Posted on 06/23/2008 8:09:46 AM PDT by Phlap
LOL
I dunno about them getting any "worse" over the years. Having lived in Maine both "pre- and post-cleanup", I don't think I ever saw a dime's bit of difference. Except that over the years, I think that maybe they hang around longer. Old timers say they'd usually be gone by early summer, now it's not uncommon to see them in July/August.
Mainers build up a tolerance to them; folks from away are generally miserable.
The last time I went fishing up at Moosehead (late 90s), guy I was with wore a light-colored shirt and I couldn't tell what color it was, they were so bad.
Comical. The law of unintended consequences.
We live in the heart of blackfly country here in our part of Vermont. You just have to get used to it. After a few years, they don’t seem as bad as they did.
In fact, like true Vermonters, we even celebrate them. This here is from the next town over:
http://www.blackflyfestival.org/
In my experience, they’re not truly “cyclical” as with cicadas and locusts, for example. They do respond to weather conditions, however. More rain during the spring and/or snow cover during the winter = more black flies. That’s certainly the case this year - we had snow on the ground continuously from December 1st until about April 10th. They also tend to disappear as soon as the temperature gets above 90 degrees for the first time.
There is another fly here in South Jersey that I am really allergic too. It has yellowish color wings. When one of those b@st@rds bite me I swell up like a balloon.
I have a bottle of it in my closet from the last time I visited. It stinks, but I'll take it over getting eaten up every day of the week.
I remember in the 1950's when they use to come around and spray DDT with this huge truck.
They would let the neighborhood know ahead of time so parents could get the laundry off the lines, and close the windows of the house.
The kids in the neighborhood had a whole different view of the whole thing.
I remember lots of kids on bikes would follow behind the truck in the cloud of DDT.
Gradually my visits to the West Branch region have move later in the year to avoid the slaps, curses and scolding from my fishing partner and wife of way more than forty years. The maxim “IF MOMMA AIN’T HAPPY, AIN’T NOBODY HAPPY” is the reason. Look Mainer do-gooders the longet I have to wait befor I get to come down east, the more of my filthy lucre you pass up.
OBTW, down here in the GSMNP and nearby environs we use to be plagued by a nearly microscopic G-gnat called a “no-seeum”. For some reason they are now extinct in our area. Must have been the acid rain caused by the “gummit power plants” (TVA) down past Knoxville. Every cloud has a silver lining if you look hard enough.
See ya in mid-July at the North Woods Trading Post.
Caddis
...so the environmentalist attempt to preserve the environment is actually altering it. Got it....
I hope you heard about the recall on that stuff.
So do I - and mosquitoes eat me alive. It ain’t the thiamin.
There were guys who fell into vats of DDT in the 50s who are still walking around, one guy who used to eat the stuff to demonstrate its safety to humans, and everybody who survived the nazi death camps was sprayed with the stuff to get rid of lice and other parasites; none of them died from DDT exposure. A friend of mine studied under Heinz Meng himself and tells me that Meng described the entire case against DDT as BS and claimed it had no effect on any kind of birds or their eggs. Everything we’ve ever been told about DDT is BS. DDT is a legitimate candidate for greatest thing the white man ever invented and it would solve the black fly problem in a single day.
That case was challenged many times and now that DDT has been banned, a field test or even a lab test is out of the question.
Suffice it to say that one man’s poison...
Perfect example of how sick these enviro-whackos are...
No See’ums are also know as “flying teeth”.
As I noted, the best expert on falconry we've ever had is on record to the effect of calling that claim a bunch of BS.
A very reasonable idea, and one used for mosquitoes, is to breed and release a cloud of dragonflies.
Dragonflies are voracious predators of other insects and will clear an area very quickly. They also make a very quiet clicking sound that other insects are terrified of.
In Canada, they tried this in a park infested with mosquitoes, just before a major outdoor concert. In just a few days, the mosquitoes were completely gone.
The only thing to figure out is how many dragonflies per acre you need.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.