Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Reducing and eliminating those damn flies
Published on June 19, 2007 By Draginol In Wildlife

Image: Deer FlyYou're walking in the woods or a field and there's a damn biting fly buzzing around your head. It keeps trying to land on your head and you know if you let it, you'll feel a painful chomp.  Those flies are almost malicious in the way they'll follow you around as you're walking. They're evil.

These flies are known as deer flies. You've seen them before when you occasionally managed to catch one as its biting you.

It turns out, it's not easy to get rid of them. You can't just put on insect repellent and call it a day.  No, these nasty bugs work by seeing motion. They see you moving and they go for your head.

Around here, they can get pretty nasty to the point where no one wants to walk around. There's not that many of them, but how many hyper-aggressive biting bugs do you need before you don't want to go somewhere. 

While searching the net, I found a product that claims to help. It's basically a sticky pad you put on the top of a baseball cap. You then walk around the area that has a problem and the deer flies get stuck on them when they land to bite. They look ridiculous. But the good news is that if you do it occasionally, you can really cut down on the # of deer flies (there aren't that many of them in a given area).

So what I found was the Deer Fly Defense Patch. And as ridiculous as they looked, they really do work.


After walking around the woods on our property

I just put the patch on my favorite hat. When I'm done, I just remove the patch and toss out the caught flies. I got 10 of them in just a few minutes. After that, I could walk around in relative peace.  My kids had a blast with them as well.

Anyone who has ever felt the painful bite of these nasty flies (often mistakenly called horseflies -- that's what I was calling them before I looked it up) can now know the sweet revenge.  Flies think they're smart but I can now prove to them that I'm twice as smart as they are!


Comments
on Jun 19, 2007
Are they gray where you are? We have a nasty kind of fly here that BITES (not stings, but BITES) that we call horse flies and they look like a regular housefly 'cept they're gray.
on Jun 19, 2007
If it takes walking around with flypaper on your head to stop the greenheads, it's worth it!

You really wouldn't want to get bitten by an actual horsefly though (if you did, you'd know it... they're a lot bigger, around bumblebee size or more).
on Jun 19, 2007
Honestly, I think you should wear that hat around the office when our software is getting too buggy.
on Jun 20, 2007
It looks like it works well. I wonder if they make a strip to put on the head collars of horses as opposed to using sprays?
on Jun 20, 2007

Thats outstanding! We are having the same problem and I am going to try them while I work in our yard.

I wonder how hard it would be to make a product like that with some type of mosquito attractant and catch those biters that way? Hmmmm

on Jun 20, 2007

It does look geeky, but if it works, who cares!

And we have (I think) horse flies around here.  They are the size of a large bumble bee and they bite too!

on Jun 20, 2007
When I was a kid in Ohio we would go camping and deer flies were the worst. My sister, cousin and I would go for hikes and come back to the campsite crying because those stupid deer flies would not leave us alone. They are so persistent. They don't lose interest. I really haven't noticed them here in Texas.
on Jun 20, 2007

I really haven't noticed them here in Texas.

That is cause they break their teeth on armadillos.

on Jun 20, 2007
Ingenious! We have love bugs, equally annoying but they don't bite! They love the smell of the emissions from vehicles so they do love to swarm your vehicles and can be very dangerours when making long trips on the highway. They fly right at the windshield (splat is more like it!) and stopping at a gas station is imperative to wash it off or else it's an accident!
on Jun 20, 2007
That is cause they break their teeth on armadillos.


gotta luv your humor
on Jun 20, 2007
I really haven't noticed them here in Texas.

A Fourth of July barbecue three years ago at Fort Hood, TX, brought an absolute swarm of those things descending on the partygoers. Horrible whizzy things, biting and irritating.