Japanese beetles

The trap we use is made by Spectracide and its called Bag a Bug. About $5 from Home Depot.

I have heard that there is nothing an individual can do, it has to be a community effort, spaying the ground with a substance called "milky spore". I did however have a plumb tree that would be destroyed every year by them. I cut it down and it seemed to help. There for a few years we were also over run with 'em but they seem to be diminishing. Not to many this year or last. Maybe they are nomadic. I have impaled them on a hook with success, but not with any consistancy.

fishinRod

don't know about using them for panfish, but when they infest trees overhanging a trout stream I can sure clean up on the browns and rainbows using one of their imitations. Come to think of it, it's about that time of year......

..since one river in the area has browns.

On the issue of beetle traps, we had trouble with critters ripping open the bags to get to the rotting bugs (I'm guessing 'coons that thought it was meat) so I switched to a bucket half-filled with water and a little soap The beetles fall right in, and I just dumped the mess in the cornfield every day or two. We use one of those short wrought iron shepherd's hooks made for hanging flower pots for our trap. - Roberta

I caught a nice 18 inch brown trout a few summers back that was gorging on japanese beetles. I have caught countless bluegills that were full of them. I think the idea of putting traps that cause the beetles to fall into the water is ingenious. If I had a pond I wouldn't hesitate to rig up some of these traps to help make the beetles more available to the fish. I remember we had problems with beetles in this part of NC when I was a kid, but they haven't been that much of a nuisance in the past few years. (now the fire ants and yellow jackets, that's a different story)