Darn Horseflies

Before I decided to get rid of the OWB I went downback this spring and knocked down 15-18 maple trees , not big ones, but enough for a good start. Someone mentioned I should sell wood if I like cutting it so much to pay for my coal. Yesterday I figured i'd do just that and get those trees up. Haying is done and safe in the barn, so out I go on the four wheeler Man what a surprise, between the deer flies and horseflies they ran me slap out of the woods at a dead run. Normally they bug me until the saw starts, but didnt work that way this year. I always liked cutting wood when it was cool out and think Im gonna stick to that too.

Put more oil in that gas mix---10-40 kinda like fogging em --it works

Deer flies aim for the head and blue is the best color to attract them. I made up a hat with a blue plastic mixing bowl over a baseball cap. The mixing bowl surface is covered with sticky such as used in fly paper or the type used to put a bug barrier on trees. Using this you will clean out the deer flies in short order. I haven't had any now in years, where they used to be a real pest.

Horse flies I don't know.

deerflies sure do target the head, they whack like kamakazee bombers! I waswearing a red n black cap with fly spray on it, thinkI'llpuss on the bowl, may run moreoil in gas mixture lol, it'll be cooler soon enough. they'll be gone, but sticky paper I just may try

First pic is plain brown paper around crown of straw hat and covered with fly paper.

Second pic is mixing bowl on cap. Velcro inside to hold it to cap. both worked very well.

freetown fred wrote:Put more oil in that gas mix---10-40 kinda like fogging em --it works

It may work for the fly's but it sure won't be good for the saw, more oil leans out the mix.

well dip me in butter milk! there is something you just don't see everyday. a sticky bowl hat- you weren't kidding.

The flies were a nuisance every summer. In 2006 I tried the fly paper on the straw hat over brown paper and the first time I rode around the lawn on the tractor I caught about 20 of them. The pictures are from 2007 and I have not had any since.

I've been running a Stihl 045 for 20 yrs & never mixed the gas with anything but tranny fluid or 10W30--starts on one pull every time--I suspect the 2 cycle oil people wouldn't like me

grumpy wrote:

freetown fred wrote:Put more oil in that gas mix---10-40 kinda like fogging em --it works

It may work for the fly's but it sure won't be good for the saw, more oil leans out the mix.

Fred,
maybe they don't have the luxury of running a Stihl?

And my Jonsered & Poulan--& weed whacker--woops, that's a Stihl too-- just sayin

Oddly enough (knock on wood) the horseflies haven't been too bad this year, maybe because the neighbor now has about 20 horses at the new barn they are preoccupied. Then maybe having all the wasps, snakes, salamanders & such they take enough out, whatever I've not been missing them.

Franco,

if you stick a coulple of somethings on that hat that look like big ole ears youll triple your kill. when ever I go through the woods in my truck,windows down, the deerflies follow my mirrors in flocks. No kidding. They don't even bother my arm in the open window. Im betting that if you taped a couple of stickey toilet paper rolls on the side of the helmet and please post a pic of you wearing the darn thing

Damn wl, I want to see a pix of them thar ears of yours!