Is There Anything You Can Do To Keep The Flies Off Of You?
In the summer if you ever go to Jones Beach in Long Island, especially the often filled popular field 6, you will notice one of two things, there are hundreds of flies swarming around and biting you or there are none at all. I have spent an inordinate amount of time swatting and killing flies as they relentlessly bite away.
So why is this?
The answer lies not in the temperature, the food you bring with you, your choice of sunscreen or fly repellant.
The swimming flags hold the key. If the flags are blowing towards the water you will be inundated by flies. If the flags are blowing towards the boardwalk away from the water, you will generally have a pleasant stay, unless annoying people settle near you.
The flies come with the direction of the wind.
Most of the time at Jones Beach the wind blows in from the Atlantic Ocean and there will be no flies.
But occasionally on some days in the mornings, the wind will come from the north and blow the flies from inland towards the beach where they will seek shade and attack your umbrella, chairs, blankets, bags and your exposed human flesh.
By the afternoon the wind will usually shift and be blowing towards the boardwalk, in from the ocean and will blow all the flies away.
So is there anything you can do to avoid the flies?
Not really, except don’t go to Jones Beach in the morning. But then you probably won’t get into field 6 if you show up past 10 A.M.
It was horrible yesterday! Nothing helped and it was awful to even sit in the shade and even in the sun! We ended up going home after 2hr hours at the beach
It wasn’t just Field 6!!! The West End was overrun with houseflies, mosquitos, dragonflies, and lanternflies. Massively chasing and covering us the whole day and of course, got much worse at 6pm…we had t run for our lives. It looks like this may be the trend for today and the next week if not beyond that. Horrific…sprays like “OFF” cannot help the situation either…looks like Labor Day weekend is going to be completely cancelled at Jones Beach 2026…Very sad.
It was horrible today. The biting flies were swarming and their bites painful. Set up camp and within 15 minutes, had to pack up and leave for the day. Thanks for the info about the wind.
since you answered my fly question/ why is there a large drop from the beach to the ocean only at
certain times?
Nancy your question was passed to me. From what I know, tidal forces change due to the moon and sun. The full moon may account for erosion and a steep drop from the sand of the shore to the water. Also weather and wind have an effect on erosion.
thanks a lot for sharing this info. this should be stuffpeoplewanttoknow.com! we were wondering why we were alternately getting bombed by the flies and then getting a break. super informative post!
Your answer about the flies is partially correct. It’s not just the mornings, it can be all day if the winds are blowing from the north.
Correct usually, but it seems the wind directions kept changing all day yesterday and the MASSIVE bug invasion, flies, mosquitos, dragonflies, and lantern flies just happened ALL DAY!! It was horrendous!! They tried to cover us like a banket the whole day until we found an area that was farer away from the grass areas. At 6:30pm, we opened our car doors to leave and the cars filled up with mosquitos we just couldn’t rid the car totally of, who bit us all the way home and the massive dragonfly swarms that almost blocked out the sky, dived at our cars and some were as big as sparrows!!! The wind directions kept changing continually so there were no wind direction regularities to follow…I think today will be the same and possibly the whole holiday weekend and on into next week…so terribly unpredictable…