Rick Horton of Grand Rapids, Minn., was just back from a spring turkey when he noticed the ticks, about a dozen of them, dug into his skin.
"They were several on my back, between my shoulder blades. And several in places I can't mention," said Horton, who spent three days crawling around in Kansas prairie grass to shoot a tom turkey. "I was camping out. No shower. I was literally crawling on top of ticks for three days. And I didn't do anything to prevent it."
Horton and his wife eventually pulled them all out. But soon after, Horton's lymph nodes started to rapidly swell. He went to his doctor, who immediately prescribed a dose of the antibiotic doxycycline.
"It cleared it right up," Horton said. "I got lucky. I've never had Lyme disease and most every other wildlife biologist I know has had it once. Some have had it multiple times."
Horton, a biologist with the National Wild Turkey Federation, now takes tick precautions very seriously.
"Now, I soak my hunting pants with permethrin. And I have a (turkey hunting face mask) that's designed to keep them off," he said. "I'm not taking chances anymore."
With Lyme disease on the increase in Minnesota for more than 20 years, it would seem everyone who spends time outdoors in spring and summer should know to take precautions. But many people still don't, experts say, even as the number of nasty tick-borne disease increases.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control said reported cases of insect-borne illnesses _ ticks and mosquitoes, mostly _ more than tripled from 27,000 per year in 2004 to nearly 100,000 by 2016.
The CDC says about 35,000 cases of Lyme disease alone are reported annually, but as many as 300,000 people in the U.S contact the disease each year, with most going unreported.
May through July are the most likely months to get bitten by a tick in the Northland. Right now, spring turkey hunters, kids outside playing on warm days, shed antler hunters, morel mushroom seekers, bird watchers, hikers and even ATV riders are susceptible as the last snow melts away and ticks get active.
"But it can happen as late as deer season, in November, and in a warm winter it can start up in February," said Dr. Kevin Stephan, infectious disease specialist with Essentia Health in Duluth, Minn.
Stephan strongly encourages anyone who spends time outdoors this time of year to take precautions with a clothing repellent like permethrin and a skin replant like DEET, even if you may not like the feel or smell of chemicals on your skin. He notes studies show the repellents are safe, in commercially available doses, and proven effective in test after test.
"It's weighing risk against benefit," Stephan said. "If you can prevent serious or even potentially lethal infection, why not do it?"
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