Your worst mosquito encounter

[Lumatic]

What was your worst Mosquito encounter?

Mine was at Crater Lake 4th of July a few years ago. Crater Lake just opened and there were still piles of melting snowbanks feeding puddles in which the mosquitos were breeding in swarms. It was a mad dash from the truck to the trailer waving our arms around like lunatics in a futile attempt to ward off those little bloodsuckers.

[TG Twinkie]

Mine was in Whitby, Ontario in May. Between the Mosquitos and Black Flies. It was a real challenge to get to the car without being eaten alive.


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[Protagonist]

Shell Beach, Louisiana, but that was for work, not Airstreaming. It's only slight hyperbole to say that the American Red Cross uses smaller needles to draw blood than the probosces of Shell Beach mosquitoes, and the Red Cross stops when they get a full pint. The skeeters at Shell Beach will drain you dry, and they do a better job of hitting a vein on the first try than a Red Cross nurse, besides!

The worst Airstreaming encounter wasn't mosquitoes at all, but rather a divide-and-conquer attack by chiggers from below and deerflies from above at Eisenhower State Park in Texas, July 4th weekend in 2012.

[Wayne&Sam]

Alaska, 1971. They were like a cloud around you.

[Tuco]

Originally Posted by Lumatic

What was your worst Mosquito encounter?

Mine was at Crater Lake 4th of July a few years ago. Crater Lake just opened and there were still piles of melting snowbanks feeding puddles in which the mosquitos were breeding in swarms. It was a mad dash from the truck to the trailer waving our arms around like lunatics in a futile attempt to ward off those little bloodsuckers.

I am going to have to second this location and month. My wife and I always laugh about their size (B-52's).

[skitique]

Charleston SC right now. With all the flooding there are swarms of the blood suckers. You open the front door & 10 - 15 are on your face. Was at the stop light & windows were covered.

[rmkrum]

Blood sucking helicopters in a swamp in Huntsville, Alabama in the late spring about 2001. Literally clouds of them trying to drain us dry while doing a painting project. Went through multiple cans of bug dope that day.


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[BoldAdventure]

Myre-Big Island State Park, MN - It was horrific. Swarms and swarms of them, just coming out of the woodwork.

[jayseejay]

Flamingo campground, Everglades NP, in any month that does not have an "R" in it. Joe

[Drathaar]

Like Lumatic, the high Cascades in Southern Oregon (backpacking), where I wore a head net to keep from inhaling the little buggers was my worst.

Next worse was Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Those little salt marsh mosquitos pack a punch.

[Kevin245]

Kenai Peninsula Alaska in the Springtime. They are known to carry off small pets!!!

[rodsterinfl]

The year was 1980 and I-75 was just completed in the Fort Myers area in August. Two other guys and I were returning home in my VW Rabbit from a Bahama cruise in Miami that docked late that night. It was about 3:30am. We had driven across Alligator Alley from the east coast. My alternator light came on and the battery was not charging. The headlights got dimmer and dimmer until the car quit just after exiting the interstate at the Daniels Parkway exit- almost home but not quite. At that time, nothing was out there at all- just woods and road. It was pitch black. We got out of the car and knew we had to walk about three miles to town. When we got out you could hear the swarms and feel them hitting all over. I grabbed towels for us to use as covers and as something to beat them off. We ran up the road three miles to a phone. The journey was long. The towels were black and full of mosquitos by the time we got to the phone at the station. We all had several bites. It was the longest time I was ever out in such a mess of bugs. Horrible. The inhabited parts are regularly sprayed but that was not inhabited yet. Florida mosquitos are small and black and have a high pitched whine.

[DaveFL]

Originally Posted by jayseejay

Flamingo campground, Everglades NP, in any month that does not have an "R" in it. Joe

Only place we encountered mosquitos that still attacked below freezing, 27 according to the weather report that day in Dec many years ago

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, Mammoth Mountains; This was decades ago but never forgotten. The mosquitos were so hungry, they bit through our clothes. Wearing long johns and thick pants didn't help. We sprayed each other's clothes and we used a cream on our hands and faces. They bit my washed hands while we were eating our dinner.



Much later, driving past Mammoth, in my new Jeep, it was raining BLOOD. These were well fed mosquitoes hitting my windshield. Quite shocking to see blood spots all over my windshield.

[Gearheart]

Moosonee on James Bay. I have a souvenir leg hold trap for mosquitoes. It's a gag to let on how big they are. There's a movement to have them declared the provincial bird. Truth is that black flies are far and away worse than mosquitoes. Mozzies leave a lump that itches. Black flies leave a festering hole.

[Murphalex]

Gosh! I know it's Halloween but perhaps "mini-me vampires" would be more appropriate for those tales!
Thank goodness for the NC mountains, never been eaten yet and I'm a mosquito magnet!

[Nomad518]

Originally Posted by jayseejay

Flamingo campground, Everglades NP, in any month that does not have an "R" in it. Joe

I can second this. I used to live in Homestead on the edge of the Everglades. We were told they kept chickens in cages in the Everglades. When the chickens died from loss of blood, they knew it was time to launch the airplanes for spraying.

[greenflag]

Alaska 2013. Newspapers called it largest hatch in a decade.
By the way, opening the hatches and turning on one of your Fantastic Fans really works. The airflow sucks the bloodsuckers to the screen where you can smash them.........

[m.hony]

Y'all ain't got a clue.
Nowhere has mosquitoes like the Mississippi Delta (flat, fertile farmland from Memphis, TN to Vicksburg, MS).
These mosquitoes are the size of Cessna planes and there are millions of them.
Screen door? What for? The mosquitoes are big enough to open the door and walk right in.
Citronella? Off? Deet? There ain't enough of it in the wide world!
I imagine only Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and southeast Texas could only understand.
I watch them complaining about mosquitoes on "Building Alaska" on the DIY channel and I just have to laugh.
Every evening, even last night, October 27, 2015, the city sends a truck around the subdivision spraying for mosquitoes. What good can that possibly do? Spraying insecticide into all the air and atmosphere? Surely it has to be more concentrated than that to do any good. The truck is just driving around making noise and spraying a mist into the air as a sign to the public that the local government is trying to do something, although futile-
I guess that explains why there are no campgrounds/recreational facilities in this geographic region.

[m.hony]

Originally Posted by jayseejay

Flamingo campground, Everglades NP, in any month that does not have an "R" in it. Joe

I imagine mosquitoes are bad right now.
October has an R-
I would think the Everglades would have mosquitoes year round.