Author Topic: Mayflies  (Read 2935 times)

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Offline Libertas

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Mayflies
« on: July 23, 2014, 02:45:38 PM »
 ::puke::

This year's mayfly hatch in the Mississippi River reached Biblical proportions.
 
The mayfly emergence is an annual event in which mayflies leave the Mississippi River after one or two years of incubation. The flies live for just a few days before they return to the water, lay a new crop of eggs, and die.
 
The La Crosse, Wisconsin branch of the National Weather Service (NWS) reports that the mayflies caused a three-vehicle car crash as they descended over the town. The flies caused a bow echo on the NWS radar, which normally occurs during heavy rains, and proceeded to make a Wisconsin road slick, causing a driver to lose control of her car. Two people were injured in the crash, and one was treated at a local hospital.







http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/265236/speedreads-heres-what-wisconsin-looks-like-covered-in-millions-of-flies

 ::exitstageleft::
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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2014, 03:06:38 PM »
Egads!  Reminds me of when the 13-20 year locusts emerge.
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Offline AlanS

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2014, 05:02:42 PM »
Flyrod, anyone?
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Offline Glock32

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2014, 05:41:54 PM »
Need a colony of bats. Pronto.
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Offline Libertas

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2014, 06:47:09 AM »
Yeah, I like bats, they eat something like 10 times their body weight of bugs!

The good news is most of these larger hatches occur away from my neck of the woods, and for those nearer to it the swarm usually only lasts a few days, but those few days have to be a nice time to take vacation and flee the area!

Can you imagine some out-state visitor passing through and getting caught in this?   ::speechless::

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Offline IronDioPriest

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Offline trapeze

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Re: Check out this MASSIVE Mayfly hatch!!!
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2014, 09:44:15 AM »
I experienced something like that once when I was in college except that it was black crickets. They covered everything in sight and it was impossible to walk without stepping on a dozen of them with each footstep.
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Offline Predator Don

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Re: Check out this MASSIVE Mayfly hatch!!!
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2014, 10:03:15 AM »
If you've ever fished at night with a blacklite....during the mayfly hatch......It can get ugly.
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Offline IronDioPriest

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Re: Check out this MASSIVE Mayfly hatch!!!
« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2014, 10:07:37 AM »
I experienced something like that once when I was in college except that it was black crickets. They covered everything in sight and it was impossible to walk without stepping on a dozen of them with each footstep.

I've experienced mayflies almost that bad, at least in the area I was in. We were night fishing, and when we turned on a light, we were horrified to discover that we were covered everywhere but our faces. Literally hundreds of them on each of us, and every surface of the boat. The weird thing was, they didn't make any noise, and they didn't land on our exposed skin, so we didn't know they were there until we saw them.

I also remember a Junebug swarm when I was a kid. They were so thick in the air, my buddies and I rode around on our bikes with tennis rackets and just swatted them randomly our of the air.
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

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Offline John Florida

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Re: Check out this MASSIVE Mayfly hatch!!!
« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2014, 06:47:17 PM »
  This is every year in Florida. Love bugs and try to get them off your car before they destroy the paint.


INSANE Lovebug Swarm 2
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Offline Libertas

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #11 on: July 27, 2014, 02:38:52 PM »
Nice clip IDP.  We get Junebugs at the lake, those things hurt too when one nails your noodle when driving the cycle. Where I grew up in town we had zillions of salamanders emerge....splat, splat, splat!
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Offline Glock32

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2014, 05:16:27 PM »
The worst bugs I've ever dealt with are on Ocracoke Island, in the NC Outer Banks.  It's the only place I've ever encountered them.  I am not sure what they are, we have always just called them sweat bees.  I think they're actually some type of biting fly though.  They are metallic green, large flies, and they have a painful bite/sting. I think they are attracted to sweat, but getting out of the ocean when the water dries to a salt film, that seems to attract them too.
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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #13 on: July 27, 2014, 07:16:36 PM »
The worst bugs I've ever dealt with are on Ocracoke Island, in the NC Outer Banks.  It's the only place I've ever encountered them.  I am not sure what they are, we have always just called them sweat bees.  I think they're actually some type of biting fly though.  They are metallic green, large flies, and they have a painful bite/sting. I think they are attracted to sweat, but getting out of the ocean when the water dries to a salt film, that seems to attract them too.

When I was a kid my Grandmother had a bungalow on the bay side of the ocean in NJ -- Union Beach/Keyport.  That's just what we used to call those flies -- Green Flies -- and yes, they bit, and they'd hover over the water, buzzing us, trying to bite.  It was a game for us kids, we'd yell "Green Fly" and duck under the water.
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Offline Glock32

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #14 on: July 27, 2014, 08:54:05 PM »
The worst bugs I've ever dealt with are on Ocracoke Island, in the NC Outer Banks.  It's the only place I've ever encountered them.  I am not sure what they are, we have always just called them sweat bees.  I think they're actually some type of biting fly though.  They are metallic green, large flies, and they have a painful bite/sting. I think they are attracted to sweat, but getting out of the ocean when the water dries to a salt film, that seems to attract them too.

When I was a kid my Grandmother had a bungalow on the bay side of the ocean in NJ -- Union Beach/Keyport.  That's just what we used to call those flies -- Green Flies -- and yes, they bit, and they'd hover over the water, buzzing us, trying to bite.  It was a game for us kids, we'd yell "Green Fly" and duck under the water.


Here's the little bastard.  The Greenhead Fly.



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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #15 on: July 27, 2014, 10:03:34 PM »
Yep, that's the little bastid, and that's what the adults called 'em, horseflies.
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Offline Libertas

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #16 on: July 28, 2014, 07:34:49 AM »
We get Horseflies (big black buggers) and Deerflies (brown two-tone jobies half the size of the former but just as voracious) and even regular black flies...and all seem to like their victims wet, but will bite anytime, something about water/sweat attracts them...we have to call my sisters Lab's out of the lake to kill the flies on their snouts...they get so fixated on fish and swiming they are oblivious to the ravaging of the flies...but when tied up in the yard they snip angrily at any buzzing insect.

The bigger the fly the worse the welt too.

We've had so much rain this year the mosquitos get beaten down and their ferocity comes and goes but the flies are always around.

Come to think of it the gnats really haven't been bad this year...must have been beat down by all the rain too.

Hate bugs!
« Last Edit: July 29, 2014, 06:59:21 AM by Libertas »
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Online ToddF

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #17 on: July 28, 2014, 08:04:07 AM »
The worst flies I've ever encountered was north of Winnipeg.  I found out the hard way why civilization literally ends rather abruptly.  I think they thrive in the Boreal forest.

Offline Libertas

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #18 on: July 28, 2014, 08:15:55 AM »
Worse than the Boundary Waters?   ::speechless::

 ::exitstageleft::

What does one have to do to escape insects?  Reach the Arctic Circle?   ::facepalm::
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Offline Glock32

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Re: Mayflies
« Reply #19 on: July 28, 2014, 12:50:15 PM »
We get Horseflies (big black buggers) and Deerflies (brown two-tine jobies half the size of the former but just as voracious) and even regular black flies...and all seem to like their victims wet, but will bite anytime, something about water/sweat attracts them...we have top call my sisters Lab's out of the lake to kill the flies on their snouts...they get so fixated on fish and swiming they are oblivious to the ravaging of the flies...but when tied up in the yard they snip angrily at any buzzing insect.

The bigger the fly the worse the welt too.

We've had so much rain this year the mosquitos get beaten down and their ferocity comes and goes but the flies are always around.

Come to think of it the gnats really haven't been bad this year...must have been beat down by all the rain too.

Hate bugs!


After reading more about the evil Greenhead Fly, evidently there's a type of wasp that specializes in preying on these and other biting horse flies. It's called the Horse Guard Wasp.  I wonder if you could somehow establish them at your lake property.

We have similar wasps all over the place here, the dirt daubers. They attack spiders and stuff their paralyzed bodies into the tubular nests they make out of mud. They have a thing about round holes. In my garage anything that has a round hole in it will get filled with mud in no time. Even the ground plug of power outlets gets filled. Forget leaving any pneumatic tools laying out, they'll have the air plug filled in no time. Recently I had to clean out the vent hole on my jerry can spout because of them. It was crammed full of little spiders the wasps had stashed there.
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