32 Replies to “The Science Of Fly Swatting”

  1. “It is best not to swat the fly’s starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter,” he says.

    Deflection shooting, as any good fighter pilot (or upland bird hunter) knows.

  3. Hold can of compressed gas duster upside down with the nozzle above the fly, squeeze the trigger gently until a drop forms and falls off -> drop hits the fly and evaporates -> instantly frozen fly.

  4. Too bad DDT is banned… For the sake of a few species of birds and inconsequential amounts in the food chain millions of human beings have died from malaria.
    Eco fanatics are anti-man…

  5. In my experience flies tend to jump backwards when they try to escape and for a while I was quite successfull with the technique of approaching a fly from behind and killing it with a snap of my index finger (sometimes they made a very satisfying smack on a nearby wall). Reaction time of flies is temperature dependant and fall fly hunting is just boring.
    I would take exception with the reaction times quoted in the article as 250 msec is quite slow (at least in the group of graduate students that I used as guinea pigs to see what effect alcohol had on reaction times a couple of decades ago). A very inebriated graduate student might have a visual reaction time of 250 msec. Auditory reaction times are significantly faster and mine was 128 msec 20 years and I was by no means the fastest subject. World class sprinters have auditory reaction times around 100 msec which means that after they can no longer compete in the olympics they can get employment as flycatchers.

  8. i thot everyone knew that if you bring your opened hand towards the resting fly at less than 1 inch a second and you can get within 6 inches you achieve a 100$ kill ratio…..
    btw my dog(corgi and shiba ainu cross) uses his mandibles and nails them on the wing….he bats about 3-400.

  10. when i was a jolly jack tar in the 60’s i met a old girl sailor who mixed ddt powder and any old paint she found for antifouling her bottom…
    that was her boat bottom i speak of….

  12. Not sure about the study, but it seems to me that flies ride the current of rushing air created by the swatter to make their miraculous escapes.
    I declared war on House-flies 20yrs ago and have become quite efficient in getting them. The ideal situation is if they are in a corner; or, if they have landed on a screen.

  13. Having heard this tip on John Gormley’s show I tried it and now swear by it.
    Vacuum cleaner.
    Little bastards can’t escape it and it works with all the little pests including the worst and most fearsome of them all . . . spiders.
    Cheers,
    lance

  14. Conventional wisdom states that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
    I’ve found that $h1+ works the best though.

  15. I wiggle a finger in front of the fly with my left hand to distract it, while reaching behind the fly with my right hand. When the right hand is within striking distance (6 – 8″), I strike. I bat around .800. Not bad for an old fart.

  16. Best goddam product ever invented. Too bad they banned it.
    Forget the fly-swatting tecniques, get one of those electrical fly-swatters. Kills ’em dead and
    provides hours of fun and frolic. Keeps the house pets in line too. Same with the Missus.

  17. I guess the fly, with all those little facets on its eyes can see the swatter, but I can’t believe this is the signal to get the h.ll out of the way.
    I think it more likely that the air compression (sort of like the concussion of a bomb) of the ahead of the swatter, moves those little hairs on the legs long before he sees the dam..d thing and knows that something big is coming after it.
    Could be why too, the good fly swatters have holes in them to let some of that air pass through.

  18. Heck when I was a wittle child they used to spray us down with DDT.
    So it wasn’t the lead paint chips that we ate or the freshly poured tar we chewed that made us what we are today.
    Conservatives

  19. Catching is as easy as swatting them. Just have to come in from behind and make sure you follow through with the sweep of your hand. After that, shake ’em up and throw ’em at the wall. They never bother you again.
    I’m liking Lance’s suggestion, although that’s kinda like bringing a nuke to a knife fight.
    🙂

  20. Target shooting flies with a rubberband from the pointer finger is an amusing diversion. Effective if not a trifle messy.

  22. just curious, what is the avg lifespan of a coat of farm varnish? as opposed to the effectiveness of the 5% DDT in it?
    some sort of slow release thing? must be awfully toxic to last as long as a coat of varnish to still be effective in such minuscule amounts.
    besides, is it true the flies we have now are all descendants of those immune to the stuff?

  23. Olde Spice, I was about to post the very same method; I seem to remember actually shooting a couple out of the air but that may be DDT-caused brain damage/over-exaggeration/a false memory of past glories.

  24. I just wait until this time of year. They seem to be a heck of a lot slower and so are much, much easier to swat.

  25. Ebay sales pitches
    “Give those pests a blast from the past”
    “RAID is for pussies”
    “Why wait for the silent spring?
    Get yours today”
    “Sure you could use regular varnish”
    “One spray and your barn and livestock are good for a whole year”
    “DDT, why f#@& around”
    “DDT, When it absolutely positively has to be dead over night”
    “For the real “truth” use 5% DDT”
    “No more itching”
    “If it’s NOT 5% DDT it’s unvarnished”
    “DDT , Your barn and livestock will thank you for it”

  26. many years ago when i got my first case of papillons d’amour i remember the croaker gave me script for a ddt laced powder….so i sprinkled it all over my tackle for weeks……no wonder my kids are a little flaky……tho i guess the upside is i’ll probably never get malaria

  27. But dosn’t everyone know that flies take off backwards??? Always, but always, swot a fly from the rear.
    The spilt beer ambush works best!!!!

  28. Out here in the west of Alberta we are so far from town, for amusement I just pull the wings off the little buggers and call them “walks” then they are so much easier to swat for me and the kids.

  29. Bartinsky’s note reminded me of the practice of fweeping mosquitoes which we’d do to amuse ourselves at night in our tents one summer I worked in the NWT bush. The idea is to light a match and hold it under the mosquito just right so that it burns the ends of the wings off and this results in a rapidly increasing audible wingbeat frequency which sounds like “fweep”. I’m surprised we didn’t burn our tent down doing this but when the technique is finally mastered it is very satisfying. There was no shortage of mosquitoes that summer and the only thing we had to watch closely was that we didn’t run out of matches as it was a 2 hour plane trip to the local metropolis of Fort Simpson to buy some more.

  31. That brought back good memories. My Dad would sprinkle a few tablespoons around the garbage barrel. A few corn husks would attract the flies, the DDT would get them.
    Great chemical! Got a lot of negative and unwarranted publicity. The Americans claimed it was killing off their bald eagles. They forgot to take into consideration the guys who were picking them off with high powered rifles!
    A lot of people used DDT foolishly. Example, spraying vegetables and fruit for fruit flies INSIDE grocery stores. It was never meant to be used on foodstuffs.
    Millions of people in third world countries have died because of the ban on DDT. It’s the only effective control for malaria carrying mosquitoes!

  32. Malcolm…be careful with that electric swatter,I started using it on wasps while we had our dinner on the deck.For some reason the wasps were able to release pheromones before they kicked the bucket,bringing even more of the angry little buggers.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation