The Fire Ant Dance

[smij]

Instructions on how to do the fire ant dance. I plan on creating a SBS someday.

1. Stand in one place.

2. After a period of time, look down at your shoe as if investigating.

3. Hop, and jump away from the spot where you are standing.

4. Quickly take off your shoe and SLAM it onto the ground.

4. Rip off sock and fling aside.

5. Swat and slap at ankle and calve.

6. Go back to shoe and continue to slam it until all invaders are removed (good luck with that).

7. Squish and pick off ants from sock(s) (good luck with that, too).

This dance can be performed to various types of music. Make sure it is loud enough to drown out the string of expletives that accompany this dance.

Let this post serve as my fishing report from not only this week, but last week as well.

[saltydancindave]

Isn't it fantastic solunar tables work in Florida along with tide charts so that if one bites, they all bite ! A fishing dance for the ages.......

[Wetsocks]

Reminds me of the birdhunters shuffle that begins by stepping into a early morning covey of quail.

[James Smith]

Been there done that, all too often. The worst I ever got was while I was standing in about 2-3 inches of dry leaves in my back yard calling my dog who had decided to chase a cat into the woods. After about 3-4 minutes, I felt a fire ant sting me up near the top of my right thigh. Looking down, I found that I'd been standing in a well-disguised fire ant mound and that they had waited until there were ants all the way up both legs before they decided to sting me. I had on blue jeans and heavy work boots which I immediately started to strip off as fast as I could. I'm dancing around trying to untie my boots, unbuckle my belt to get the pants off and swat the fire ants away, all at the same time. I'm sure that it would have made a very funny YouTube video which thankfully was not around at the time. Final count was about 50-60 stings on each leg from ankle to crotch. I hate those little buggers and exterminate them as soon as I see a mound in the yard.

Jim Smith

[Uncle Jesse]

I don't think there are many native or long term residents males of the SE USA that haven't at some point experienced the fire ant dance. I have never had as many bites as Jim but I remember back about 1980 leaving a closed tire factory in Tupelo to go to lunch. I had a trainee trailing alone, he got a good laugh when I pulled he car over to the side of the road and jumped out and started swatting ants pulling my pants legs up, sock down trying to get them all. If there had been a new crew present I would not have cared. IMHO, fire ants have replaced kudzu as the worse import to the area.

[jimsnarocks]

My Uncle Paul had a saying, "Hotter than a bucket full of red ants." I believe he was experienced.

[Ed_D]

Please accept my commiserations. It reminds me of the day that I discovered that fire ants had made it up to Nashville. It was the same day that I declared war on the wretched beasties.

Regards,
Ed

[PanFisher]

8. Run to the doctor - I'm allergic to those buggers, by now my leg looks like a tree trunk

[melk]

Strangely enough I made their aquitance in way northern Maine. We were in Eastport and stopped to take the dogs out. We drove around this little park area, not seeing the sign. We walked up a little and our Cairn started doing the Mexican hat dance. Two of the other dogs started in. The big dog - nothing. I took 2 of them, raced, well tried, pre hip replacement days, and we jumped down a little incline, jumped into the salt water where I swished them vigorously!
As we drove around the circle, then did we see the sign warning of them!
Mike

[James Smith]

Melk,

I'm really shocked and disappointed to hear that Fire Ants made it all the way to Maine. Are you sure they were Fire Ants. These guys make huge mounds (for ants anyway) routinely the mounds are six inches high and about 12-14 inches in diameter. When you disturb a mound, they swarm out by the thousands to attack whoever or whatever disturbed the mound. We had red ants when I lived in New England, but never Fire Ants. That said, these little stinkers migrate fast and are very hard to stop. I've seen them flooded out by 2-3 feet of water and they simply make a floating island out of thousands of ants and float to dry land to start over. I sure hope that they're not that far North.

Jim Smith