Chigged!

[bobpbx]

I got chigged good today boys and girls. I mean really chigged. I found this nice stand of twisted yellow-eyed grass, and I bent down to take a sample, and to my surprise the entire tip of one was absolutely loaded with chiggers. I had my camera, so I thought I could get a nice close up. I stupidly laid down on my stomach and got one shot off that was blurry. I looked at my camera to change the settings, and they were all over my hands. I got up on my kness, and noticed they were all over both pant legs. I ran out to the truck and took my pants and shirt off and drove home in my underwear.

So far, no bites. I jumped in the pool when I got home and threw the clothes in the wash. They must have been all over the ground too.

Mark this day, July 26. Early for the motherload of chiggers to be out in waiting.

 

[Teegate]

I hope your pool had deet in it

I was worried today but did not have a problem. I need to be more into spraying.

Guy

 

[Ben Ruset]

I'm officially boycotting the pines until the first good frost.

 

[Boyd]

I've gotten a few little bites around my ankles recently, in spite of treating pants/socks with permthrinn. Assuming these are probably chiggers, but so far they aren't too bad.

Yeah, it's definitely that time of year again. But no reason to stage a boycott! Use permethrin, wear heavy socks and tuck your pants into them, and use some common sense about where you walk. I don't think I could do without the pines until frost. The way things have been going recently, that might be 4 or 5 months.

Honestly, it wouldn't matter if I boycotted the pines. Walking 20 feet across my yard always seems to expose me to more chiggers than tromping around the woods!

 

[Sue Gremlin]

I have still not seen a chigger firsthand, I've only suffered from the bites. I've captured what I THOUGHT were chiggers with Scotch tape, but under the microscope, they were very tiny larval deer ticks.
My best defense has been a soapy scrub brush in the shower after the pines. It seems to do the trick.

 

[whippoorbill]

I'm officially boycotting the pines until the first good frost.

I dunno. Maybe, as a group, we could set up a chigger-free sanctuary in the barrens. We'll get together*, square off an acre or so, seal it off, and go on a massive chigger-extermination hunt! Then, when we need a pine fix, we've got it. I've got a couple of nice squares in mind, if anybody's willin'.

Bill

*armed with magnifying glasses and flame torches

 

[manumuskin]

Has anyone ever noticed that chiggers seem to favor the tall grass that grows in the middle of old little used roads in the pines?Thats where I've seemed to get my worse doses.I've picked em up out of huckleberry before but I've had white pants on and walked a few feet through old road grass and have looked down and had large red patches of them.I don;t know what the old road grass is really called but i wonder if it figures in the life cycle of chiggers.if so we need to introduce a bovine species that subsists on the grass and have em eat it all up.hopefully it's intolerant of grazing.
Al

 

[NJSnakeMan]

My worst experiences with chiggers have been in Cape May County or Southern Atlantic Couty

 

[manumuskin]

go ahead whipoorbill.tell em about yer chest chiggers

 

[piker56]

I'm officially boycotting the pines until the first good frost.

From now to first frost, I do all my hiking on the Batsto River in my canoe!