Midgies

[Allan Crawford]

Full body cover, hat and net. Repellants help but aren't enough protection !

[Pearly Invicta]

I find that running about as fast as you can whilst madly thrashing your arms around your head and swearing at the top of your voice keeps them off- but it's hard to sustain for long periods and makes fishing very difficult.

[IrishFloatTube]

Jacket settings as for heavy rain ... collar buttoned up to neck, and velcro wrist straps tightish.

They home in on dark colours so take the polaroids off to stop bringing them specially towards your eyes. That makes your hair/head the next most attractive target. So I always have my hat on to keep the buggers out of my hair.

Independent field tests have proven everything else is basically no good unless for under 30 minutes.
See here:
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/128/11/931
and here:
http://www.buckeyeflyfishers.com/articles/insect_repellents.htm

So at this stage I have boiled it all down to either Jungle Formula 75% DEET or Bens 100 Safari Strength 95% DEET repellant on face, hands, ears.
I would never, ever use a repellant with less than 35% DEET.  The strength is not a problem as it is only going on a small skin area due to the jacket being closed up. The research is clear enough on the safety of this.
I tried to summarise my feelings about putting up with the little biting b@st@rd5 over here in Ireland here: Moorland fishing with midges, horsefly-clegs and mosquitoes .

With 95% DEET midges will hover looking for a safe landing place, but not be able to land. So you can ignore them. During an evening a few will get you at the sweatline on your forehead where hat meets skin, but it's tolerable. When it's sunny the clegs will land but not able to stop still and bite, they move about uncomfortably and you feel the tickle and can brush them off. On a recent Cork Blackwater trip we had the most horse flies I have ever seen in my life around us. About 25 resting on our jacket or bag, and 10 - 15 constantly in flight trying to get onto skin. We didn't get bitten once. So despite being drenched with sweat from the jacket being buttoned up, it works.

Norm

[kisker]

Garlic, the minced up stuff you get in jars fae the supermarket , but the pit fall is you stink to high heaven for a week.