How To Catch A Fly

Written By:  Andrew Eide

In my younger days (yes I can remember back that far) I used to show off by trying to snag a housefly out of the air with my bare hands. If memory serves me correctly I was successful in about 1 percent of the attempts.

I used to also try to snag a fly that was standing still on a surface. Again I was successful in maybe 1 percent of the attempts.

Then I saw a video on a nature program which changed my odds. The video showed, in slow motion, that when a fly takes off, they jump up and when they move their wings to fly their motion is at first a backward motion. The backward motion is not very much in the way of distance but it was enough to give me the information I needed to obtain at least a 50 percent success rate in snagging flies with my bare hands.

So here is the technique I used when attempting to catch a fly which is sitting still on some surface. I knew that the fly jumps into the air and when it starts to fly it takes an up and backward motion before it starts flying forward. So I brought my hand slowly up behind the fly. My hand is about 6 to 8 inches above the fly but still behind it. I then quickly brought my hand forward and the fly will see and sense my hand coming and it will jump off the surface and start to fly. Since the fly goes up and back before going forward it literally leaps and flies backward into my hand. Although I was often unable to close my hand around the fly quick enough I used to catch a few in my day.

Please rest assured that I honestly don’t do this any longer and I haven’t done this fly catching thing for over 20 years. The reason is obvious when you review my posts this month concerning flies and the diseases they can bring our way. The last thing I want to do is catch a fly in my hands and have their sticky feet, and slobbering mouths, depositing icky stuff into my hands.