following deer trails
That's a great way to acquaint yourself with ticks, depending on your clothing...and the trail.
The GF and I were hiking on the other side of the moutains earlier this week. I spotted an obvious game trail and pointed it out to her. We took a few steps into it and I started looking for ticks. We didn't make it more than 10 feet before finding them. Interesting critters - they wanted to stay camoflaged on the brush...they positioned themselves right at the point in the brush where there were regularly spaced raised spots on the stems - they were right on those spots. I thought maybe they'd grab onto a blade of grass, but they weren't budging. I recalled that they either responded to heat, or CO2 (breath), or both, so I got one to respond to my breath by sticking it's legs out to grab onto whatever...but it still wouldn't grab a blade of grass.