Here’s a Sweet Hack for Getting Rid of Deer Flies In Your Maine Yard

Horse flies and deer flies are the worst.

Mosquitoes and black flies are undoubtedly annoying, but in some ways they don't even hold a candle to deer flies and horse flies. Where the little guys just kind of swarm around your face and bother you and even occasionally syphon out a few drops of blood, the deer and gorse flies bite right into you.

And they swarm in your face too. I actively fantasize about punching deer flies in the face. Between the swarming and the biting, I feel like they just bully us around our yards. They appear out of nowhere the second you stop moving and practically follow you into the house.

First off, what's the difference between deer flies and horse flies.

Deer flies are the smaller of the two, and are much more aggressive and fast. Horse flies are pretty large in comparison and move quite a bit slower. Although, they're in the same family of flies according to the University of Maine. This is a deer fly...

And though they look extremely similar up close, horse flies are quite a bit bigger. And presumably take a bigger bite out of you too. Either way, it completely sucks to get bitten by one. Check it out...

So what can you do to get rid of them?

For the most part, it's all common sense remedies. Wear hats, light clothing, avoid water... But I saw an ingenious hack on Reddit, where a person took a blue solo cup (blue is one of the important parts) and covered it with flypaper coating. Apparently you buy the sticky stuff in bulk on Amazon.

You coat the blue cup in the sticky stuff, and then just wait for nature to do its thing. Both kinds of flies are attracted to the color blue and flock to the cup. Check out the cup of the person Reddit who posted the remedy...

It's sorta fun watching them stuck.
by u/mainlydank in Maine

At this point in the season, I will try anything that works. Judging by the number of flies on the cup, it seems to do something. The original poster also went on to say that if you keep it up for a bit, you'll all but eliminate them in your yard until the next batch hatches. But hey, one more biting-bug defense in your back pocket can't be a bad thing.

We've all said black flies and mosquitoes should be the state bird...