Jim, from an old guy I promise, not everything is forgotten’.
When I first went bow hunting in the Texas panhandle, like 1966-67, I knew very little about the area other than that some of public land was on the Canadian River north of town about 20 miles. Also, I knew very little about bow hunting. I’d rifle hunted in Idaho for the years I lived there, my bow of the time was only used for missing shots at rabbits..
I had driven the to area where I planned to go hunt, very little road access, and had decided when I went to hunt I’d get there way early, trek way back up some big canyons and poke around for mule deer (at that point in my life I’d never seen a whitetail deer in real life).
So here I go, way early, I mean so early that a sheriff deputy stopped me on the hiway to check me out. He said normally only people headed home from the bar are out and about at that time of the day.
Anyway I get to my parking spot, saddle up and take off into the dark unknown. Good to have picked a moonless morning, duh. Flashlights of those days were bright enough to see where your feet were, not where they might be headed.
I get back in the canyons and still at least an hour before daylight so I settle into some sagebrush and go to sleep.
Later I was rudely awoke by by a deer that had stumbled across ‘my bedding area’ and had a snorting and stomping good time figuring out ‘what the hey’!!! When I rapidly sat up all I saw was a long white tail in full erection hauling butt. That was all the action I saw that morning, a rude awakening and a glimpse of my first whitetail deer.
Now for the bugs……………..that night and the following morning were total itching agony…What???????? I had no idea………
I went to a pharmacist and showed him some of the welts I had (I just showed some, I had welts from the neck down and, I swear, a billion in the area of the unmentionables). He grinned and said those are chiggers my friend. I don’t know what he sold me but even the temporary relief was a blessing.
All the years I tromped the California hills, the Colorado mountains and the southern Idaho mountains (mentioned I was an AF brat so we were everywhere, along with a 3 year stretch in Morocco (another tale sometime, I graduated from high school over there) I had never encountered or heard of a chigger.
I hate’em!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the little suckers :-)) spread the word that my blood was tasty and to this day they still seek me out.
Jim, Texas is like your part of the world, lots of bite ya’s, sting ya’s and poke ya’s.
Most places I go hunt, I worry not about all the de-scent stuff and all. Hunt into the wind and go for it.
I do not like a full body itch and don’t plan on inviting another. Hurrah for insect repellent..
P.S. The mountains and hills SE of Timberon, NM. has a rather hungry herd of chiggers also…
