What do you do that works best to keep those dang skeeters away while hunting? For me, I found that the thermacell seems to work best. What else?
Archery
Darn Skeeters...
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Deep woods off in 40% deet. Get in a stand where the wind is perfect and you shouldn't have a problem. Take bottle with and spray again while in the tree. it seems right now the effectiveness is about 90 minutes. As mentioned, they will swarm the hell out of you, but not stay to bite. Permethrin works well too, I spray all my stuff with that for ticks.
This cold front will have deer moving well, skeeters or not, i'm going out in a bit, tomorrow and friday to kill some doe.
spray yourself with off then go kill a deer. you'll say I can't believe that worked afterward. It works when the wind is in your favor and you should be hunting that way anyhow. They will smell you downwind deep woods off or not.
NOTE: I'm only hunting travel far far away from anything i'd hunt during the rut. Or in otherwords, I'm not hunting anything i'd consider a good spot to kill a buck.
I didn't even get in the stand this weekend as we had other family issues to attend to, but I was outside quite a bit and they were horrible. I sprayed layer upon layer of 40% deet and they were still circling me nonstop and occasionally biting me. I couldn't imagine being in the woods.
The mosquitoes are the worst I've ever seen. Can hardly walk through the woods without looking like your going into spasms. Walking through the woods you would kick-up more and more mosquitoes with every step. Stop for just a moment and hundreds would be on you. Hard to even breath without going up your nose and don't open your mouth unless you want a snack. At dusk I could hear the hummmmm. My Thermacell truly showed how effective it works. Without it I would of drove back home the first morning. Should've anyway. I think it definitely changed the deer patterns. My camera action drastically reduced since the swarm hatched. The few deer I did have you could tell how annoying the mosquitoes are to them as well. Constantly shaking them off. I saw one doe Saturday night. She would run about 15 yards with her head down, stop and grab something to eat for about 15 seconds, jump in the air and shake like a bucking bull, and she repeated that several times till she disappeared from sight. Driving just up the road a young buck was standing dam near inside a garage with the owners home for the reason I believe was to try and get some relief from the mosquitoes. I believe a lot of deer are now staying in cornfields and beanfields where the bugs may not be as bad. Unfortunately till a cold snap it doesn't look like its going to get any better for my hunting area and I don't have fields to hunt.
I used a ground blind for the first time with deer. Shorts to stay cool and shoot through mesh to keep all the bugs out. Getting to and from it was like a mad dash, but once inside it was nice. Could see all the mosquitoes on the mesh trying to get in but they couldn't. Might be my new go-to setup for early bug season.
Over the last four days, I can't even stand in my driveway in the Appleton area, and I swear my garage is even worse! I can't imagine what the woods must be like. Crazy how it was so sudden. I know we've had hatches before, but this is an entirely different level. Tried using my thermacell in the garage and didn't notice much effectiveness. Maybe the pad was too old. It was still in the packaging, but have had them for close to 4-5 years.
Side note, they weren't bad in Fremont on the river or Partridge Lake on Saturday thankfully.
I sprayed my clothes with Sawyer odorless permethrin a couple hours before going to the woods and ran a thermacell while sitting on stand - I did not have a single mosquito by me for the 2.5 hours I hunted.
Displaying 1 to 13 of 13 posts
