How to catch a fly.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Living out in the sticks in rural Australia, over time one tends to get used to the local wildlife. Eardrum-rupturing cockatoos, stooping magpies with beaks that crack skulls wide open, man-eating spiders and snakes that just have to look at you to kill you are all daily encounters 'round here. Provided you treat these critters with respect (except the cockatoos, nobody respects the cockies, but anyway…) they tend to leave you be as well.

Now the hot weather is upon us, a previously hibernating creature has emerged from dungheaps and stinky billabongs across the countryside. The flies are back.

Much as I understand that flies are an integral part of our ecosystem, frogs love 'em and that they personally mean me no harm, I hate the fuckers with a passion only matched by my loathing of Right-Wingers and Chihuahua dogs.

Sitting outside to relax on my verandah has become more of an exercise in exercising. I’m sure the neighbours think I’m a semaphore-signaller on crack, wot with my manic arm-waving routine to remove the little bastards from my eyes, up my nose and on every damned sweatgland of my body. And of course, for every one you swat away, fifteen more of the shitheads dive bomb to take their place.

So I made some fly-traps. Got me some empty lemonade bottles, sliced the top-halves off and inverted them with some lovely rancid offcuts of meat in two, and some honey in the others (going with the old saying…catch more flies with honey than vinegar etc). Placed the contraptions in strategic places around the verandah, and sat back waiting for the tiny terrorists to do their jihad jitterbugging around the baits.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited some more, but the flies 'round here must be smarter than your average fly because by the end of two days, not one of them had shown even a passing interest in becoming dead.

So this morning I decided to remove the now VERY smelly meat-traps, and sat on my patio chair with coffee to ponder the possibilites for Plan B, not that I had a clue what this might be. Small tactical nuke perhaps, or aerial spraying with DDT came to mind, but the fact I can’t pilot a plane plus of course the cost-factor ruled them out. Swatting away a few hundred more flies, in desperation I headed inside to get a can of Mortein.

And whaddya know?

I got three flies…in my coffee cup…drowning or suffering a caffeine overdose, couldn’t quite tell from their demeanour really. All fly-faces look the same to me.

So now I know how to catch a fly. Leave your coffee unattended and you’re guaranteed to reduce the population.

:smiley:

2

Maybe you should just get one of these.

:smiley:

d&r

3

Did the flies get buzzed from the caffeine?

also d&r

4

Let me tell you Mr Johnny LA, those things don’t work against our Aussie flies. Yes, in my pathetic youth I did have one of those daggy hats. Useless as tits on a bull.

:smiley:

5

::groan::

:stuck_out_tongue:

6

Try using Vegemite in your fly trap instead of honey or meat - it used to work well for us!

7

Thanks for the tip Dottygumdrop. I have done as you suggested, and am waiting patiently for the results!

BTW, where in this great south land is Sand Central?

8

I would laugh…but for having lived for a couple of years in south Louisiana, where I was thrilled to hear the poison-spraying mosquito truck coming down the block because that meant at least a few of the little fuckers would die! Die, fuckers, die! Yes, not flies, but I am a mosquito magnet. Little buggers think I’m tasty as hell. Bring on the DDT, I say.

I have had a total of one fly bugging me in my office for the past three days (yes, I work weekends, at least right now). Today I finally smashed it. I reduced a coworker to giggling like crazy because I was whacking my chair with a three-ring binder while saying triumphantly, “GOTCHA! DIE, FLY! I TOLD YOU I’D GET YOU!” But I managed to get the fly. It died fast. I don’t want them to suffer, I just want them dead, ya know?

Our flies here are nothing, I am sure, compared to Aussie flies. I can confirm that tomorrow with my Aussie coworker. But god damn flies are annoying, wherever they are! As are mosquitoes. And other insects, I’m sure.

9

Myself, I reach out and snatch them in midair with my chopsticks.

10

You’ll catch more flies with bread than you will with meat.

You have the idea right. Form a funnel towards the food (large enough that flies can walk through), but flies are drawn towards yeast. Bread, beer, cantaloupe will all work fine. Meat only works after a few days. They walk through the funnel and can’t fly out! (Served them right.)

11

Small boys of my acquaintance used to catch flies with their hands. I hear. Not that I would have done this myself of course. Much.

The trick was not to smack down on the resting fly but to swipe horizontally about 2 inches above the resting fly (like you were making a tennis shot with your hand), closing your hand just as you come over the fly, preferably approaching the fly from behind. The theory being that when flies see something coming for them they jump hard and high and slightly back, and if you anticipate this they virtually jump into your hand.

Before you catch the fly, you get a hair from you head (What? I *had *hair back then) and you tie a noose in it. After you catch the fly you very very slowly open your hand. If you are lucky the fly will emerge head first, which gives you the opportunity to slip the hair noose over its head, and tighten same. You then keep hold of the other end of the hair and let go of the fly, which buzzes around on the end of the hair in small circles. This is called fun, if you are a wanton boy.

If you or your sister or your mother should happen to have long hair (Hi, Mum) you can find long hairs of hers (bathroom is a good place to start) and you can make a noose in a very long hair. You can experiment with how long a hair can be before it is too heavy for a fly to still be able to fly when tethered by it. I seem to recall that the record was about a foot. Seeing a fly flying slowly around at the end of a foot long hair tether is really, *really *cool, if you are about 12 and male.

They seem to like coffee. I have come back to a cup of coffee and taken a sip only to spit out a fly three times in the last year.

12

Flies. One of the very few things I don’t miss about Australia.

Depending on the season and the place, there were often times that you just had to give up and let them crawl all over your face because the alternative was to spend the day saluting. Not very pleasant.

13

Making a noose out of a strand of human hair would always be beyond my limited attention span… I don’t suppose you can buy them ready made from anywhere?

14

Seriously, though, I read once that flies go slightly backward when upon taking off. After reading that, I started aimimg at a spot just behind the little bugger when swatting, and sure enough my hit ratio improved.

15

Way I heard it, you stay just above and behind the little fuck and you’re in his blind spot - one of the few places his umpteen thousand little optic facets can’t register light fluctuations.