Deer Fly Trap attachment

[PILOON]

Lee Valley sold patches that you attached to top of your cap, usually after a half hour or so you'd find about a dozen stuck there.
For some reason a deer fly (horse fly) zeros in and circles your head first.
Dark attracts them as seems does heat, so wear light colors.
We also notice that perfumes and scented soaps attract.
We also tried duck tape, sticky side out, and it works to a fashion.

Here a deer fly is stripped wing yellow/black while a horse fly is bigger with dk grey or black wings.
No see-ums are tiny (sand fly) but really nip you good.

And if you really need to work outdoors in bug season a smoky smudge pot smoldering upwind works wonders. Sometimes 2 are needed if the breeze is shifting.
Mine usually consist of a gallon paint can holed about the bottom filled with smoldering dry grass and or ceder bark, a mix of dry and green works as does also sawdust.

 

[deezler]

Yep, this absolutely works, and in my experience, is the ONLY thing that works.

Last year I found out the hard way. After getting repeatedly chased off my land by angry hoards of head-biting, blood-drawing deer flies, I hit the interwebz and found this "blue cup" strategy.

First I make up my cup hat, and coat the cup with tanglefoot.

After just a couple hours, on the worst of days, the hat can catch 80+ flies while I get only one or two bites. Without the hat, I would probably be found dead in the woods of blood loss and fly saliva poisoning. Seriously.

Last year the fly season was two months long, from Early June to Early August. But the spring last year was freaky warm and dry.

This year, I haven't seen but a couple yet. But I know they are coming.

 

[J F]

Holy crapola! Thanks for the pics. :thumbsup:

 

[deezler]

No problemo. By the way, a major source of inspiration for me last year was this lady's blog. Check it out:

Trapping Deer Flies in Livingston County, Michigan

 

[J F]

Gracias... :laughing: I like the "front page" already.

 

[J F]

No problemo. By the way, a major source of inspiration for me last year was this lady's blog. Check it out:

Trapping Deer Flies in Livingston County, Michigan

This is some good stuff (I'm only on the first part), I think it's probably the first "blog" I've ever read, but this woman has done a very good job, so again, thanks for passing it along.

 

[Dozernut]

Sorry, just a lack of knowledge (or ignorance on my part). Did a little research and the Moose fly seems like a nightmare. The Moose flies are about the size of the common house fly from what I was able to find out. The swarms would make life miserable on animals and humans.

The Horse fly we have here is about an inch long and feeds on blood. When one of them bite you you will take notice. The only good thing about them is they are not in swarms like the Moose fly.

 

[compact]

I like the blue cup idea.

For deer flies and esp. black flies, a plastic hardhat coated in axle grease works well. Looks like fuzz after a couple hours in the woods at peak black fly season in Maine, which is about now. Wipe off and re-coat when totally covered. Sounds a bit extreme but when they're so bad it's hard to breathe a fella can be forced to extreme measures.

JF- just read the umbrella blog - positively geneius.

 

[Squeak n Itch]

Gives expanded meaning to "GO BLUE".

 

[deezler]

This is some good stuff (I'm only on the first part), I think it's probably the first "blog" I've ever read, but this woman has done a very good job, so again, thanks for passing it along.

Can you believe she had the patience to count to as many as 676 flies for just one day's catch? I think I would have just called it a $h!t-load and moved on, haha.

 

[J F]

:laughing: Yeah, she took a lot of time. Thank goodness she had the patience, I definitely would not.