Bad Tick Summer: Beware Powassan Virus

Posted on June 26, 2017 by admin

After the mild winter of 2016 in many regions, some experts are predicting a longer and more severe tick season this summer. Warm winters are easy on mice and deer, the animals that ticks typically infest. A greater number of ticks survived the mild winter, and an early spring awakened dormant insects sooner.

There is concern this will trigger an increase in tick-borne illnesses. Researchers are especially worried about an uptick in Lyme disease and the Powassan virus, a rare condition that can cause brain inflammation.

While you have heard of Lyme disease—there were more than 28,000 cases in 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—the Powassan virus is still rare. Only 75 cases have been reported over the last 10 years in the United States according to the CDC. But with the predicted heavy tick summer, conditions are ripe for an increase.

Like Lyme disease, Powassan is carried by white-footed mice (also known as wood mice) and transmitted to humans via deer tick bites. It’s more prevalent in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions, just like Lyme disease.

Powassan’s transmission to humans is quicker than Lyme and tends to be more fatal. Many people bitten by Powassan-infected ticks do not develop obvious or immediate symptoms. Others may experience flu-like symptoms, a mild rash, fever and headache.

In extreme cases, the virus can affect the central nervous system and lead to encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and meningitis (inflammation of the membranes the surround the brain and spinal cord), causing symptoms such as fever, headache, vomiting, weakness, confusion, loss of coordination, speech difficulties, seizures and loss of consciousness. These begin appearing a week to one month after being infected. Currently, there aren’t any medications to treat Powassan or vaccines to prevent it.

Most of you are going to spend time in the woods and fields over the next couple of months, working land, scouting, setting/checking trail cameras… Here are some tips to protect from a tick-borne illness like Powassan or Lyme.

Dress in long sleeves and long pants and wear socks (no flip-flops!). Use permethrin as an insecticide and spray it on your clothing and boots. I wear calf-high snake boots and tuck my pant legs inside.

Apply insect repellent to your skin. Generally, products with DEET and picaridin are most effective.

Outside, try to avoid walking through heavy brush and piles of leaves where gaggles of ticks and larvae concentrate.

Immediately after arriving home, strip and run your clothes through a hot dryer for 10 minutes. Take a hot shower and scan your body for ticks.

If you find one embedded, the safest way to remove it is to grip the tick with tweezers as close to your skin as possible and pull. After a tick is removed, monitor the bite site, and call your doctor if you experience deep redness, a bulls-eye rash or other unusual characteristics. Don’t take any chances with tick bites!

Are the ticks bad this year in your neck of the woods? Lots of ticks here in central Virginia, but I’ve seen worse.

Illustration Source: Tick Encounter Resource Center

Rage Broadheads Protected From Chinese Knockoffs

Posted on June 22, 2017 by admin

FeraDyne Outdoors announces that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has issued a powerful General Exclusion Order (GEO) that will protect FeraDyne’s popular Rage broadheads from foreign patent and trademark infringement. The GEO, which takes effect immediately, empowers more than 20,000 Customs & Border Protection Officers at more than 300 U.S. ports of entry to identify and bar from entry all foreign-made broadheads that violate Rage patents and trademarks.

In 2006 FeraDyne released the original slip-cam Rage (pictured), which changed the face of the archery-broadhead business, especially as pertains to deer hunting. The original Rage quickly became the market leader and has since been joined by a growing line of patented Rage broadheads, all of which are designed and manufactured by American workers in the United States.

It didn’t take long for Chinese counterfeiters to begin creating cheap knock-offs of the Rage that illegally copied FeraDyne’s patented designs. Wisconsin-based FeraDyne filed a complaint with the ITC in November 2015. The ITC’s investigation found infringement on the Rage design and trademark by at least 9 foreign companies.

The ITC recently issued the GEO to close the U.S. market to all foreign-made broadheads that infringe on the Rage, regardless where the knock-offs are made or the identity of the party seeking to import them. The GEO, which covers both direct copies of Rage broadheads as well as other infringing designs, will be in place indefinitely.

“We are pleased to see (our) intellectual property rights affirmed by the U.S. International Trade Commission, and we are grateful that the dedicated law enforcement officers of Customs & Border Protection have joined in the fight to keep our company and customers safe from counterfeiters,” said Todd Seyfert, president and CEO of FeraDyne. “While we don’t ever want to see customers lured into buying a foreign knock-off in the first place, (hunters) should know that now those orders might not arrive (in the U.S.) at all.”

A solid ruling and another good reason to buy American and #Make America Great Again.

Pre-Season Tip: How to Hang a Tree Stand in the Woods

Posted on June 21, 2017 by admin

While Montana bowhunter Luke Strommen prefers to hunt big bucks on the fringes of fields when possible, he realizes that hanging sets back in the woods is an integral part of the game.

“In mid-season, by hunting back in the woods a ways, you can catch the bucks that come off a field early and first in the morning–these are usually the most mature and the largest deer. And these stands can be anytime-of-day stands, where you might shoot a buck morning, midday or evening.”

In a woods-hunting situation, you have to get to your stand very early, morning or afternoon advises Luke. “You have to pick your poison because it is difficult to pick a trail to your stand where whitetails won’t pass and wind the scent you left with your feet.”

Luke notes that after a hunt, it can sometimes be tough to get out of a woods stand without deer seeing or hearing you, thus contaminating the area for future hunts. “One trick is just before you climb down, blow a coyote howl or a light yap. An old friend from Idaho told me that years ago, and it works. Any deer close by will clear out, and then you leave unnoticed.

“Also, if by chance you hunt near train tracks or highway, move fast out of the stand when a train rumbles through or a big rig roars past. Out here in Montana we call that ‘noise camo.’”

Pre-Season Tip: How to Set Tree Stands Around Fields

Posted on June 19, 2017 by admin

Luke Strommen, who you might have seen shoot some great bucks with his longbow on my TV shows, is one of the best field hunters I know.

The habitat he hunts in northeastern Montana is a patchwork of huge alfalfa and wheat fields stitched with woodlots and strips. He has had to master the technique of setting his stands for close shots (15 yards or so) w/his longbow. He’s one the best I’ve seen at it, and here’s his advice to help with your stand sets this fall.

“I always try to hunt from trees on the fringes, edges and funnels around fields and stay out of the woods if I can, especially early in the season,” says Luke. “This will leave core areas uncontaminated. You won’t risk bumping bucks and does out of the woods and onto another property or out of the picture.

“Fringe setups are easier and quieter to get to and from without spooking animals, and they give you options of accessing the spot from different directions across the field no matter the wind. They can be accessed in the early-morning dark, before deer come back to their core areas in the woods, or from field side in early afternoon, before they start filtering out of the woods to feed.”

In our next post, Luke talks about hanging tree stands back in the woods.

5 Summer Work Projects for Deer Hunting Land

Posted on June 16, 2017 by admin

Get out and put in a little sweat equity this weekend and for the next few months to improve your hunting this fall.

If you’ve got a good-sized pasture or overgrown field on the property, one of the best things you can do is mow 5 or 6 strips through the weeds, maybe 100 yards long and 20 yards wide. Leave strips of the larger and taller vegetation, like blackberries and greenbrier, between the mowed rows.

This simple task creates diversity of food and edge that whitetails love. When late-summer rains come in time for bow season, weeds and forbs pop up in the mowed strips, and deer love the new and succulent food source.

While you’re at it, hang a tree stand or two where the mowed strips intersect a wood line corner or funnel. Great spots to set up and shoot a buck feeding in the mowed strips early in the season.

Mow Some More: The natural order of does and bucks on a property will generally keep small food plots browsed down, but larger clover fields should be mowed at least once a summer with a tractor or an ATV. Cutting helps to control weeds, and the plant tops re-grow more tender and palatable.

Mow when the clover and grasses reach 10 to 12 inches tall. Mow everything down to 5 to 6 inches high.

In a year of normal temperature and rain, you’re okay to mow anytime as needed. But in a particularly hot and dry summer, don’t cut your plots too much or too short and burn them out.

Double Down on Attractants: If you’re like me, you’ve had some mineral sites scattered across your land for a couple of months, and deer are hitting them regularly. Now, with the bucks’ antlers growing fast, it’s time to double down on attractants.

One day soon, make the rounds to all your sites and refresh them with a good dose o minerals or a corn-based attractant. Hook a camera on a tree at every site and pop in a new card.

Over the next 8 weeks, return to the sites every so often, dump out more minerals and swap cards. Biologists say mid-July until the first acorns start to fall in late August is the best time to conduct a camera survey of the bucks on your land.

From the mineral sites you’ll get hundreds if not thousands of images that, when combined, give you a good idea of how many deer live on the property, and the buck-to-doe ratio. Best of all, you’ll see the older bucks and immediately know what kind of rack year it will be.

Compile and sort the images of bucks, and note the times and locations of their travels. Cross-reference this info with aerial images of the property, and the patterns of the big deer, and where to hunt them, begin to come into focus.

Prep Fall Plots: If you are planning to put in a few cool-season food plots of, say, chicory or wheat, in August or September, here are a couple of things to do now.

Disk areas where you’ll plant several times in two-week intervals prior to when you’ll sow the seeds. This will not only work the soil, but also help to reduce weeds and grass that come up later. Gather some of the fresh dirt and have it soil tested to see if you need to lime the plots. The sooner you lime, the better your fall plants will grow.

Keep a Chainsaw Handy: As you move around your property and work, keep a chainsaw gassed, oiled and ready in your truck or ATV. “It’s one of your most important tools,” says Big Deer blogger and Illinois land-management expert Matt Cheever, who recommends a saw in the 40-45 cc range with an 18-inch bar. “Buy a quality saw and it will last about 25 years of hard use on your deer land.”

You never know when you’ll need it—to remove a tree that fell into a food plot in the last wind storm, or across a logging road or ATV trail that you use to access plots. You might need to cut a rotting, dangerous tree that stands near one of your ladders or blinds.

“Every dead and fallen tree that you remove now will let you move around and hunt easier, quieter and safer when the season opens in a few months,” says Matt.