What weapon would you use ...

[Dave P]

Swarm of Cicadas Taking Aim at U.S.

By DAN LEWERENZ, Associated Press Writer

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - After 17 years of relative quiet, Mother Nature is bringing the noise.


Periodical cicadas, a species of the grasshopper-like insects best known for the scratching, screeching "singing" of the males, will emerge this May, filling forests in more than a dozen states. Almost as abruptly as they arrive, they'll disappear underground for another 17 years.


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Sounds like a good time to stock up on 30-06 loads - just think of all those bugs just splattered with the shock wave!

 

[MrMurphy]

Flamethrower.

 

[fslflint]

wow, thats sorta random. just oppened the thread and noticed it was from state college, thats where I'm from. it is interesting though, we had a real bad year for cincades back in the early ninties, I think 93 or 94. I also thought they came every 7 years? oh well, guess I was wronge.

 

[Greg L]

Yep, a flamethrower was the first thing that came to mind. Either that or 2x10s strapped to your feet.

It's going to get noisy/crunchy around here in a couple of months too.

Greg

 

[Diggler]

.017 HMR?

 

[Baba Louie]

My two attack cats and the Labradors love to munch those things (in season of course). Only problem is they like to hold them in their mouths and bring them inside to show "Mom and Dad" which tends to freak out "Mom" for some unknown reason.
I'll never forget when the little black lab caught her first one. Had it in her mouth and it was buzzing around like crazy. The look on her face was priceless, my sides hurt from laughing so hard.
Now its a game to sit back and enjoy watching 2 cats and 3 dogs chase around the back yard trying to hunt them down.

 

[El Tejon]

"Release the giant praying mantis!"

 

[ceetee]

I'd go with claymores...

 

[TallPine]

Have some friends with a ranch about 35 miles SW of here. Really dry last summer and so grasshoppers were more than abundant. They sprayed around their house, and after that the dead grasshoppers were several inches deep all over the yard and driveway. They could have plowed them like snow.

So it's hard to get too worked up about this college prediction. Like, what else is new ...?

We live up in the pineywood hills so the grasshoppers weren't so bad. We had yellowjackets instead. Sometimes it seems like everything around here stings, bites, or pokes.

 

[Travis McGee]

Flamethrower.

 

[Hutch]

As a kid, we called them locusts. A pump-up Benjamin, with a BB from the breech, then muzzle loaded with some birdshot from a "broke-open" shotshell works well for retail killin'. Never much thought about wholesale.

 

[Fly320s]

I thought locusts prefer trees.

When I was growing up, I used a pump-up BB pistol to thin the herd. I spent hours in the backyard shooting the little buggers.

 

[squibload]

Anything in class III would be fun. A beltfed Tippman .22 would fill the bill.

Although, a suppressed 10/22 would also be enjoyable for plinking from the back porch...

 

[Diggler]

Better to not kill them. Get the kids to catch a bunch of them and put them in a shoebox, then get a bunch of rubber bands and take the kids to a bass pond.

Rubber-band the cicaida to a good sized hook and let it vibrate on the water. The kids will love the action!

 

[BerettaNut92]

Is this going to be a stand-up fight or just another bug hunt?



Game over man, game over!!!

 

[Zedicus]

Homemade Flamethrower:
Cheap Lighters + WD40 or Cheap Hairspray

 

[Dave R]

Perfect use for repeating smoothbores loaded with small shot. I'm talking size 9-12 here. Just bigger than dust.

 

[enfield]

I used to sit on the back porch and shoot them out of the apple tree with a bb gun, way back in the '60's.