THIS!!!



However, you are ***ALL*** forgetting about Birch Bark Oil or Birch Bark Tar.



SMELLY SH!T, but it works great!



Sadly, the down side is that it also works just as well at repelling your WIFE as it does repelling Squiters and No See Ums!



 

Some EOTWAWKI, no DEET, no mosquito fogs, every unattended water around my place is going to have used motor oil on it.  

The point of that is mosquito control starts with limiting the breeding grounds.  When I see folks with standing water being eaten alive spending their lives at home indoors or hiding, I just smile and shake my head.  Most of us don't live in the swamps.  We have to work at it through neglect to do so,.

Tj

BTDT too, lived in Louisiana.  You learn to hide from them and learn the does and don'ts.  

For example, most people don't know mosquitoes don't like the color white, in fact, most won't even land on it, but its a Catch 22.  They can be attracted to movement from yards away and white is easy to see.  Most people know light attracts them but few know they follow CO2 like a catfish follows a blood scent.  Using the wind is a big deal.

One of my favorite mosquito tools is one of my Dietz Lanterns which I designate for citronella oil.  It puts out way more scent than the torches or buckets and the light is way more controllable.  On my boat, I anchor down at night bow into the wind and windshield closed.  My citronella I put off the back where the anchor light, an attractant you can't turn off, is.  Most of the mosquitoes will come from downwind and those that don't fly over the deck then try to follow,  like the majority, the light or our breathes attract them, but run into a wall of citronella.  On my porch, I don't have a windshield so wind setting my distance, I use two.  I put one upwind, a small one or a bucket, to get them to first go around, then I put a bigger one downwind so they hit the wall of smell and yep, the light, while we stay hidden in the dark.  

I tried the electronic buzzers but they are only marginal at best.

In the field, besides the usual DEET etc. I wear dark clothing so to hide my movement.  Besides not sitting in smoke, I try to sit upwind of any campfire so the mosquitoes follow that CO2 and then stay mesmerized by the light.  Light placement, I use the same wind techniques with worse case being downwind of a light.  Using high power lights like a Coleman lantern, best to have it upwind and a distance away.  Its diversionary tactics.  People will laugh at this one but the best mosquito diversion ever is a fat pale complected blond.  Mosquitoes will eat them alive while leaving you pretty much alone.  The difference is quite noticeable.  

The best solution to the light issue is headlamps with or and red lights.  Blue or traditional yellow porch lights are a little better but still nowhere close to red.  I can sit in a swamp and read a book with a red light with a fraction of the insects of a single white LED.

I live next to a forest.  Another thing I do is every couple of months we establish about a 3' wide perimeter around our house with pesticide.   We use the 3 month liquid spray.  It doesn't stop mosquitoes but it cuts them down because mosquitoes land.  They're not a bird and can't cover great distances.  If they land on the barrier, even if it doesn't kill them, they turn back.  The difference is quite noticeable too.  I eliminate any standing water around my place. What I can't elminate, I hit with a very small amount of used motor oil, just enough to put a color film on it.  Anything that over flows after a rain, you have to re-treat.  Don't overdo either of these because you don't want to kill the good bugs or small animals.  You just want to keep them out.  Nature has a way of knowing, go here you die, don't go there.  Any deer hunter knows that.  

On the subject of DEET, its all about time.  The citrus substitutes actually work pretty well but they wear off pretty darn quickly.  They're ok for say a picnic or a couple hours on the porch but anything more, they're a waste of money because you are going to get eaten alive figuring out its time to apply them again.  I try to avoid these all together but when I use a skin repellant I go full bore 100% DEET.  I wish I still had the old Vietnam Era MIL stuff.  That was oil based, greasy as hell, but lasted for hours upon hours.  The problem with these things is we wear them off in areas and they'll go right for that area.

Clothing is important.  Besides color, cover up.  I know being in long sleaves and long pants in summer sucks but it beats being sucked on.  There's a lot of neat clothing these days thats very light, cool to wear, but covers you.  My favorites are Columbia, Guide Gear, and Magellan.  

That's about it, if you can't control them, you have to hide from them and the only way to hide from them is out think them.  

PS:  My latest invader is a big ole snake.  The damn thing is as big as I've seen a snake, moved in, and the predator from hell.  We have no birds, squirrels, or even my good little blue tail lizards left on my hill.  I normally like having snakes on my hill but not this guy.  He's too much of a predator.  He makes a damn feral cat look good.  I think he's either a Timber Rattler or Rat Snake.  I'm trying to capture him on a snake board but I may have to attack his hole an option I'd rather not but will if I have to.  I haven't seen anything like this guy since hippie chick use to buy my neighbors commercial rabbits just to set them free and every owl in this part of the state came here to eat little white and black bunnies wiping out all the wildlife in the process.  Our fear is this snake will take out our little dog and we can't take that no matter what the environmentalist in the cities polluting the crap out of the air think.  

Tj

Yep, its the smell thing.  You just went from a nice plate of medium rare to left overs same as any deer in the forest.  

Its the same thing like these guys talk of eating garlic or for that matter Indians eating curry.  You eat enough it comes out your pours, you stink.  Helps some with the bugs but limits your field of intimate friends (girls, women). Three days in the field no bathing, your lucky to get your dog to lick you.

I don't see it as much of a deterrent, but it is noticeable and often is unpreventable.  Of course, someone who's idea of outdoors is a campground will have no concept of what we are talking about.  They just can't fathom there's some places and circumstances you can't bathe and that its even possible you'd actually get use to it.  I've seen guys over the years get pneumonia in winter, waste their last drinking water, and covered head to toe in leaches.  

Tj