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ughhhh going with brother and my girlfriend, I guess one week won't fix things. I always found late june to be the worst but I guess all the rain has changed things.
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Come ooooonnnnnnn dry spell.....
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My daughter and I just returned from three nights out of #3 and the Tim River campsite, you know the first one past the portage from Queer Lake, is 24 hours mosquitoes. Yes, it's in a marsh and the Moose are all over it, which is why we were there 
. Our other tow nights were by the narrows in Queer Lake leading to the Tim Portage and Little Trout. The mosquitoes only got bad at sunset.
There were flies that assailed my ankles in the canoe, dang it, they looked like houseflies but yoiks what a sting!
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Sounds like stable flies. I encountered them for the first time last year in Killarney, and again this year. Not the most pleasant flies to have around, although I didn't find their bite to welt. I never recall encountering them on earlier trips though, not sure what the story is.
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Just finished a North Tea/Biggar/Three Mile/Manitou Loop. Flies weren't terrible, except on North Tea's West Arm. The mosquitoes were brutal everywhere. And they lingered basically all day every day.
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nvm wrote:
Sounds like stable flies. I encountered them for the first time last year in Killarney, and again this year. Not the most pleasant flies to have around, although I didn't find their bite to welt. I never recall encountering them on earlier trips though, not sure what the story is.
Quite true! The bites didn't welt but darn it they hurt when they bit!
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Sounds like stable flies. I encountered them for the first time last year in Killarney, and again this year. Not the most pleasant flies to have around, although I didn't find their bite to welt. I never recall encountering them on earlier trips though, not sure what the story is.
Quite true! The bites didn't welt but darn it they hurt when they bit!
I had the same situation on Clydegale the other week. All marshy, lots of moose, tons of mosquitos, and damn those flies sting when they land on you! You're right they look just like houseflies. I had about 10 in my canoe, and no matter how far from shore I paddled, they just lingered around and I couldn't get rid of them. Very annoying.
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There were flies that assailed my ankles in the canoe, dang it, they looked like houseflies but yoiks what a sting!
Yep, them be stable flies. They look like house flies - just a little smaller - and go for the legs and ankles. First it's the black flies, then the mosquitoes, then stable flies when the temps reach the high 20's. DEET deters them somewhat but the best protection is to cover up. They can, however, pierce thin clothing. My wife has developed cellulitis numerous times from their bites and we had to cut trips short twice as a result.
You can distinguish them from deer flies by their size: deer flies are a little bigger than a housefly rather than smaller and they prefer attacking you around the head and neck. They also seem to be attracted to swimmers. They hurt even more.
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Ouch! Cellulitis! That's terrible! Thanks for your insight!
Last edited by Stewthebassman (8/12/2017 2:25 pm)
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Was on the western uplands on the long weekend. We did the whole loop over four days. We were to out of shape to do this hike but we survived. I was expecting more people on the trail and in campsites. The bugs weren't as bad as I've experienced in June but the trail is pretty wet and muddy all over. Mosquitos were real bad the last two days but I think that was primarily because I was so tired.
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Just returned from Rain-Islet-Rain 4-day trip. Had a peninsula campsite on Islet opposite the island campsite. Mosquitoes were pretty abundant, but didn't chase us out by any stretch. While they were present a LOT, they were only really active early morning and evening. A little deet, long pants, and preventive measures around the thunderbox go a long way. The bigger pest were some super-bold mice. On Rain, we had the eastern island campsite. I think I saw one mosquito. What little wind there was came toward us off the lake, so that helped of course, but even when the air was still in the evening we had no ear buzzers at all.
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We just returned from a week on North Tea. Some portages seemed free of mosquitos, but sites covered with hemlock and cedar had hordes of biting mosquitos anytime of day. Deer flies were bothersome when it was not windy, and were still biting.
Some of the more inland portages North tea - Lorne was buggy, lots of bites.
Lorne - Sisco very very muddy, ankle deep in places and no way around it, stretch through boulders section we got attacked by hordes of mosquitos.
Sisco- lost dog-north tea was a drier portage but deer flies galore.
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Just back from Pardee - bugs were on and off, mostly on. Definitely way worse than they regularly are this time of year.
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I'll add to this, just back from a trip up from Canoe Lake to Cedar and then around Cedar for a few days. Bugs were out everywhere but on Carl Wilson last night. They were particularly spectacular on the Unicorn Hill portage on the Petawawa.
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...preventive measures around the thunderbox go a long way.
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Funny. I was in the Cedar area a little over a week ago, and Unicorn Hill was quite a bit better bug wise than when I was between Burntroot and Erables. More recently I was at Opalescent and Cork and the bugs were only a major nuisance on the portages.
