Bug Predictions For the Adirondacks?

[tweezer57]

Does anyone have a serious guess as too what type of bug season we will have and when it will start.

I know there is a two week period when the peaks have clouds of small black flies. I am curious as to when that will happen.

Thanks
Tweezer

 

[TCD]

Usually the worst of it in the High Peaks region is the first two weeks in June. This year, I'm guessing it starts early, because of the warm spring. In West Mill Brook, there were just a few lazily circling on Saturday. Probably have the biters in about a week. It's anyone's guess how long it will last. You can hope for: A hard freeze late (like 5/20) which kills a lot of them; or sustained hot dry weather for a couple weeks, which seems to bake them out.

 

[NumNum]

I would guess pretty soon, we just took a walk into the washbowl and they were abuzz, walked back out with only one bite, but they were there. A nice deep freeze would be nice.

 

[Pete_Hickey]

....serious guess ....

Sounds like some kind of oxymoron.

Remember, that blackflies breed in fast moving cold water... also, their larvea are food for trout, which is probably the source of the rummor that the increase in blackflies is due to a group of radical fly-fisherpeople.

Note that in a given season, they can be terrible one day, and almost non-existant the next.

They can be non-existant in the morning, and terrible in the afternoon.

They can be terrible on one trail, and you may find none someplace else. We frequently see this, on days that our trailcrews work in different locations.

On a given day, within a group, one person may be bitten insanely, while others are unscathed.

I'm not even guessing.

 

[Waumbek]

Breeding (biting) black flies are already at work in the lower elevations of the Whites. Ticks are unusually early and prevalent. The warmer winter allowed the rodents that carry ticks to proliferate. Non-brushy trails higher up won't have as many ticks as grassy areas lower down, of course. Walk across an open field around here right now, though, and you'll come home with 5-10 ticks crawling on your pants legs even if they are sprayed with DEET. These are the big so-called dog ticks.

 

[Tom Rankin]

When I was in Alaska, I had something like this, and it worked pretty well.