| Flies on the landscape Flies in the air Flies in your whiskers Flies in your hair. Flies up your nostrils Flies down your neck Flies on your eardrums Flies by the peck. 180,000,000 years That's how long female blackflies have been sucking blood from the inhabitants of earth. Patrick Stewart said, "It is an historical fact that sharing the world has never been humanities defining attribute." Well this is not the case when it comes to blackflies. We have no choice but to share the world with them, they outnumber us, and, seeing as there are 300 pounds of insects for every pound of us, they most probably outweigh us. The problem is, blackflies have never learned to live with humanity. No matter how much dope you spread on your skin there's gonna be at least one day in your fishing season when the little buggers drive you off the river.  One time, when I had my bug jacket on, the blackflies were pounding on my head so hard I'd have sworn it was raining. Like a fish in a landing net, I can only take being confined for so long and decided to open my jacket and light the cigar I carried for such occasions. When I flicked the lighter a large flame flared skyward and melted a huge hole in the face of my bug jacket. Knowing that my day was lost, and surrounded by a thundercloud of flies, I left the river (the picture was the end result, and that was just one eye!).Another time, in Rose Blanche, Newfoundland, I made the mistake of stepping out of the truck without my hat. I reckon it only took ten seconds for the blackflies to find me and for my head to feel like it was on fire. The burning sensation was so intense that I could actually visualize flames flickering from my hair. I'm sure you all have horror stories about blackflies but here's a few samples of what other people have written about them. Back in 1859 Louis Agassi wrote, " ... neither the love of the picturesque, nor the interests of science could tempt us into the woods, so terrible were the blackflies. One whom scientific ardour tempted up the river, after water-plants, came back a frightful spectacle, with blood red rings around his eyes, his face bloody and covered with punctures." In an 1894 fishing trip to Norway, William Senior, in his book Lines in Pleasant Places wrote "... , but in the middle of the month there came a close, cloudy day when the flies were exceedingly troublesome, and the only mosquitos that were annoying during our stay came out in full trumpeting for an hour or two." Here's one that any fly-fisherman can relate to. In 1903 Stewart Edward Wright wrote in his book The Forest, that the blackfly " ... holds still to be killed. No frantic slaps, no waving of the arms, no muffled curses. You just place your finger calmly and firmly on the spot. You get him every time. In this is great, heart-lifting joy. It may be unholy joy, perhaps even vengeful, but it leaves the spirit ecstatic. The satisfaction of murdering the beast that has had the nerve to light on you just as you are reeling in almost counterbalances the pain." In 1913, during a halibut trip to the Anticosti fishing grounds, Frederick Wallace set ashore at Sou'west Point. He wrote in his book Roving Fisherman that "The woods abounded in deer and game of all sorts. During the blackfly season, many deer were to be found lying dead on the beach, having fallen over the cliffs in seeking relief from blackflies and mosquitoes." In The Americans are Coming, a fictional novel, Herb Curtis wrote, " ... Dryfly feared getting lost more than anything else in the world. The thought of being alone in the woods to battle the flies horrified him. He even had nightmares about it." In No Man's River Farley Mowat wrote, "The country hereabouts was aquiver with blackflies of a new and virulent breed, and ominously devoid of deer." Giles Blunt wrote in his fictional novel Blackfly Season that ..."The blackfly may be less than a quarter-inch long, but close up it resembles an attack helicoopter, fitted with a sucker at one end and a nasty hook at the other." |
In an essay entitled A Fly-fishing Primer P.J. O'Rourke wrote about fly fishing by stating that ... "Furthermore, it's conducted in the middle of blackfly season. Cast and swat. Cast and swat. Fly fishing may be a sport invented by insects with fly fishermen as bait." In Bernie Howgate's book entitled Around the Rock in a Bad Mood he states that ... "It is said you can hit a blackfly with a baseball bat and it will come back for more. They don't so much bite you, as mug you ... Blackflies don't take prisoners. They eat until they drop." And last of all, but I forget where I read it ... "In the village of Adamant, which holds the undesirable title of being the blackfly capital of Vermont, they cope with the upcoming misery of the blackfly season by holding a blackfly Festival on the first weekend in May. The festival includes a parade of small children dressed up as blackflies, a road race around the blackfly ponds, and a blackfly pie tasting event." Having said all that, blackflies do have one redeeming feature (as far as trout fishing goes anyway). The larvae and dead adults are a source of food for all ages of trout, and for predator aquatic insects such as dragons, damsels and stoneflies. Mind you, research has shown that if black-fly larvae are removed from a river the trout and insects will turn to other food with little or no change to the eco-system. The only other thing blackflies do is pollinate flowers, but I think the birds, bees and butterflies do a better job, and the females of these species do not need my blood to ripen their ovaries and lay their eggs. Thus, we turn to that age-old question as to what are blackflies good for? Before I answer that, it's interesting to note that Albert Bigelow Paine asked the very same question about mosquitoes in his book The Tent Dwellers. The reply he received from one reader was that they were created in order to aid civilization, in that only an idiot would choose to live in the woods. But you know what I think? I think if blackflies were good for anything a rich man would have cornered the market on them and I, being but a poor old fly-fisherman, would never see another one again. One last addition - a verse from the Blackfly Song by Wade Hemsworth ... 'Twas blackfly, blackfly, everywhere A-crawlin' in your whiskers, a-crawlin' in your hair A-swimmin' in the soup and a-swimmin' in the tea The devil take the blackfly and let me be. P.S. I received the following email from Bill: On a guided outing at Keji park one late spring on a trail that followed along a stream we were discussing the blackflies and the best way of getting rid of them. The park interpreter told us that by being a park employee (or anyone in the park for that matter) you were not supposed to wilfully kill any living thing - even beasts such as the blackfly! He then went on to gently wipe the horde of blackflies from his face and they seemed to leave him alone. We were all suffering - waving and swatting frantically without much success when someone said "What is the good of them anyway, why do they have to exist, isn't there someway to get rid of them all?" The Interpreter responded by telling us that if there were no blackflies then one of the best berries would not exist - The beloved Blueberry! We all thought that he was full of it until he explained that at night, the blackfly will settle to the ground and will crawl around throughout the night (I assume for mating purposes). During their night time walking they inadvertently pollinate the blueberry flowers. So for the rest of the tour there were no more complaints about the blackflies - we just walked faster! Well, After I wrote this letter, I searched the web and in a short time I found this: NRC Canada. Shattering the folklore: blackflies do not pollinate sweet lowbush blueberry Looks like the interpreter was just trying to shut us up. |