I have a trip planned in a few weeks which takes me to north-central PA. The last two years we encountered a gazillion small tachinid flies which were released by some government agency genius to control the gypsy moth population. I don’t know if they are doing their intended job but they can drive PEOPLE nuts!! They are true flies, members of the order Diptera and look exactly like small house flies with red eyes.
When fishing they land on your arms, hands, face EVERYWHERE, 20-30-40 at a time. I feel like a cow shooing and shaking them off of me all day, it is quite annoying even though they don’t bite. I do treat my fishing shirt & hat with Sawyer Permethrin repellent that works wonders with ticks & other blood suckers, but it doesn’t do a thing to repel the tachinid flies. Neither does a dryer sheet. I haven’t tried any DEET preparations yet, maybe because I always wonder about it damaging stuff.
Does anybody know of any safe repellents that might work against these critters. I hear cloves are supposed to repel house flies. Maybe I should stick one in each ear?
Bamb - Forget Deet. Didn’t faze those things. Tom up at Slate Run Tackle said that there were hardly any people biking on the rail trail because the flies were so bad.
Those things were horrendous! I’m bringing a head net, and long sleeve tropical fishing shirts (again). It wasn’t uncommon to have a half dozen flies on the back of each hand. Yuck!
Did you notice that they weren’t out all day long? Mid day was the worst. There was no relief, even when standing in the middle of Big Pine - nowhere near land.
Next thing, they’ll be planting Venus fly traps, and stocking frogs.
I was afraid you’d chime in with encouragement like that!
I was on the upper-upper reaches of Kettle one day with sleeves DOWN and there were at least 50 on my arms & hands! Then one afternoon at Cross Fork, the back of my shirt was covered until a downpour provided relief; once the rain stopped, the flies were back!
Oh yea, cigars didn’t do squat either as I’m sure you discovered with the pipe! I was considering bringing a cow with me this year, figuring they would be more attracted to her than me. Even though that would save me the hassle of bringing cream for the coffee, I can’t fit her in the car with all of my fishing stuff. Even the ever present toads don’t seem to make a dent in the population of those @!$%# flies. Maybe a couple of pet swallows is the answer!!
What is interesting is, this fly seems to me to be a recent plague yet the story told by DCNR is they stopped the program years ago. Either someone is lying or the flies have multiplied like crazy in the last 3-4 years. Did you noticed the giant purple fly traps hanging from the trees?
More good news - the geniuses in charge are now considering releasing wasps to control the stink bug population!
Hmmm. I was thinking of using a technique from out of the Wild West.
I was gonna build a little hangman’s gallows for on top of my hat, and string up one of those flies on 8X tippet - you know, make an EXAMPLE out of him!
Not to worry. All those Marcellus Shale fracking fluid spills will kill 'em off in a few years.
Yep as Ed said DEET does nothing to them. On the “PA Fish-In” last year we were lucky enough to be there right after they released all them SOB’s and I was slathered up in 100% DEET to the point of having birds falling out of trees within a 100ft radius of me and yet the flies still swarmed me! Those things were driving me nuts last year on that trip, I almost slapped myself silly tryin to kill them.
I looked at the web(as I am sure you did) what I found is that they are attracted to flowers and plants with smell, if I were having this problem I would wash my clothing two or three times in fragrance free,(not unscented) cloths detergent. I would then dry them on the line as fabric softener sheet smell is in the dryer and it takes weeks to get rid of it. (my wife gets migraines from perfumes especially the fabric softener sheets) I would wear drab colors so I didn’t look like a flower, I would use fragrance free deodorant, shampoo and anything else that might cause them to assume I was a flower. I would stay away from anything scented, candles, air freshener, little trees hanging in cars. I would make sure not to use citronella or paritherine as they are both plant products and may be an attractant. When I arrived the first day I would rub garlic on something I could take off like a cheap cotton glove and see if they were attracted by it or repelled by it, when I had it on. i would also kill 10 or 15 of the flies and rub it on something else and see if that repelled them. If the garlic worked I would rub it on my fishing vest and start eating it like crazy next year two weeks before I went fishing, If the dead bugs worked I would gather as many of them as I could and I would put them in an old blender with a cup or so of alcohol, i would then blend them up put then through a coffee filter and use the liquid to spray down my clothing as often as I needed to keep them off.
Sorry I have not experience with these particular insects just a little biology to work from.
I found a great site which explains how repellents work. http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Mosquito-Repellent.html I can understand why the don’t work on the flies, as the flies aren’t trying to bite they aren’t actively landing on you because your a red blooded animal, its more your a convenient rest stop. with the perfumes etc they ad as masking fragrance to the deet etc. the repellents might be more of an attractant than a repellent.
Hi Deanna!
Yes, Ultrathon is what I started with. No effect whatsoever. I even went so far as to use 100% deet, to the point that the smell was making me woozy. Didn’t work.
As Eric stated, they don’t bite - it’s just the psycholigical reaction to having flies crawling on your skin. Hence my solution - no exposed skin. I have a “bug suit” that I use for early archery season. It’s a soft type of mesh that allows air to circulate, but bugs can’t touch you. It’ll make lighting my pipe an adventure!
H.A.
Here’s a shot of Croatalus - notice his “friends”.
FWIW - I went ahead and ordered some of these just for $#!+$ and giggles. The worst case I am out $8 and I catch a bat; best case they help a bit which is better than nothing.
