My first encounter with them involved blood painlessly running down behind my ear and my brother asking, "Am I getting bitten?." He lifted the back of his shirt revealing a line of good sized welts along the waistline. Whoa!

Anybody have pics to share?

Really? Bloody pictures?

Look carefully at this photo. This was the end of May last year. We survived only because we stayed covered up. I had some good-sized whelts on my face - around the eyes - anyway. They seem to like eyes. Wind is your friend in May, even if it keeps you off the water sometimes.

I seem to swell up and get a bad reaction to the first couple of bites and then after that I am OK. In June of '04 we were en route to the BW and stopped at the Sand River Falls in Canada for a rest break. I was wearing capris and got my first 2 black fly bites of the season on my lower legs. Didn't think much of it. Several days later, on the canoe trip, my leg was swollen, had a red rash, and itched like crazy!

Spartan1 gets his bites along the belt line on the back of his torso, as his shirt rides up when he is splitting wood or tending the fire. We get bites around the neck and ears, too, but I guess I don't have photos of those.

I think the spring of '04 was the worst time for us, though. Since then we haven't gone at a time when the black flies were as prevalent.

oh, MY!!!

OUCH!

The odd thing to me was, though, after those two initial bites, I am sure I had more and they didn't swell up like that. And I haven't had that bad of a reaction again, although I have had swellings of the first bites of the year. But it was like the first ones that year just poisoned me.

My husband, on the other hand, often looks like that. But he says his don't itch.

Mine didn't itch either, just swelled up for a few days. No major redness, that is wild to only be from two bites!