Last week on vacation, I was exposed to the dreaded stable fly on the beaches of the Upper Peninsula. If you've never experienced the stable fly, just imagine what it would be like to be surrounded by people poking you with needles, non-stop.

Is there any substance known to man that can repel a biting fly?

Stable flies, black flies, deer flies or just plain old biting flies. It doesn't matter what you call them, they are the scourge of Northern Michigan and I'm pretty sure they come from hell.

If you go to the bug repellent section of any store, you will find bug sprays that claim they can keep the biting flies off of you.

It's a lie they don't.

I even tried REPEL-100, which is 98.9 percent DEET, and they still came at me.

While talking about this problem on the air Monday, I received a call about a Michigan made product called deer fly patches which attach to your cap as you hike. The company claims they work on all sorts of biting flies, and I believe them, but as many flies as I saw last week on vacation, those strips would have been totally full in seconds, leaving the remaining flies to attack me.

Do you know of anything that repels biting flies?

If you've never experienced biting flies, you're lucky. Here's a video about how the curse of the UP.

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