Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Where's all the bugs?

A little over a month ago a rep. from the County Extension Office came to the local rifle club for a presentation.

She started off by asking, " Who remembers going on road trips when you were a kid?"

"Who remembers always having a bug sponge (dad kept one in the cars) to scrub off all the grasshoppers, junebugs, lightning bugs, bees, moths etc. every time you stopped for gas?" Screens in front of the radiators too...

"It's been gradual but have you noticed a change?"

I had to agree, it's changed a lot since I was a kid going on road trips with mom n pops in the 60s.

She wanted to remind us at the club to not wipe out the good bugs and pollinators at the same time we target pests.

I still get bit by skeeters and chiggers, deer flys , nats and other stuff but have you noticed a change too?

They are at my house...I'll post a pic of my truck grill when I get home...

I haven’t. I can hardly see out my windshield for all the splats and I just washed it a week ago. And every nook, cranny, and out of the way place in the plant I work in is full of June bugs, spiders, and moths. We got hopper toads that stay under the porch light and get fat snacking on junebugs, some of them must weigh a pound they’re so big.

Also remember that there was a time that windshields were flat glass, with no smooth airflow.

The aerodynamic properties of modern cars is where they all went.......right on by

Covid got 'em.

You must live in a sheltered spot because out here there a whole lot more than should be in a dry place.

Maybe it’s a N.C. thing, but I have also noticed a bit of a decline. I’m in sales and I log a lot of miles on the road. This time of year I really accumulate a lot of bugs on the front of my truck, if I get home a bit late. The last several years I have noticed less of this. Right now the bugs are really sparse because we are really dry.

I'm only 45 but the "bug sponge" - not a thing in my family and we drove the UP a lot. I rode around with my grandfather in a Cab Over Ford - a rolling brick - no "bug sponge".

I get a ton on my motorcycle (why I also wear a helmet - it's nasty) and some on the car but as other's have mentioned, modern cars are much more aero and create air channels that simply push the bugs out of the way as the car goes through.

I get her sentiment but not buying it 100%

If you want to see bugs, get a Toyota FJ. I've never seen anything collect bugs the way that FJ windshield does.

I washed my truck yesterday and still didn't get all the bugs off of it.

Head into Florida in May and/ or October (or thereabouts). The two flights (per year) of Lovebugs will refresh your memory quickly.

Here in Montana, at least my part, we aren't seeing many bugs yet. I think it has been too cold for them so far. On the few warm nights, the June bugs are starting to show up!
No bugs this morning-----43 degrees !
My wife has been driving to Billings several days a week and so far, the windshield on her car has been clean!

PS If we have grasshoppers like the last few summers, we will have bugs. !!

Depends on the amount and when we get rain.

Only critters I'm not seeing anymore, are centipedes. They were common when I was a kid - haven't seen one here in decades.
I believe most insect and small animal populations are down, substantially, due to the ongoing drought.
Even the rattlesnake population seems way down, compared to ~20 years ago.
Pocket gophers, pack rats, 13 striped ground squirrels, rabbits, also.

Very dependent where you drive.
Grew up on a branch of the river, it is buggy as hell driving up
to the folks place. One of the worst places around here.
Always blamed it in the crick.

Now, I'm a dozen miles away, downstream. The river is at the bottom
of the hill, follow it to work everyday. Get very few bugs.

The sponge thing sounds like BS.
Carry a bucket and soapy water too. Where did you get water if not?
Ever been around dead buggy windshield washer buckets?
That better be a disposable sponge, or it's gonna soon smell
like rotting fish if you don't get it clean. How you store the sloppy thing
so it dries? If it don't, go back to rotten fish smell.


Running 48 states and Canada, the worst bug hatches I ever saw
were in Ohio on SR2. They were in swarms that looked like smoke,
Completely covered the front if the truck. Not BS exaggeration!
The truck was black and bloody, you could write on it with your finger.
Ran out of bug juice, every gas station had cars waiting to clean
their windshields. No idea what bugs they were, but they looked like
decent sized gnats.

Exactly correct!

The drought map shows where insects are numerous, and where they aren't.

I live on Lake Michigan - few years back we had a hatch of bugs (no clue what they were) that were just black balls in the air. Couldn't hardly see through them and if you hit one in the car, you had to down shift to make it through. THICK

Depends on the weather, one thing I've noticed over the yrs is that there will usually be an explosion of small butterflies, which usually happens before we get a tropical storm or hurricane.

Song Birds here are the issue....They have been on a downtrend for years. Took a 3 mile hike last week. Half of it on a woods trail. Saw one Blackbird. Come out to the open fields and saw 3 Crows and some Robbins. Yard has some Crows, an occasional Jay and some Robbins. Look out a window and you are more likely to see a Groundhog than a Bird. Barn down the road used to have swallows by the hundred swarming...Now nothing.