Insect Repellent or ThermaCELL

I got tired of smelling the bug spray on me after I returned home from a fishing or hunting trip. One bug spray would make my nose bleed after spraying it on me near my face.

I was going out near dusk and watching for wildlife in the area and the mosquitoes were coming inside my truck as the sun started to set. I hate the sound of a single mosquito inside my truck cab and the sounds of a half dozen of them it enough to get me to get out of there.

A case of West Nile Virus has already been confirmed in Vanderburgh County and the Health Dept is finding mosquitoes that have the disease.

So I was reading in one of the hunting or fishing forums where some guys are using this device that repels mosquitoes and other biting insects such as black flies and no-see-em's.

So I went to Walmart and picked up on of those ThermaCELL devices.

I set it on the dash of my truck after turning it on and putting in a new repellent pad. This device works on a small bottle of liquid butane and it's got an push button starter that ignites the butane inside the device. The heat from the burner heats of the insecticide pad and then fumes are put out into the area. Now if it's not windy they claim it will keep mosquitoes away from you in a 15 ft diameter. It may not work as good when it's windy so be aware of this fact. But on calm nights this device can keep the mosquitoes away for a good 4 hours. The device comes with one bottle of the butane and three insecticide pads. You can also buy refill kits with one bottle of butane and three insecticide pads.

So far I like this device. It did seem to work when it was running inside my truck cab. I opened up the sun roof, both side windows and the rear window to avoid breathing concentrated fumes. I have used this device three times so far and each time they mosquitoes were kept at bay.

Now I started using this device before we got the rains. So it could have been the drought that kept the mosquito population down.

One thing that I don't understand though. About the drought and the biting midges which are said to be the culprits in spreading this viral disease among the deer herds. I would think that without rain that the small pools of water that lack fish would be gone and that the mosquitoes would not be able to reproduce without pools of water to lay their eggs in.

It must be that the midges are using the larger lakes and must be too numerous for the fish to control in the lakes and ponds.

I know that mosquitoes often like to breed in small pools of standing water. Any water such at that trapped inside an old tire or water from a bird bath that's not changed every day.

I also like to use these larvacide products around the house. Areas like the downspouts that direct water into my underground water drainage system are prime breading grounds for the mosquitoes. I spoon out a few grams of this larvacide granules and it prevents any mosquito larvae from growing into an adult mosquitoes.

I use to get eaten alive on my back deck until I figured out that the mosquitoes were coming from under my deck and from the drain pipe that opens up under my deck and leads to the drains running though the back yard. Now that I am using this Larvacide the mosquitoes are not so bad.

The larvacide used to come in small black granules that I could measure out with a spoon and dump into my drains and such. Now the manufacture changed the way they make this stuff and it now comes in small blocks of this stuff. I like the granules better. These new blocks of the larvacide are suppose to last for 180 days. But they could easily be washed down my drains and out into the fields downstream. That would leave my drains susceptible to new mosquitoes.

Pre-Strike Mosquito Torpedo is what I am using now. They don't seem to carry the can of granules anymore. I use to find this stuff at Walmart in the Garden section.

Nothing beats a can of OFF, everything else is just gimmick! If you can't stand the smell of DEET then check out the stuff made for women (not trying to call you a girly man) They don't smell bad and my girlfriend claims they work very well.

I have tried some of those other insecticides and some of them work well and don't have deet in them.

As for as the girly man comment, I must admit that I am not Arnold. But most of America could say that about themselves. Arnold is one of a kind! LOL But one bite from a West Nile Infected Mosquito could take Arnold down in a flash. The mosquito has killed more humans than anything else in this world. That tiny insect has killed millions of humans by transmitting to them the deadly diseases such a dingy fever, Yellow fever, Malaria and a few more that I can't spell.

Last night I cleaned some nice crappie on my back deck. Normally the mosquitoes will come out in hoards when I spend anytime on my back deck.

There is a drain right below the SW corner of the deck that leads from the deck to the back yard. This 4" corrugated drain has it's mouth set into concrete and the downspout has another 4" corrugated black plastic pipe connected to the end of the downspout. I routed this 4" pipe under the deck from one end to the other. The open end spills it's water into the mouth of the concreted in pipe. All this water goes underground to a buried 8" diameter drainage pipe. This 8" pipe goes all the way though my back yard and then under my neighbor's back yards before spilling into a county drainage system with huge 36" culvert pipes. Eventually the water flows into a small drainage ditch.

Mosquitoes have access to this drainage system at many points. And the corrugated nature of the pipe means that there is always some standing water inside the pipe.

I went into this detail so show you why there is always a bunch of mosquitoes around my back deck. It's been like this since I built the drainage system.

Anyway I dropped a Pre-Strike Tablet (180 control) into the downspout at the SE end of my house. This tablet should put some larvacide into the drainage system and keep the mosquito population down for the next 180 days. If it works.

Last night while cleaning the fish I noticed one mosquito who kept away from the ThermaCELL which I had tied to the deck next to where I was cleaning fish. I didn't get one mosquito bite.

Gimmick, Well the jury is still out. I'll do more research and find out what chemicals the ThermaCELL pads are using. Each little pad coated with insecticide is suppose to work for about 4 hours. You get three pads with the unit. And one Butane canister which is suppose to last for 12 hours. The color of the pad turns from blue to white when all the insectice is used up. You can actually see the insecticide fumes coming off the pad as it's being heated up by the burning butane. I am going to keep on using this thing this year while fishing or cleaning fish on the back deck. It works for me!




I went to Walmart and purchased the Holder or carrying case for my ThermaCELL unit. Now I can tie the ThermaCELL unit around a small tree and or anything else to keep it in place. I could tie it to the pedestal seat on my bass boat and keep it right under my seat for night fishing.

Deet is OK and it's a proven repellent. But I wonder what in the DEET? If it works so good at keeping the mosquitoes away then what will it do when it's soaks into my skin? The smell of DEET does not bother me as much as the smell of the other insecticide that I used.

Lemon Eucalyptus is what I can't stand the smell of. That's what gave me the problems with my nasal passages. It gave me a bloody nose just smelling that stuff. But I have problems with my right airways for a long time.

The lemon Eucalyptus plant based insect repellent works great but it will make you sick if you breath too much of that stuff. At least it make me sick.

I have tried another insect repellent that works pretty good and does not smell so bad. It's the New! OFF! Botanical plant base repellent. It's active ingredient is p-Methane-3,8-diol* at 10%/. I have used this Off with success on mosquitoes. I don't think it would repel ticks though. I could be wrong. For ticks I would use something with a lot of DEET in it and spray my socks and pant legs and shirt sleeve with the Deet.

Cutter Advanced is another one that I have tried. It main active ingredient is the Picaridin at 7%. Picaridin works pretty good on Mosquitoes but not so good on ticks. It does not smell so bad either.

Now the best and most reliable insect repellent for ticks and mosquitoes is something with Deet in it. But you have to spray this directly on your skin or clothing for it to work. You get a very high concentration of this stuff directly onto your skin. You skin is a semi permeable membrane in which chemicals can pass though and into your body. They say that we are what we eat. Well we are also what we spray onto our skin. BTW the skin is the LARGEST ORGAN of the human body. That's right the human skin is an ORGAN. Just like the Liver or the Heart or the Spleen. We absorb a lot of things though our skin. And maybe just maybe it's not always the sunlight's UV rays that produced skin cancer.

I am trying to weight the pros and cons of different insect repellents. West Nile Virus vs Skin Cancer? What a choice we have to make.

I know some guys who would not be called "Girly Men". But they are all dead now. The guy that did the "I walk a mile for a Camel Cigarette commercial. He's died of lung cancer. The actor Steve Mc-Queen who died of a cancer that's associated with Asbestos... [FONT=Arial][COLOR=#303030]Mesothelioma.[/COLOR][/FONT]


Guess I would rather still be alive than be a so called tough guy who dies early. There is nothing wrong with trying to protect your health. Get sick and see how much it helps being a tough guy. Tough guys like to chew but those are the same guys that loose parts of their mouth and throats due to cancer of the mouth. Tough guys like to think that smoking is not harmful but they are the guys that die early of lung cancer.

One of my former neighbor hood kids just died the other day of LUNG CANCER. He was a tough guy too. Not anymore. Now he is DEAD! He can't even fight of the worms and fungi that's already eating his flesh. So much for those tough guys ... hey!




[quote=idbefishing;304094]Nothing beats a can of OFF, everything else is just gimmick! If you can't stand the smell of DEET then check out the stuff made for women (not trying to call you a girly man) They don't smell bad and my girlfriend claims they work very well.[/quote]

I agree. I would also like to really put the ThermaCELL unit to a test in a location that's really full of bitting mosquitoes. I'll take some extra spray on deet just in case. LOL

Tonight I was outside in my back yard just for a bite. I was watering the garden right before the sunset. I must have got bit by 4 or 5 mosquitoes in just a few minutes time. I would have gone inside right away but I got to talking with one of my neighbors on HIS back deck and he has more mosquitoes under his deck than I do. I hate mosquitoes.


[quote=bwframe;304187]Some people can't do the deet. It makes me sick, upsets my stomach. Also, its a bit scary that you put it on your skin and stomach gets upset within minutes. Lower concentrations don't seem to affect me so badly. I use the kids versions when I have to.

I have a ThermaCELL. Seems to work, although I haven't had the opportunity to thoroughly test it over time in the worst areas.[/quote]

Try some Avon Skin So Soft....been using it since I was a kid and it worked better than anything the military had during my 26 years there in the bush. Of course you need to let your wife know you are using it or she will start wondering about you when you come home smelling like a girl...lol.

I agree the Skin-so-soft works. I use it when the mosquitos are not super active. When the get really active, I like to take some repel 99 (almost 100% deet), but instead of putting it on my skin, I will put it on the top of my socks, and the end of my shirt sleeve - this seems to work really well, and you are not putting it on your skin.

The repellent I use is "Repel", it has Permethrin, it's strickly for clothing and gear. I spray it on my fishin pants and sometimes my socks the night before I go fishin and let them dry real good, that way all I have to do when I get up at 4:15 am to go, I put my clothes on and leave. I have not had one tick or mosquito bite on me since I started using this stuff. I also carry with me a small bottle of Max Deet. As far as the ThermaCell having Methane, if we just had baked beans for dinner the night before a fishin trip and emitted out own methane, would that not serve the same purpose? (Just kidding)

I swear by this Repel spray and it doesn't have that repellent smell either.
I won't go fishin without it.

God 1st, Family 2nd and everyone else get in line . . .
A bad day of fishin is better than a good day at work . . .
NFC

Went to the store and found some new accessories for my new ThermaCELL unit.

I picked up a ThermaSCENT Pack which contains on small container of the Butane fuel and then several pads that you can put about 1 oz of cover scent onto the pad. I have not tried this yet but if I figure out a place to go hunting this year I will give it a try. Guess if I am not using the Thermacell unit with the insect repellant in it and using the cover scent pad instead I'll have to spay insect repellant on me to keep the mosquitoes at bay. LOL.

Back to ground zero on the mosquito protection again.

I'll report back later on how the thermascent works while hunting.