Field and Stream: 4 Ways to Repel Biting Bugs

Don’t let your time outdoors be ruined by mosquitoes, black flies, gnats, and ticks.

After a long winter indoors, you toss that coat into the closet, get outside, and get chased back indoors by biting, crawling, swarming, blood-sucking bugs. Unless you want to spend your summer the same way you spent your winter, you’ll need insect repellent to enjoy the warm months.

Note, though, that a repellent that’s effective for one person may not be effective for someone else, or in a different area. A 2014 study of repellents by the National Institute of Health found that, “The heterogeneity in repellent sensitivity between mosquito genera and vector species could however impact the efficacy of repellents in public health programs.” Basically, that means what repels one bug may not repel another bug, so it pays to have a couple of different kinds of repellents on hand. Here’s what’s available today.

Read the full article by the editors on Field & Stream's website here.