ago, not long ago, on my social media. Now,
(11:15):
what I didn't show on that video is when Bailey
and I were walking back to the truck because she
was telling me about all the little spiders that she'd seen,
and she told me that she'd wiped a.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Bunch of them off her breeches. They caught my attention.
I stood her up on the tailgate.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It was then I saw she'd gotten into a miss
of seed ticks and big ticks. Luckily she'd noticed them
and said something. I was able to get her squared
away before we ever left. On that same trip, I
didn't get one, not one, and she'd been covered up
with them. I'm friends with a few folks that have
(11:51):
been sucker punched by tick diseases. And when I think
about the multitude of people I know that do the
same kind of things that I do, you'd think there'd
be more. One such person is my friend Ronney Cowan.
Ronnie's a wildlife biologist and the state Outdoor Recreation Specialist
for the University of Tennessee. Ronnie's a lifelong hunter, and
(12:12):
he and I met on a coon hunt last winter
on the White River with my regular coon hunting palas
at the Cash River Coon Club. Ronnie's a strong advocate
for outdoor recreation, and a tick bite forced him to
completely rethink how he hunts, trains dogs, and connect others
to conservation now. He shared the following during a recent
(12:35):
conversation he and I had. Here's what Ronnie said. A
few years ago, I was diagnosed with alpha gal syndrome
and it flipped my outdoor world upside down. Red meat
was off the table literally, But instead of walking away
from hunting, I leaned deeper into it and became a
bird hunter. Now, thanks to some advice from Tony Peterson,
(12:58):
who was incredibly helpful and getting me started in dog work,
I retooled my life, got a bird dog, and found
a new path into ethical hunting and mendorship. Now that
change not only saved my outdoor identity, gave me a
new purpose. Nice job, Ronnie, and quite a shout out
to our own Tony Peterson for his help. That is
(13:22):
the absolute textbook definition of taking a negative and turned
it into a positive. If you haven't heard of alpha
gal syndrome, here's a simple descriptor. Alpha gal is a
carbohydrate molecule contained within red meat. The pathogen that you
get from the tick reacts adversely with that molecule in
(13:43):
red meat, and it makes you sick.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
There is no cure.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Adding insult to injury is the fact that you ain't
even got to eat red meat to get sick. If
you have alpha gal, all you gotta do is touch
some and it can trigger the illness if you get it.
I hope you like chicken and fish, because that's the
menu you're going to be ordering from. Feathers and scales, period.
I couldn't fathom not being able to eat red meat again.
(14:09):
I feel for those folks, but I also ain't gonna
stay inside to ensure I never get it. If the
ticks keep us from doing what we want, they win.
We can't let the ticks win. We can't now if
ticks are making us sick wasn't bad enough, they'll also
do a number on our dogs. Just about everything that
we can get from a tick, our dogs can get too.
(14:31):
Depending on where you live, you're looking at a specific
type of threats. I was today years old when I
learned dogs can get lyme disease. I was chatting at
that with my friend in Whalen's personal physician, doctor Jonathan Bradshaw,
DVM to the Stars, and I was talking to him
about tick stuff, and he told me that certain areas
(14:52):
of the country where more prone to produce certain types
of tick diseases that can be a big problem to
your four legged piles ain't properly protected from specific diseases
in specific areas, especially if you travel with you dogs
like he does in hunt tests and field trial competitions
with his retrievers, or like I do with friends around
(15:13):
the country chasing coons. For example, down here in the South,
er likia is the biggest threat to dogs, but there's
a hot spot of lime disease around Dallas, just like
up in New England.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Who knew that?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
And across the big muddy over in Mississippi, my buddy
Lake Pickle is dealing with keeping his yellow lab Knocks
from getting annaplasmosis, which seems to be a bigger issue
there than here. Traveling around puts you in new territory
and associates your dogs with other dogs from other places
(15:48):
who may have an altogether different set of tick threats
from where they're from. This is most certainly true in
the competition world. Where dogs from all over congregate in
one setting, adding to the risk and raising the percentage
of potential tick pathog and infections even higher. Is the
fact that while we all like to think that everyone
takes as good as care as we do of our
(16:10):
pets and their general health, it's just not always the case.
It's easy for a tick to hit your ride in
the dog box and wind up someplace they never dreamed
of the next morning, just full full of dogs everywhere.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It'd be like me.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Going to sleep one night and waking up the next
morning in a watermelon patch. So to take care of
your hunting buddies, it's just like driving a car down
the highway. You have to drive and pay attention to
the cars around you as if they don't know anything
about driving. Same thing applies to your dog. Think defensively.
(16:46):
I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Flint
Oak Branch in Fall River Canvas back in January of
twenty twenty four. I was speaking out of hunters with
Mission Bank, which just down the road and Independence. The
next night, I went a day early to with my
friends tough In to coat a gram at Flannel Branch.
Toughy told me when I got there that they wouldn't
allow Whaling to stay in the kennels with their bird
(17:08):
dogs for their protection.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Now I wasn't offended in the least. I got it.
I understood why those folks don't know me.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
They were looking out for the best interest of their
five star shooting facility. Tuffy said, you can keep Whaling
in your room if you want. Now, that's suited me
just fine Whaling too. Truth being on, I was planning
on slipping him in there anyway, because I didn't know
how their kettles were kept. It turns out the kennels
were just as meticulously cared for and clean as the
(17:37):
sweet we stayed in, except Whaling drank his water out
of a fancy leather bound ice bucket in our room
while the dogs out and the kennels only had polished
stainless steep. Now Whaling would have been just fine out there.
Heck I'd have been fine out there. But you just
never know, and you can't take a chance. It's also
(17:58):
the possibility of skullduggery. Now, for all of you that
have hung on this long and are now trying to
figure out what in the world is Brent talking about? Skullduggery.
Skullduggery means underhanded and unscrupulous behavior. So what's that got
to do with ticks? I'm so glad you asked, y'all.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Remember mister Leon.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
He was the old World War two bet that I
worked with in the woods back in the nineteen eighties. Well,
he told me about a guy on his crew that
he worked with before I came there. That told it
an empty pill bottle in his shirt pocket, and every day,
when the ticks were out, he'd catch them crawling and
drop them in that pill bottle. Now that ain't weird enough.
(18:43):
He then took them to a local country store he
traded with and stopped at every afternoon after work, and
would dump them out in that store when the propriety.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Wasn't looking because he hated him.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Now, apparently they'd had some kind of business deal many
years before, and the store owner took advantage of him
and beat him out of some money. So even the score,
this dude was unleashing a daily carpet bombing of ticks
in his store to prey upon the masses. Now, mister
(19:17):
Leon said, I don't know how long he'd been doing
that when I caught him, but when I did, I
made him stop. However, it was a multi year campaign.
According to him, TICS, I hate him and the only
thing that disappoints me when I catch one and smash
the life out of him is I can't hear him
screaming when I do it. Talk to your vet where
(19:41):
you live and get the protection for your dogs specific
to the places you're going to have them operating in,
and most importantly, check them for texts when the hunt's over.
The same goes for you and your youngins. Lots of
options out there, but there's nothing better than a self
inspection once you get back to the CASA. Now be
(20:01):
symptom of weare of clues that may on set, especially
after thirty six hours of getting bitter exposed. It's always
better to air on the side of caution. Formetha and
spray will have the moon walking on your breeches until
they fall off dead as disco, but with any chemical
applications there's always safety protocols to follow. That's gonna about
(20:23):
do it for this satellite view on TICS. I'm thinking
about doing a deeper dive later on if y'all are interested,
and maybe having some folks on to tell how they've
dealt with issues as a result of tick boxes. Y'all
let us know if you're interested. Thank y'all so much
for listening to us here on the bear Grease channel.
If we've got the bear Grease, the render this country
(20:44):
life and now Backwoods University right here, my old buddy
Lake pickle until next week.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Entering
Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves.
From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented
by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The airwaves have to offer.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate.
I've got some stories to share. Ticks, ticks. I can't
think of a creepier topic to talk about other than
rats and dangs. You ain't talking about them, and I
(00:48):
don't know which I hate worse, But this time of
year where I live, they are an issue we deal
with daily. I'm going to tell you about some stuff
I learned while prepping for this podcast. But first I'm
gonna tell you something I learned the hard way with
this story. That Turkey season wasn't especially warm, cool, or
(01:13):
anything really that stood out one way or the other weatherwise.
It was just another spring turkey season, and I was
doing my dead level best to keep the wild turkey
population of Missouri in Arkansas in check. I was doing
some filming with a friend of mine, the friend I
talked about in episode three twenty one entitled West One
(01:33):
Bob Zero. Bob was the guy who I was filming
with and who was my initial mentor old filming hunts.
Now he shuns the spotlight now And as I explained
in that episode, I referred to him as Bob, which
isn't his name, and I offer that info only because
I don't want you wondering why I didn't include his
(01:54):
last name. Bob doesn't have a last name. He's a
man of intrigue and mystery, much like the sudden onset
of terribleness I felt after returning to Arkansas from a
trip with him in Missouri. That trip was etched in
my mind not because we'd had bad luck. We'd killed
the turkey and gotten some decent footage. It was an
(02:15):
absolute great hunt that has never seen the light of day.
We could never broker a deal with anyone to sponsor
the airtime during the pioneer days of outdoor television, A
bunch of that video just sitting in the cans. And
that's not the reason that trip was so memorable. It
was more haunting than anything else, and it was because
(02:36):
of the ticks say what you want and chunk rocks
at me when you see me coming, if you feel
the need. But you have never never seen ticks any
worse than we did that spring a decade or so ago.
Now I'm not saying you haven't seen them bad in
your corner of the world. I said, you ain't never
(02:58):
seen them worse. And I'll go to my grave saying
the same thing. Fortunately, you could only hunt half a
day in Missouri back then. Now I say fortunately because
it took the last half of the day to get
all the ticks rounded up and all my person that
had laid the claim to their own little piece of
(03:19):
reeves land, a neighborhood of which they were not welcomed.
It was every day, all day up and until the
point of my tenure in this realm.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I had never seen them that bad. I've only seen
them as bad as that once.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
That would be a few years later in the Ozarks,
were my friend Michael Meeks and I used to camp
and chase turkeys annually during the open week. But that
would be a few years later. But back in Missouri,
the turkeys were gobbling and the ticks were crawled and biting.
No idea how many I pulled off me during that trip,
(03:58):
But I bet the farm during those three days it
was well over one hundred.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I actually counted the first day.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Then I lost track during the next morning when I
heard one tick say to a host of others, y'all
want to eat him here, I'm just taking him back
to our place and finish him there.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
The ticks were bad, real bad.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Now. The last statement was confirmed when we sat on
the back patio after a day of chasing turkeys and
killing ticks. We were frying fish, playing music, and visiting
with neighbors and relatives. We'd invite it over for supper.
It had become an annual event of sorts, with the
crowd growing bigger each year. I was paying particular attention
to the brim I had swimming in that hot peanut
(04:43):
oil when something just happened to catch my eye, and
I looked at the back wall of my friend's white house.
What are all those dots? Why are all those dots moving?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Lord, say it ain't so, Joe, say it ain't so.
Upon closer inspectually, my fear was confirmed. There were ticks
crawling on the outside of the house. Sweet Jesus, that
was creepy. I just got a chill, thinking about it.
Apossum ran over my grave. They were everywhere. Every itch,
every tickle of a breeze, every sensation felt like a
(05:19):
tick crawling on me. If you only listen to a
few of these episodes, you have no doubt figured out
that I grew up in the country. The name of
this show is a perfect descriptor of my literal being
and my place in humanity. I am a country boy.
I've been dealing with ticks. My whole life is just
another part of nature. However, that spring in Missouri still
(05:41):
gives me the hebe jebbies. There won another possum over
my grave. A few days after I got home from
that trip, I started feeling bad, like really bad, like
I had the flu bad, or what I would assume
the flu would feel like.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I ain't ever had the flu. I've seen other folks.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Waller around in the throes of despair having had it,
but me, I'm seldom, if ever sick. To this day,
being sick wouldn't even make a blip on my earthly
timeline at that time, outside of having a hernia when
I was three, an appendicitis when I was sixteen, jobbing
my thumb in a copperheads Mouth when I was nineteen.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
My visits to.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
The hospital had been for reasons other than my lack
of health. I hadn't been burdened by or susceptible to
the maladies that plague are planted as the rest of
you mere mortals have been.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
At least that's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I was about to find out that the rumors of
my immortality were based on lies, a literal pyramid of
inaccurate assumptions about my tear one abilities to fight off
infection and dodge the bullets of sickness. I went to
the doctor and he said, looks like you got the flu.
I told him I never had the flu of my life,
but my symptoms were just like my brother Tims, who'd
(07:03):
gotten Rocky Mountain spotted fever the year before. My doctor
looked at me with the here we go again look off.
Thank goodness you called your brother and let him diagnose
you over the phone. I forgot that the state police
sent all their folks to the medical school.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
That doctor was a good friend of mine, a former
combat pilot in Vietnam. He was rough as a cob
and didn't mince words when he spoke. The one thing
he did, though, was listening to his patience, and I
reminded him that he was working for me and I
wanted to be tested for tick fever. He humored me,
had the nurse draw blood, and ran me out of
(07:40):
his office, saying that he'd called me when he got
the results. A week later, he called and he said
he was sending all my charts to my brother. I
had Rocky Mountain spotted fever. He nailed my diagnosis. After
a steady diet of doxy cycline. I was good as
new almost. Doctor told me that I could possibly always
(08:02):
test positive for it, and then there may be flare
ups of muscle and joint aches for the rest of
my life because of it. He also said I should
always inform anyone when and if I ever donated blood. Well,
I haven't noticed enough flare ups over the last twenty
years to even remember a specific time, and I've donated
(08:22):
enough blood during that time to float that sea arc
boat out there in my yard. But I'm ever vigilant
these days, and I have been since, and I've had
dreams over the last twenty years of sea and those
ticks crawling on the side of the house.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I have been within arm's reach of enough bears to
fill up a Greyhound bus and never gotten so much
as a scratch and a tick. A lowly tick tried
to kill me. That's just how that happened. The CDC
(09:00):
reports around six thousand cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever
each year, But despite its name, you're more likely to
get it in North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and wait
for it, wait for it, Missouri. The chances of you
getting sick remain small percentage wise. If you get bit
(09:21):
by a tick, only certain varieties carried disease and you
have to be susceptible to catching it. Normally, the infected
tick has to be attached for a prolonged period of
time before the transference occurs. If you figure out all
the folks that are outside where takes can be found
in those states alone, your chances of getting sick from
a tick bite are extremely remote. Fortunately, Rocky Mountain spotted
(09:47):
fever is highly treatable with antibiotics. Unfortunately, Rocky Mountain spotted
fever is the least of the issues when it comes
to tick born diseases. There are twenty t different pathogens
that can make humans sick, including erlichiosis, lyme disease, to laarhemia,
and tick paralysis. In two thousand and nine, if of
(10:09):
gall syndrome joined the chat and if all that other
wasn't enough, that condition is that forced to be reckoned
with And doing just a modicum bit of researcher for
this podcast, I discovered illnesses I'd never heard of. But
I'm amazed I never contracted, just by the sheer number
of ticks that I've hosted over my lifetime. In the
(10:32):
opening story, I told you about getting Rocky Mountain spotted feverbody.
I didn't tell you the circumstances. It was a tick
on the backside of my ribcage that I found by
accident a day after I got home from that trip.
Had I noticed it when it bit me, I doubt
I'd ever had gotten it. That's why checking yourself and
especially the little folks that hang around with you, is
(10:54):
so important in prevention. Back during the conflagration known as COVID,
my daughter Bailey and I did a project of making
a coon feeder to concentrate the bandid. It was to
a certain area to help train our coon down Whalen
we failed it, and I shared that video from five
years ago, not long ago, on my social media. Now,
(11:15):
what I didn't show on that video is when Bailey
and I were walking back to the truck because she
was telling me about all the little spiders that she'd seen,
and she told me that she'd wiped a.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Bunch of them off her breeches. They caught my attention.
I stood her up on the tailgate.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It was then I saw she'd gotten into a miss
of seed ticks and big ticks. Luckily she'd noticed them
and said something. I was able to get her squared
away before we ever left. On that same trip, I
didn't get one, not one, and she'd been covered up
with them. I'm friends with a few folks that have
(11:51):
been sucker punched by tick diseases. And when I think
about the multitude of people I know that do the
same kind of things that I do, you'd think there'd
be more. One such person is my friend Ronney Cowan.
Ronnie's a wildlife biologist and the state Outdoor Recreation Specialist
for the University of Tennessee. Ronnie's a lifelong hunter, and
(12:12):
he and I met on a coon hunt last winter
on the White River with my regular coon hunting palas
at the Cash River Coon Club. Ronnie's a strong advocate
for outdoor recreation, and a tick bite forced him to
completely rethink how he hunts, trains dogs, and connect others
to conservation now. He shared the following during a recent
(12:35):
conversation he and I had. Here's what Ronnie said. A
few years ago, I was diagnosed with alpha gal syndrome
and it flipped my outdoor world upside down. Red meat
was off the table literally, But instead of walking away
from hunting, I leaned deeper into it and became a
bird hunter. Now, thanks to some advice from Tony Peterson,
(12:58):
who was incredibly helpful and getting me started in dog work,
I retooled my life, got a bird dog, and found
a new path into ethical hunting and mendorship. Now that
change not only saved my outdoor identity, gave me a
new purpose. Nice job, Ronnie, and quite a shout out
to our own Tony Peterson for his help. That is
(13:22):
the absolute textbook definition of taking a negative and turned
it into a positive. If you haven't heard of alpha
gal syndrome, here's a simple descriptor. Alpha gal is a
carbohydrate molecule contained within red meat. The pathogen that you
get from the tick reacts adversely with that molecule in
(13:43):
red meat, and it makes you sick.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
There is no cure.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Adding insult to injury is the fact that you ain't
even got to eat red meat to get sick. If
you have alpha gal, all you gotta do is touch
some and it can trigger the illness if you get it.
I hope you like chicken and fish, because that's the
menu you're going to be ordering from. Feathers and scales, period.
I couldn't fathom not being able to eat red meat again.
(14:09):
I feel for those folks, but I also ain't gonna
stay inside to ensure I never get it. If the
ticks keep us from doing what we want, they win.
We can't let the ticks win. We can't now if
ticks are making us sick wasn't bad enough, they'll also
do a number on our dogs. Just about everything that
we can get from a tick, our dogs can get too.
(14:31):
Depending on where you live, you're looking at a specific
type of threats. I was today years old when I
learned dogs can get lyme disease. I was chatting at
that with my friend in Whalen's personal physician, doctor Jonathan Bradshaw,
DVM to the Stars, and I was talking to him
about tick stuff, and he told me that certain areas
(14:52):
of the country where more prone to produce certain types
of tick diseases that can be a big problem to
your four legged piles ain't properly protected from specific diseases
in specific areas, especially if you travel with you dogs
like he does in hunt tests and field trial competitions
with his retrievers, or like I do with friends around
(15:13):
the country chasing coons. For example, down here in the South,
er likia is the biggest threat to dogs, but there's
a hot spot of lime disease around Dallas, just like
up in New England.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Who knew that?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
And across the big muddy over in Mississippi, my buddy
Lake Pickle is dealing with keeping his yellow lab Knocks
from getting annaplasmosis, which seems to be a bigger issue
there than here. Traveling around puts you in new territory
and associates your dogs with other dogs from other places
(15:48):
who may have an altogether different set of tick threats
from where they're from. This is most certainly true in
the competition world. Where dogs from all over congregate in
one setting, adding to the risk and raising the percentage
of potential tick pathog and infections even higher. Is the
fact that while we all like to think that everyone
takes as good as care as we do of our
(16:10):
pets and their general health, it's just not always the case.
It's easy for a tick to hit your ride in
the dog box and wind up someplace they never dreamed
of the next morning, just full full of dogs everywhere.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It'd be like me.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Going to sleep one night and waking up the next
morning in a watermelon patch. So to take care of
your hunting buddies, it's just like driving a car down
the highway. You have to drive and pay attention to
the cars around you as if they don't know anything
about driving. Same thing applies to your dog. Think defensively.
(16:46):
I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Flint
Oak Branch in Fall River Canvas back in January of
twenty twenty four. I was speaking out of hunters with
Mission Bank, which just down the road and Independence. The
next night, I went a day early to with my
friends tough In to coat a gram at Flannel Branch.
Toughy told me when I got there that they wouldn't
allow Whaling to stay in the kennels with their bird
(17:08):
dogs for their protection.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Now I wasn't offended in the least. I got it.
I understood why those folks don't know me.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
They were looking out for the best interest of their
five star shooting facility. Tuffy said, you can keep Whaling
in your room if you want. Now, that's suited me
just fine Whaling too. Truth being on, I was planning
on slipping him in there anyway, because I didn't know
how their kettles were kept. It turns out the kennels
were just as meticulously cared for and clean as the
(17:37):
sweet we stayed in, except Whaling drank his water out
of a fancy leather bound ice bucket in our room
while the dogs out and the kennels only had polished
stainless steep. Now Whaling would have been just fine out there.
Heck I'd have been fine out there. But you just
never know, and you can't take a chance. It's also
(17:58):
the possibility of skullduggery. Now, for all of you that
have hung on this long and are now trying to
figure out what in the world is Brent talking about? Skullduggery.
Skullduggery means underhanded and unscrupulous behavior. So what's that got
to do with ticks? I'm so glad you asked, y'all.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Remember mister Leon.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
He was the old World War two bet that I
worked with in the woods back in the nineteen eighties. Well,
he told me about a guy on his crew that
he worked with before I came there. That told it
an empty pill bottle in his shirt pocket, and every day,
when the ticks were out, he'd catch them crawling and
drop them in that pill bottle. Now that ain't weird enough.
(18:43):
He then took them to a local country store he
traded with and stopped at every afternoon after work, and
would dump them out in that store when the propriety.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Wasn't looking because he hated him.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Now, apparently they'd had some kind of business deal many
years before, and the store owner took advantage of him
and beat him out of some money. So even the score,
this dude was unleashing a daily carpet bombing of ticks
in his store to prey upon the masses. Now, mister
(19:17):
Leon said, I don't know how long he'd been doing
that when I caught him, but when I did, I
made him stop. However, it was a multi year campaign.
According to him, TICS, I hate him and the only
thing that disappoints me when I catch one and smash
the life out of him is I can't hear him
screaming when I do it. Talk to your vet where
(19:41):
you live and get the protection for your dogs specific
to the places you're going to have them operating in,
and most importantly, check them for texts when the hunt's over.
The same goes for you and your youngins. Lots of
options out there, but there's nothing better than a self
inspection once you get back to the CASA. Now be
(20:01):
symptom of weare of clues that may on set, especially
after thirty six hours of getting bitter exposed. It's always
better to air on the side of caution. Formetha and
spray will have the moon walking on your breeches until
they fall off dead as disco, but with any chemical
applications there's always safety protocols to follow. That's gonna about
(20:23):
do it for this satellite view on TICS. I'm thinking
about doing a deeper dive later on if y'all are interested,
and maybe having some folks on to tell how they've
dealt with issues as a result of tick boxes. Y'all
let us know if you're interested. Thank y'all so much
for listening to us here on the bear Grease channel.
If we've got the bear Grease, the render this country
(20:44):
life and now Backwoods University right here, my old buddy
Lake pickle until next week.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Entering
Host
Clay Newcomb
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