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

Yesterday I drove 75 mi down a wet agricultural valley to visit some friends for dinner. Drove down in the late afternoon, returned at midnight. This is my windshield after the round trip:

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I didn't hit even a single damn moth.

It's a JASON year, haven't you heard.....

I have noticed the same thing. My orchard and garden had plenty of blossoms but hardly fruit. Even the river I fish is nearly barren caddis, stoneflies and green slippery rocks.

Plenty of bugs across the middle of the country.

Not much in southeast texas, no skeeters to speak of. I’m wondering how bad the fuuuck bugs will be this September

I got hella bugs in my garden.

Getting ready to go full blown Khmer Rouge on them this afternoon.

My zapper is caked every morning, have to beat it with a stick.

It's so dry in the Southwest that the bugs are all desiccated. I get as many wasps at my birdbath as birds. They look desperate when they land. Very few honeybees around, either.

Boone and Crockett SOBs in South Dakota. Like a 5" clear splatter!

Plenty of the bastards here. I’d be happy to share.

Locally, we're having a hopper outbreak, and rigs coming from the south look to be painted with windshields and headlights well plastered and radiators near plugged. Happens when our typically flooded meadows experience a dry year. Clear winged grasshoppers.

When I go that way, I throttle back to about 45 mph. Still lots of impact. They are likely killed, but at least they're not splattered.

The pic below is a couple weeks old and they had not acquired flight status yet. Now they're three times the pictured size and the slightest breeze gets them airborne.

Wish I had a truck load of chicks I could turn out. Grasses are nothing but standing stems as they've consumed all of the leaves. Lots of fields were not worth haying and there will be no regrowth for early weaners or yearlings to come in on.

I've seen very few bugs here in central MO. Have not needed to scrub them off of my windshield even once this summer.
Never see honey bees around my Wife's flowers or on the sweet clover in the yard... been that way for a few years.
Have been hearing cicadas in the evenings for two or three weeks.
Still plenty of ticks if you go into the brush.

And flies, we have flies as well. Drive the cows and horses nuts.

And mosquitoes, and gnats...

Sam and 1minute,
Good Gawd, that is terrible! Sorry to see it.

I collect yellow jackets and hornets. Well, normally I do.. there just isn't anything yet. Last year was a poor year as well for me but this year I have less than a 10th of what I had this day a year ago in the freezer. It's a complete wash for wasps here.
I've heard folks mention bug populations dying off but I didn't pay much attention to it until that drive last night. Normally I would expect my windshield to be completely pasted with moths and gnats and midges and whatever.. Just nothing.

Same here with hay, Sam.

Only it's not grasshoppers, it's just plain ol' drought.

Cotton crop lost 50% or so as well.

I did some night work in the valley south of Redding, Ca. a few years ago and I never got a bug on my windshield or saw any roadkill. The only animals I saw alive were a few scrawny whitetail deer. On the drive up to Redding from Sacramento in the daytime I never saw a bird flying but did see a lot of crop dusters spraying.

I make my own insecticide. Just like the people on here that make their own Hydroxychloroquine

Ya know….some Comet and some grapefruit peelings.

Gotta ask, what do you do with frozen wasps?

Not sure what Mormon crickets are, but they are plowing them off the roads with graders in ID...

Unreal video.

https://katu.com/news/local/video-mormon-crickets-plowed-off-idaho-highway

longarm.

funny you posting a pic of your clean windshield.

I was on my way home from town an hour or so ago and noticed an SUV coming towards me with a windshield so dirty and bug splattered I wanted to stop them and ask how they could see, especially if they were to turn into the sun.

The next 2 vehicles almost as bad, then a couple clean ones, then back to filthy ones.

To each their own, but I detest a bug splattered windshield. Drives me nuts that they don't seem to bother the wife as much.

We've got a few bugs around, to answer you question, but not nearly as many as normal. Late frost might have knocked them back some? Drought is pretty bad around here. Dry? How does 95F and 5% RH the other day sound? I'm about ready to just let the small lawn we have die back some, just give it enough water so it doesn't die completely, as keeping it green with our limited water supply is pretty futile right now.

First year in memory that I didn't have to spray for the Colorado Potato Beetle. Same with aphids and so far, squash bugs. But, the Jap Beetles are out in force.