Midges in Scotland ?

pragmatist

pragmatist

Well-Known Member
Joined
7 May 2003
Messages
1,426
Visit site
Are they really as bad as some make out ? Saw Shane (Spall) fighting them off in the Caledonian locks in the Lady Matilda TV prog - but we've been several times and seen nair a wun. Sorry - trying to get the lingo in case we decide to move Sans Serif up there.
 
When we were on Scotland we never noticed midges, but wife coped a bite on here ankle by we think a horse fly during a day by a lake.

North Wales near Bala Lake was a different mater, seemed to swarm during morning and evenning rush hours. Got in your ears, up your nose, in your eyes anfd mouth - and all recesses south.

Alan
 
Yes ive lived on west coast over 45 years , but , there is an answer , "smidge" sold all over the place ,mseems to have added effect of if enough folks together using it , they wont even come near , best ive found and i cannot tolerate the " little fekkers "
 
Midges hunt by smell, dont like dry air, dont like rain, cant find food (you) in winds more than 5mph. But.. when conditions are right they more than make up for lost time.
Many people have a reaction to the bite, making it anywhere from a mild itch to full on itching powder crazy, its something that dulls a the midge season progresses. Also their bite is designed to hurt, I think its something to with Ive just eaten, I'm all right jack, but the rest of you are gonna be swatted.
 
pragmatist said:
Are they really as bad as some make out ? Saw Shane (Spall) fighting them off in the Caledonian locks in the Lady Matilda TV prog - but we've been several times and seen nair a wun. Sorry - trying to get the lingo in case we decide to move Sans Serif up there.
Click to expand...

It varies day to day, place to place & year to year. This year was bad early - they really got going in the warm weather in May making calm evenings outside grim. Then mid June is started blowing, & that was mostly the end of them. They are less of a problem anchored a bit offshore as they don't seem to like flying over water far.
 
When they attack they are a menace. They track you from your CO2. But they are slow flyers. Moor the boat in open places.

Buy product from the local store. Also headnets can be worn. The boat can be 'proofed' by flyspray + netting pressed onto sticky backed velcro strips.
 
They can be seriously bad - particularly in muggy weather with no wind.

The good news is that they won't bother you on a yacht a little way from the shore. But personally I would NEVER camp in a tent in the highlands/islands - there are times in the evening or early morning in Skye when you wouldn't want to go out of the house.

Repellants work a bit, but aren't totally effective.
 
JumbleDuck said:
They can be beyond your worst nightmares bad.
Click to expand...

They can. Hiking in Glen Affric two years ago in August. Wouldn't have been able to breathe without a head net the air around our heads was so thick with them. Like, seriously. We stopped for a minute to enjoy the view of possibly the most beautiful glen in Scotland and looked down at our arms, previously clad in red waterproof fabric, now black with midges.

Black. With. Midges.

Putting up our tent, very quickly, Pete's lower back was exposed for about a minute. About two inches of flesh. There wasn't a millimetre that wasn't bitten.

Obviously some places are worse than others, wet places, boggy places are worst, and it's twilight when the buggers really come out to play, but when they're bad they're awful and there's no ignoring them. And their bite is painful, unlike a mosquito's. I spent a month on Syke in a remote cottage by a loch for my writing, and was chased indoors every evening by the bastards rather than being able to sit out and watch the otters.

They are the worst. Not the otters. Otters are the best.
 
no problems on the boat this year

a few ashore but as long as you keep walking they don't seem to find you

we have run the odd mosquito coil in the cockpit to keep them away but a smidge spray around the cockpit seems to work

we also discovered that they are not keen on jos sticks - and they smell better than the mosquito coils

D
 
Last edited:
sniffyjenkins said:
Black. With. Midges.
Click to expand...

Years ago I had my boat overnight in the basin at Crinan and was foolish enough to leave the sliding hatch slightly open at bedtime. I woke up at about 2am thinking that my arms, which were outside my sleeping bag, must have got badly sunburned without me noticing. They hadn't ... a rough caluclation later based on a survey of one square inch and the size of my arms suggested that since going to bed I had received around four hundred bites on each arm. Ouch.

Obviously some places are worse than others
Click to expand...

The lazy sods of staff at the western end of the Crinan Canal abandoned us for the night at Dunardry last year. The midges there were so bad that I promised my crew that if we were stuck there again this year we would find a hotel for the night, regardless of cost. Luckily we made it to Crinan, just.

As has been discussed before, you could until recently lock in to a sea lock by late morning and expect to get through in a day. Now even if you are in overnight (we were) and leave first thing (we did) you are fairly unlikely to get through by evening (we didn't). The midges en route make that a particularly nasty proposition. No wonder Gigha is busy.

Otters are the best.
Click to expand...

A family of six swam past us when we were anchored in Bull Hole a few years back. That was nice. There is a holt right next to my garden, but although we hear them frequently I've rarely seen them. Inconspicuous chap, your otter.
 
Worst midgie encounter that we have had whilst cruising was on Isle of Ewe. The swarms were so thick that they actually showed up on the few photos I was able to take. We were afraid of bringing them back to the baot with us, so rowed a hundred yards offshore and frantically de-midged our clothing and hair (this essentially comprises furious rubbing), before rowing at full speed upwind, then repeating the process. Did this several times before we dared start heading for the yacht itself.
Note- an Avon is only slightly faster than a midgie.

Here on Skye they can be pretty bad, much worse than on the outer Hebs where we used to live.
 
pragmatist said:
Are they really as bad as some make out ? Saw Shane (Spall) fighting them off in the Caledonian locks in the Lady Matilda TV prog - but we've been several times and seen nair a wun. Sorry - trying to get the lingo in case we decide to move Sans Serif up there.
Click to expand...
As somebody who lived about 250 meters from the Corpach Basin of the Caledonian Canal for most of my childhood I can say that they are much, much worse.
 
Once in a family caravan holiday about fifty years ago now we thought to stop overnight in Glen Afric. Stopped, put the legs down and cooking started. It was warm, still and damp. And the midges arrived. We had the ventilator in the car an roof open and the midges came in through it. The air was thick with them. We tried fly spray and shutting the ventilator. Still thick with the things. So the meal was abandoned, the legs wound up and we departed for somewhere else, defeated by the wretched things. Only time I can recall where my father chose to cut and run instead of being stoical and enduring things....
 
Years ago I took a friend sailing from Crinan to Ardrishiag via Peel, and then back through the canal, where we took a visitor mooring in pre-marina Bellanoch Bay for the night. We walked to Crinan for meal, and on the way back I warned him that the midges in Bellanoch might be back.

"Don't worry about that", he said. "I've just been trekking in Africa. I climbed Kilimanjaro. I saw mosquitos the size of soup plates. A few Scottish midgies won't bother me."

He rowed us out. The midgies were bad. Very bad. Half-way across he dropped both oars and threw himself onto the bottom boards of the dinghy, frantically slapping at himself and screaming, as we used to say, like a girlie. When I had stopped laughing I took over the rowing. He conceded later that he had slightly underestimated the local wildlife..
 
Also, I never really found out what the locals do or use to deter the little monsters. I'd heard about the Skin So Soft stuff that many swear by and tried it. While it does seem to kill the midges when they land on you, you end up with a lovely oily crust of dead ones all over your skin.

Not entirely sure that's any better.

Also also, I love the (no doubt apocryphal) tale of an execution in Ye Olde Days, when a villain was tied down, naked, on the moors and left to the midges. One of the worse ways to go I'd imagine :eek:
 
Last edited:
One of the stories my parents like to tell from time to time is of their trip around Skye in my Dad's MGB back in the 70s, before I came along and messed everything up.
The exhaust had fallen off and my Dad was lying underneath the car, in a layby, whilst my Mum fanned him with a newspaper in a brave yet futile attempt to fend off the midgies. Out of nowhere, a German car pulled up and a man ran out of it, sprayed my parents with repellent from a can, jumped back in his car, and drove off- all without uttering a word.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top