Are there be any mosquitos, flies or ??? during the archery (early, mid or late) season? what altitude?
If so, how do you deal (spray??) with them?
I scouted my hunting area in late July/early August and the flies were brutal. In the trees, you had to keep moving. If you stopped, the cloud surrounded you and you had to be careful to not suck them into your mouth.
No wonder the elk stay high.
Sometimes skeeters can be a slight problem if you're hunting waterhole-wet areas during the early part of the season. Wear a camo headnet instead of facepaint and they won't bother you. But that's unusual.
Like Z mentions, July- early August period is a whole different deal.
Other than that one occurrence (about 9500 feet) it has never been an issue.
Youre from Minnesota. Even if there are a few bugs around, you will think you died and went to heaven compared to MN.
At least that what I thought when I moved to Colorado from MN.
Just go hunt
Another trip - it was a moth invasion. Had one fly into my freaking ear. It was awful! I was freaking out! Imagine a moth crawling around in your ear - burrowing in for your brain. Couldn't get him out and made a trip to the ER. Lesson learned - if you ever have a bug you can't get out of your ear - rinse with water until they drown and get flushed out. Had that happen to a hunting partner too.
Mosquitoes don't bother me anymore, bigger insects do.
Here's one- about 3 years ago beginning of August, I went on a camp/scouting trip in Colorado with 3 of my cousins, 2 of their buddies and 2 of their wives. I had worked all night then hopped in the truck around 6am to make the 4 hour drive to meet them at camp. Needless to say by 8:00pm that night I was pretty tired and decided to lay it down. Everyone else was still sitting around the fire, drinking chatting etc. It was fairly warm that night so I was only wearing boxers and gym shorts. With my tent door still open I was laying on top of my sleeping bag looking through my duffel bag when I felt something tickle my inner thigh. I thought it was just my shorts sliding across my leg then I felt it again. Looked down to see a fairly large spider disappear into the leg of my shorts heading north!! My immediate reaction was to stand up and make a feeble attempt to swipe it away all in one motion and in a split second decision after not knowing where it ended up I was standing outside of my tent butt ass naked next to the fire looking at my shorts and boxers in the dirt! Talk about a group of people laughing as hard as they've ever laughed at the same time wondering WTF!
And for the record, I'm NOT scared of spiders... I just don't like them! ;)
When I opened up the can and pulled out the roll, a big spider dropped down onto my "jewels', and in my battle to swat him off he bit me on the inner thigh. He had entered through one of the rips in the can. Just missed the important part of my anatomy by a fraction of an inch (he was luckily turned the other way).
That bite swelled up and made me feverish, not a good thing in elk camp. I'm not scared of spiders either, just hate them!! Big poisonous ones were all over the place where I hunted in Australia, and I was way more creeped-out by them than by the deadly snakes..
He said that in the morning when he woke up he had a severe headache and although he knew he was supposed to be where he was he had no idea who we were or where he was - took him most of the day to come around.
From the description of what he said it looked like and the symptoms he had we looked it up and the closest thing we could come up with was he was bitten by a Hobo spider, which is known to frequent that area of ID.
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Besides in the bugs/spiders, are there any other fun surprises that I might run into out there (poisonous snakes, infestation of mice, etc...)?
Yellowjackets during elk processing will be your biggest issue. Seems like I get stung every year. Its a good problem to have! :-)
Hunt98, in 45 years of doing this here in CO I've never had any real bug problems during hunting season except maybe one or two minor mosquito issues at a waterhole in late August. You want need a bug out jacket, thermacell, or repellent. Only a .44 mag for the tent spiders. Not like in OZ when we had poisonous snakes, deadly spiders, skeeters, and had to make sure no scorpions crawled in our boots during the night.
That said, I'd rather deal with yellowjackets than clouds of blow flies.
I've never had much of an issue with mosquitoes or biting gnats/flies on elk hunts. Too cold at night.
One year I went to start my truck and it sounded like I'd thrown a rod. Scared the you-know-what out of me! I shut it down and lifted the hood. A freakin' squirrel had decided my fan housing would make a great place to stash his winter supply of pine cones. Don't know who crapped his britches more... me or than danged squirrel! lol!
GregE's Link
Hornets and their paper nests are not always up in trees. Found one in the bushes I was pushing through- before I got to it thankfully.
I am allergic to yellowjackets and hornets ( Vespidae ) so watch for them and carry my Ana kit and brief my hunting partners on it.
Pack Horse bumped a tree with paper nest on the back side packing out one year. Saw the horse hop then got stung in the neck, luckily thru my collar so it wasn't deep. My buddies kept a close watch on me and it didn't go beyond a little lightheadedness and localized swelling. the shot series I took many years ago still has some effect.
I now take my Personal Locator Beacon with me, as we are often out of cell coverage.
I know several folks who are allergic- few take precautions. Dying from anaphylactic shock when you could mitigate it would be a real waste.
http://www.sportys.com/pilotshop/safety-and-survival/personal-locator-beacons-plbs/resqlink-personal-locator-beacon-plb.html
2 days later, other than a few flys, almost no mosquitoes at all. That's about the only time I've ever been bothered by them.
Thermacell doesn't take much room and you may very well be glad you have it with you.
The next day we dog a hole and put 5-gallon bucket in the ground, filled it 1/4 full with water. We then took an arrow and pushed it through an empty beer can, put some peanut butter on the can and placed the arrow/can over the bucket. In the morning we looked in the pail and could hardly believe what we saw - you couldn't see the water because there were so many mice. One of the guys started removing them and quit counting at 30 mice!
Unfortunately, I haven't had any issues with the bees and yellowjackets because I haven't had a kill for them to be attracted to. I hope to have to deal with that "problem" this year.
