BOB KORNEGAY: Skeeters again are on the attack

They’re back. Just like green leaves, flowers, and pollen. Just like warm weather, morning fog, and short britches on folks who have no business wearing them. It’s springtime. The mosquitoes are airborne again.

Mosquitoes are the price one pays for loving the outdoors. They are also, I think, Nature’s way of keeping hunters, fishermen, and nature nerds humble.

Happens every year. A fella flawlessly reads and patterns his turkeys, skillfully manipulates his call, shoots uncannily straight, and easily bags his first two birds of the season. Then he works for a week locating and luring a trophy gobbler into shotgun range. After a studied, painstaking process, he has the wary old Tom in his sights. Pull the trigger and the bragging can begin. All is perfect. Until the mosquito on the hunter’s wrist embeds its “hypodermic.” Said hunter flinches and bags not his bird of a lifetime, but a sapling persimmon tree three yards to the right of his target. The turkey is last seen crossing the county line at a dead run, now immune to even the sexiest of fake hen noises for the reminder of the season.

The bass angler, having caught nothing but small ones all day long, makes one last cast as the shadows are lengthening. His presentation is unerring. His lure choice is perfect. The 10-pound largemouth lurking in the lily pads cannot resist the slow fall of the well-placed bait placed mere inches in front of her. She opens her cavernous mouth and sucks the plastic worm inside. The fisherman dips his rod tip and prepares to strike. The timing is perfect. Well, almost. The mosquito on the back of the man’s neck breaks both rhythm and concentration. One second too late. The lure flies free and the unfortunate angler strikes only water. That and his butt as he unceremoniously hits the deck.

The birder has driven 11 hours nonstop. There is a Bananaquit in a state park in south Florida. This trip may well be his only chance to see this rare Caribbean “vagrant.” Slowly, carefully, silently he slips through the thick foliage in the oppressive heat and humidity. He searches the trees and bushes for two tiresome hours. Eureka! The bird appears. He thinks. Yes? No? Maybe? He raises his trusty binocular. There’s a mosquito on the lens of each eyepiece. Instinctively the birder closes both eyes. The bird flushes and escapes into the tree canopy. The hapless bird chaser misses his prized Bananaquit. He does down five banana daiquiris at a local beach bar shortly thereafter, but it is scant solace.

A lone mosquito entered my truck eight days ago. It will be there until next winter’s first freeze. In the interim it will raise welts on every square inch of my exposed hide. It cannot be swatted, blown out an open window, or squashed against the windshield. Fate dictates that it shall plague me all spring and summer. If, that is, it doesn’t cause me to wreck and thus render my truck undrivable for the duration.

It’s always these lone-wolf mosquitoes that make my warm-weather life miserable. I thwart 99.99 percent of the incessant swarms with ample applications of the strongest bug dope on the market. Good thing, too. The tiny fraction of “skeeters” that are immune to DEET and swatting draw enough vital fluid every season to supply a sizable blood bank. And of course there’s always the trepid anticipation that comes from wondering which exotic diseases are being transmitted by the little buggers during any given year. What will it be this season? Malaria? West Nile Virus? Peruvian Backflip Disorder? The choices are endless.

I’ll grin and bear it, though. An outdoor life isn’t perfect, after all. Besides, it will shortly be warm enough for brigades of chiggers to march in great force up my britches legs. And let’s not forget the yellowflies that begin their kamikaze assaults upon human flesh around the first of June. That considered, a skeeter or two living in my truck all summer might just be a welcomed alternative.

Email outdoors columnist Bob Kornegay at [email protected].