Who lives by the lake and is experiencing fish flies?

Its that time of year again where we live. North shore of Lake Erie across from Sandusky Ohio. Went to get in my truck last night and lost my mind due to what I thought was a massive door ding. Nope, just a couple of fish fly wings sun dried to the door.

Things get so bad it is dangerous to ride a motorcycle in some areas due to the slick roads from these buggers. Some places it is literally like driving across bubble wrap as the bodies pop under your tires. The marina down the road uses snow shovels and compact tractor / loaders to scoop up the dead ones. They could fill my Tacoma bed every night multiple times from the piles under the street lights.

Wondering how many others across TW land experience fish flies every summer and where you are located.

 

Fish flies? What do they look like? Sounds like a big May fly hatch, a fly fisherman's dream

 

No pics for another week. It is just starting. Here is one from a local news station from last year.

 

Holy cow!

 

Damn. Mayfly hatch.

 

Fish flies, mayflies same thing. (Some call them June bugs - that is actually a beetle but some still call them that due to their appearance in June.).

 

That's what it looks like....like a massive one. I've only heard about these massive hatches...never seen one. We think we have a big hatch here in NH when we see several thousand mayflies. I'm usually grabbing my fly rod when that happens.

 

https://youtu.be/OxDmBJ7fopU

This is from Lake St Clair area between Lake Huron and Detroit river and then down to Lake Erie.


Once we see the first few hundred we shut off all outside lights. Put outside timers into shutdown mode.

 

Weird. I've always called June bugs, lightning bugs.
My family is from the PA and OH area growing up.
I went to grade school in Akron, OH and trout fished all over eastern PA when I was younger.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllophaga (June bugs)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly (Lightning bugs, fireflies)


You should see the soybean fields around here in the middle of summer. Looks like they have pixie dust twinkling after dusk.

 

Sounds like your trying to hide from an alien invasion.

 

What happens to them once you hose them into the street? It must smell pretty funky with all the rotting insects.

 

I wouldn't wash them down. The smell from them rotting is going to suck along with being wet. Maybe leaf blower. Our street has no street lights so with everyone going dark a TV glow is all you see going up our street for the next few weeks. It really makes a huge difference. The street lights in the village have 10' rings of death around the base.