Black Fly Season

Yep I reckon this topic will be discussed every spring just like the first snowfalls bring discussion. I'm just grateful that we don't have fire ants. Black flies, no see-ums, skeeters, deer flies, horseflies are a blessing. They keep the numbers of folks out and about in the woods to a minimum. More importantly it gives me a good excuse to have a cigar when I get to the end of my patience with the little suckers. More importantly it also means mayflies and caddis hatches and rising trout. Bring on the bugs!!

there were some bgi mf'in skeeters at barnes last weekend

Not yet

I spent from 8 to 3 today bushwhacking around the base of Moose Mountain near Hanover, NH as part of my AT boundary monitoring task. No Blackflies yet, but several Ticks. I usually don't encounter them up hear in the Whites until Mothers' Day. However they seem to be coming more quickly as the "climate warms". Of course the climate isn't warming, New England has somehow slipped south

Well, I was in the High Peaks area yesterday, and there wasn't a bug in the air. (Or a cloud in the sky, or a flake of snow on the ground, or a leaf on a tree...one of those "glory days!")

On the "banana thread," someone mentioned Sawyer's Broad Spectrum repellent. It has an additional repellent ingredient they call "R-326," which supposedly repels flies.

This is one of the first products I've heard of that uses a man made chemical other than DEET as a repellent. To date, the choices have been natural products like citronella (which are minimally effective); DEET; or DEET plus an insecticide, like permethrin.

Does anyone have any links to information on the safety or effectiveness of "R-326?" Specifically, the safety of skin vs. clothing application, effects on gear, and the specific effectiveness against deer flies?

TCD

TCD said:

Does anyone have any links to information on the safety or effectiveness of "R-326?" Specifically, the safety of skin vs. clothing application, effects on gear, and the specific effectiveness against deer flies?
TCD

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The closest ones I found after a quick search and where I didn't have to subscribe were here and here. Hope it helps.

lumberzac said:

I agree. Deerflies are by far the worst. DEET does nothing but add a little seasoning to their meal.

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Last year I found some "Duck Tape" looking strips that attracted Deerflies. I worked real well, I had a dozen stuck to it in less then a 1/2 mile.
I have a package around here SOMEWHERE. I'll find and post the name.

from Down East Magazine

Buzzing for Bucks
In Machias, blackflies have become a natural resource.

It was a Jon Stewart moment. Or maybe a John Belushi. Last summer the Maine Blackfly Breeders Association, a Machias-based charity that admires all things blackfly with tongue firmly in cheek, received a letter from an Arizona laboratory asking for blackflies. Lots of blackflies. Dead, dry blackflies. For which it was willing to pay money.

It seems the lab thought the breeders association was actually in the insect cultivation business. "This is not an opportunity we can pass up, right?" offers Holly Garner-Jackson, a longtime member of the Down East group. "We first wrote back a very funny letter saying that we don't normally condone the killing of innocent blackflies, but since this was for scientific research . . . well, we want money, lots of money."

Spectrum Labs, Inc., found itself not quite sure how to take its new Maine blackfly supplier, but it was happy enough with the results that it wants more this year. So the association is lining up members and local residents who own bug zappers to collect the several ounces of blackflies Spectrum Labs uses in veterinary research on animal sensitivity to the little bug's bite.

Garner-Jackson says last year's request came too late in the season for the group to collect the full hundred grams the lab originally requested. ("Do you know how many blackflies that is? A lot!" marvels Garner-Jackson.) For one thing, the zappers were overwhelmed by mosquitoes that had to be hand-sorted from the smattering of blackflies. Still, the insects they did send were enough to earn the group a hundred dollars, "and we told them we'd definitely do it again this year," Garner-Jackson says. The money was part of the more than $6,000 the blackfly breeders raised and donated to local charities and AIDS research efforts last year.

Garner-Jackson quips that the association will have to expand its breeding stables to provide enough blackflies for the project. Or maybe the bid for sponsorship from the makers of the Mosquito Magnet will pan out. Until then, she says, "May the swarm be with you."

Only in Maine could someone make blackflies a sustainably harvested natural resource.

sweeper said:

Last year I found some "Duck Tape" looking strips that attracted Deerflies. I worked real well, I had a dozen stuck to it in less then a 1/2 mile.
I have a package around here SOMEWHERE. I'll find and post the name.

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yep, take some of those strips and pin'em to your hat, works like a charm.

No flies yet in the White Mountains. I've been antler hunting on weekends ( 7 in three hikes! ) and I was in the forest near Mt. Passaconaway yesterday.

BTW, the maple buds are well out and even the beech are heavily budded now. There is a subtle autumn-like color to the landscape. Late April is one of my favorite hiking mini-seasons!

Happy Trails!

Was off of the Sandwich notch road yesterday and no black flies yet!

well, that's why they make bug nets...

i was kyaking in the adirondacks yesterday and there wasn't a blackfly in sight on a great cloudless day - - - usually they are biting bad in the valleys by memorial day and finish biting on the high peaks by mid july.

ken said:

well, that's why they make bug nets...

i was kyaking in the adirondacks yesterday and there wasn't a blackfly in sight on a great cloudless day - - - usually they are biting bad in the valleys by memorial day and finish biting on the high peaks by mid july.

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But they're much earlier than usual, farther south (Capital District), leading some to believe they will be earlier in the Adirondacks this year. That may or may not hold true.

rhihn said:

But they're much earlier than usual, farther south (Capital District), leading some to believe they will be earlier in the Adirondacks this year. That may or may not hold true.

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i haven't ever had black flies at my place in schoharie county (right near you) but i do get these stupid things that swarm around my head all the time without biting, sometimes they get in your eyes (and they are black) - - - the black flies that bite i have found in the northcountry between late may and mid july (catskills only up high) - sometimes you think you have sweat running down your face, then when you wipe it's really blood from the bite...

(Thanks for the links, rhihn!)

We were out cutting down trees at a friend's house in Peru, NY Saturday and the black flies were out swarming, but not biting. Trust me, they love the taste of my blood, so if they were biting, I'd be the first to know...

Anyhow, with the cold and wind that rolled in yesterday in the North Country, I'm sure their threat has been delayed, for just a little longer.

giggy said:

there were some bgi mf'in skeeters at barnes last weekend

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Yeah there were! Those suckers were huge, and they were biting. As for black flies, none here in southern Maine yet that I've encountered. I don't even recall really getting bit by them much last year. They normally turn my legs into pizza.

Central Adirondack Update 4/30/06

The "swarmer" BF's were out in pretty good force all day in the Central ADK/Indian Lake region all the way to about 2800-3000'. Granted, it was warm and sunny (high 60s), but we found them on Pillsbury (south of Indian Lake) and Gore (east of Indian Lake) on Sunday (4/30).

Just the swarmers right now, but we're probably only about a week or two before the "biters" come out in force. I can't say for sure, but I think this year is gonna be a bad one.

The nights are still cold in the mountains.Last nightt was 31 degrees.Maybe that's why I only saw one blackfly and that was on Friday.
I agree that winter has the big advantage of not dealing with bugs and bug spray.

There were many flies on Graham and Balsam Lake Mts. today in the Catskills. Fortunately not biting ones, and the breeze kept them away much of the time.

Took a bike ride through the eastern Ontario farmlands yesterday. Lots of little bugs flying around... looked like blackflies, but didn't taste like them. They weren't biting.