How bad are the mosqitoes

[the squirrel]

I have never seen these pests as bad as they have been the last few weeks. Even during the day up north last weekend they were horrible...with no breeze! I hate being a blood donor all the time!!!!

[huskminn]

It's Minnesota.....what do you expect? Wear bug dope.

[perchpro]

i made the mistake if going to the river without bug spray. NEVER AGAIN!!! i took two casts and each leg had 50+ buggers on it. i never got out quicker in my life.

[doubleUcubed]

Somewhere on the Internet yesterday was a report about effectiveness of different repellents, the study was done in Florida. Anyway they tested like 10 spray's, lotions and bracelets. Long story short the higher the deet % the more effective. They also made reference to the fact that out of the billions of cans of spray containing deet used in the last 40 or so years there have been less than 50 cases of illnesses related to deet. Maybe someone can find the article, I'll check around. I like to wear the two piece "bug" suits available at Gander Mountain and Cabelas.

[doubleUcubed]

Part of the article in Star Trib. July 4, 2002. More information on the study is available at PHEREC News. Just search the net for the study.

[Guest]

I went camping for the fourth and out of three of us we went through one can of repel and half a thing of Off 100% deet. That off worked good but with the humidity it only lasted for about an hour! then we'd have to cake it on agian. We were up in northern Itasca county. We must of had a major hatch of horse flys and the tiny blood suckers because I haven't seen so many deer out in the day and night in a long time. It was funny a small deer came running out of the woods and stopped in the middle of the road and started scratching its self like a dog, it wasn't even bothered by our truck it just wanted to get the bugs off its self. But thats life in Minnesota during the summer months. Brettskee

[huskminn]

Sorry.....didn't mean to be flippant.

Deep Woods Off has always worked fine for me. That's not to say that there aren't several hundred mosquitos hovering within an inch of all exposed skin, but they never actually land on me.

Yes, you inhale them, drink them and eat them in your food, but the DW Off normally works just fine.

It just becomes a mental battle in telling yourself that, even though you can hardly see through the cloud in front of your face, they aren't actually biting and the dope is doing its job.

[Long Gray Line]

We used Ben's repellent for the first time last week and even the friendly flies wouldn't land on us (course that could have been a lack of bathing, but I digress)
The army has been using bug juice made by 3M called Ultrathon for the last 10 years. It's a 30% deet time release formula that they say lasts 8-10 hours and doesn't get sweated off. The article I saw rated it the best for effectiveness out of all of brands. It was just released to the public a few weeks ago and I just can't find it anywhere. REI is supposed to carry it but they're always out. Anybody have any experience yet with this stuff??

[Fish On! Guide Service]

I've heard rumors that eating bananas before a guy ventures out is supposed to be an irritant or something of the sort to those little sob's. Whether it works or not I'm not sure, I've never tried. If you try it, let me know how well or how poorly it worked.

Fish On!

Stephen

[the squirrel]

Huskminn, This was with wearing deepwoods off yellow, green bottle all over me! But with the humidity as it was i was sweating this stuff off getting only 15 mins of releif at time..went through 2 cans of this spray myself in 4 days. By the way im sure that was a healthy move having that on my skin so long no wonder a guy feels like crap after a while. My blood was probaly 7% deet!! As for the vitamin B remedy it did not work for me. Does anyone have any secrets out there to insure a somewhat enjoyable camping/fishing trip...thanks.

Blood Donor!!

[Capt'nJosh]

I tried that 3M stuff last week in SD and it worked great on Mosqitoes, but didn't phase the knats. We picked it up at Walmart, but be ready for sticker shock, $8.50 for a small tube of the stuff!

Capt'n

[Norsky]

I used the 3M ultrathon a couple weeks ago and it worked great. The biting flies and mosquitos never touched me. It lasted for about 4 hours, but I did get wet. Best repellant I've ever used. $7 for a spray on bottle of the stuff.

[Guest]

3M ultrathon lotion is great stuff!

This will be 2 years on the same tube and I just bought another just so I wouldn't run out.

Best I have used hands down.

http://www.3m.com/market/consumer/scianglers/box_ultrathon.jhtml

------------------
Backwater Eddy..><,sUMo,>

Backwater Guiding
"Ed on the RED"
(701)-281-2300

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[This message has been edited by Backwater Eddy (edited 07-10-2002).]