Deer Fly Traps

Step 2 Horse Pal trap modified

This trap is a commercial version of the Manitoba trap, which can be seen and purchased at bitingflies.com web site. It is intended for horse flies, but I bought one and found that is quite effective against deer flies. No chemicals, no poisons, but very expensive. The lure is a large, tough inflatable black ball ($50), which gets warmed by the sun. Apparently the female fly thinks she is going to get to bite a REALLY BIG horse. Once she does not find the blood meal she needs in order to lay her eggs, she escapes upward, is funneled into a clear plastic jar, where she dies from dessication (i.e., drying out with extreme prejudice). I have used this trap to try out cheaper lures of my own design for use with sticky traps.
The trap is sold with four metal legs that support it, but I wanted to hang mine up to make mowing easier. I used the metal legs as patterns to cut lengths of plastic pipe to duplicate the portion of the legs within the fabric, fastening the pipe using 45-degree elbows. I assembled a square of plastic pipe and 90-degree elbows to spread the bottom of the skirt. The lower ends of the shortened legs are fastened to the corners of the spreader using long screws and nuts.