Thank God for Thermacell!
I have been doing some pork hunting over the summer months and people keep asking me what I do to keep the mosquitoes off.
I could not sit in my stands without my thermacell. Funny stories and true.
Story #1
I had a guy come from Michigan to go hunt with me just a few weeks ago and I went through my usual you need this and you need that speech. When I met him in Mayo to go after Wilbur the pig we got ready and drove to the gate. I fired up my thermacell in the car and told him to do likewise. He told me he forgot to buy one but he would be ok without it. RRRIIIGGGGGHHHHHTTTTTTTTT.....ok you get out and unlock the gate and I drive buy then lock it behind me I said. He got out and started to unlock the gate, I drove through reeaaallll slow to give them time to find his breath. I swear to God it looked like he was about to start break dancing in the rear view mirror and he almost ripped the car door off jumping in. Those squitos were tearing him apart in under a minute. He asked me what he was going to do and that there was no way he could take hours of that in the stand. I have 3 thermacells with me so I lent him one of mine.
Story #2
Sitting in my oak stand I was having a blast watching squirrels and deer fight over corn while the sun was setting. Everything was going fine until the first bite. Then about 5 seconds later bite number 2. Then all hell breaks loose and it feels as if I am in a schoolyard of country children with red ryder BB guns and I am the target. I even think they were trying to suck the fluid out of my eyeballs. My thermacell had run out of gas at the last ten minutes. I now carry several spares.
Story #3
I went down to Ona Florida to help a buddy thin the pork herd last August. I went down to the stand and just like every day in the summer around here it rains. It usually starts around 6:17p.m. and stops around around 6:43p.m. For those that live here you already know but for those that dont our rains look like the coming of the floods. They are a regular deluge of buckets falling from the sky. This does have one really nice effect other than freezing you for a little while. The mosquitoes dont like to fly in that crap. So no bugs. Then the rain stops and the steaming begins. It gets nice and muggy and really cleans the ole pores out but with one bad effect. Now you are a sweaty, juicy, meal for the mosquitoes. When it rains like that the thermacell was off. The mosquitoes were literally covering my skin in a black coat of the little bastards. I turn on the thermacell and 5 minutes later I am only in a living hell and needing an infusion because I am a few quarts low. 10 minutes later and the little bloodsuckers are starting to leave. 15 minutes later there was literally a dark cloud of mosquitoes 5 feet over my head but they would not enter the thermacell cloud of protection. Absolutely incredible.
I hope the guy who invented the thermacell is a billionaire and I would love to buy the guy a drink or ten. If I weren’t married to my wife I would probably marry my thermacell.
I posted this in the deer and bowhunting section also.