What do you fine people a long way north of the border do to protect yourselves against the miniscule bringers of pain?
I'm going way up north in June for a few days getting lost on my bike and I could do with some advice on what's good.
I tried that Avon soft skin stuff but that didn't work.
Do the little arses bare a grudge for insurgents or something?

Avon SSS worked fine for me (visiting southerner), but as in the words of one local, you have to cover yourself in it that much, that they drown in it…

I just ignore them, but they don't bring me up in lumps unlike some people. Eventually you just get used to them on you.

Whisky and cigar and you'll be ok.

Yup ASSS works by drowning. Really sickly smell too…

keep moving

when you're not moving wear a midge net, long sleeves and keep your hands in your pockets

1) Keep moving (fast)
2) Smoke lots, preferably one in the mouth and one mid roll. If you can do this in the company of other smokers, while standing next to a large fire, all the better.
3) Find somewhere windy and/or sunny (so windy then) and stay there.
4) Lie in a river.
5) Find some foreigners who obviously find them even more annoying. Midgies sense this and won't waste their time with you if there's more easily distressed targets nearby.

"It is like something from the bible" where the last words of the polish guy I met in Gairloch last year before he disappeared into his tent for the rest of the night…

Bloody hell coffeeking, you're very young for a person with so many opinions!

I'll take that as a compliment monksie!

I tend to use this stuff if they are partcularly bad.

Home

most of the time i don't bother.

Try to dodge the female ones.They are the ones that bite,as in all walks of life,lol. Midges aside though you"ll love it up there.

ASSS doesn't keep them away but it does stop them biting. If you are on the move or the wind is over 4KMH you are OK. Take ASSS, a midge net and be prepared to be inside on very still evenings

Brewers yeast or vitamin B1 tablets from the health food shop.
I spoke to the guy in our local shop who said that the active ingredient in brewers yeast to keep midges at bay has been isolated down to vitamin B1. Start taking them now to get them into your bloodstream.

Besides moving up there for a few years to 'acclimatise' (coming from Gairloch I used to tolerate them a lot better then than now), my other half takes a £3 pump spray bottle, from Boots, filled with tonic water, & sprays that on every few minutes – seems to cut down the biting though they still land. It's the quinine, apparently.
Otherwise, physical measures – midge net as mentioned above, full body stocking, etc.

stay away from the west of the country…..problem solved

They will smell you out, track you down and bite you heaps if they get a chance. I take both ASSS and Jungle Formula. Use the JF for when I'm riding it's in a wee can that ways nowt but the smell!!! Once youre off the bike, showered/cleaned up and sitting having a pint its ASSS all the way!

If you find you're getting eaten alive – apparently marmite is good although I've yet to find out if you eat it or spread it on yourself – personally I'd rather cover myself in cheese and lie naked in a cloud of female midge than go near that rot!

I think the Marmite thing relates to the brewers yeast mentioned earlier. I presume eating enough of it must make you sweat the stuff.

I just ignore them…they don't seem to bother me like they bother others…the other way to fix it is to bring some southerners up as they have more appealing blood so they tend to get hit harder than the natives! 😉

Native here.

Cycling fast incessantly is the ultimate cure. (Apart from one time up Glen Affric when they were that thick the impact survivors were still getting me).

Activity peaks at dawn and dusk into the first few hours of the night. They can't fly in wind, and strong sunshine dessicate them. They can't get at covered skin. A local outdoors worker is never afraid to look an arse with a midge net. Stay in bothies rather than camping. Repellents can work but I find most of them repellent. West coast is worse then the east. Lots of whisky can be used to render yourself senseless and hence immune.

I go prepared; 100% skin cover and overnight accomodation considered in relation to the aspects of the weather that matter. I.e. if it blows a gale camp anywhere, in light breezes camp high. And so on.

the other way to fix it is to bring some southerners up as they have more appealing blood so they tend to get hit harder than the natives!

why don't the midges just move down south then?

If they are bad enough then nothing will keep them away, unless you're one of the lucky sods they don't bite.

Avon SSS works for a lot of folk, but personally I reckon it's only about 50% effective on me.

There's no real answer, other than to say there are a lot of folk up here who go camping in April and May, then the tent goes away till mid-September.

Stopbite is the other stuff. If you don't mind smelling of drambuie.

DEET is the only answer – preferably in above 50% concentration – jungle formula is DEET but in 10 % or something puny.

High deet really does work unlike everything else – even if you are totally swarmed you don't get bitten

I don't use anything other than SSS because I'd heard the really good formulations can damage synethics such as camping gear and riding clothes?

High concentration DEET is horrible stuff – but it works.

Melts plastic, burns with a nasty flame, stings if you get it in your eyes.

BUT IT STOPS MIDGES BITING YOU!

TJ is right imo, Avon SSS is a myth

Neem oil midge repellent works well for me.

last summer we drove up to ullapool and the buggers got worse and worse the further up the west coast,,

we ended up buying one piece midge jackets with built in hoods from a national trust garden shop they are light enough to run and cycle in worked very well,,

i like skin so soft as it does what it says on the tin ,,,,, soft skin

Eat liquorice…apparently they (females are the biters) are attracted to the Carbon Dioxide on your breath…liquorice alters something slightly and it helps keep them away.

(From a similar thread last year)

Every year I forget just how vicious they can be at that time of the year.

I've a very vivid memory from last August, turning up to a campsite in the North West to meet some friends. It was a beautiful evening and the campsite appeared to be busy. There were lots of tents but something wasn't quite right… Food lay partially eaten on picnic tables; bikes lay abandoned on the grass, back wheels slowly turning to a halt; a frisbee hung momentarily in the air before clunking to the ground; but nowhere was there a human being to be seen.

I pondered this weird land-bound Mairi Celeste tableau as the sunset faded and I turned off the car ignition. The low bass thrum of the diesel engine died to be replaced by a growing sound, first at the edge of my consciousness, but steadily intensifying; the sound of light rain. But how could it be from a cloudless sky on that last, perfect day of summer? I felt a shiver run down my spine as my hand reached for the door pull and I opened my cocoon to the gathering gloaming.

I stepped out…

Later that evening I sat in another car drinking heavily with friends as others arrived. They'd blithely and gaily spring forth and we'd take wagers on how long it'd be before they were clawing frantically at their exposed flesh as if beset by madness or bees.

"9 seconds I reckon, Ian".
"Nah, 14".
"1-2-3-4".
"Whoah!"

Resistance is futile.

Eat liquorice…apparently they (females are the biters) are attracted to the Carbon Dioxide on your breath…liquorice alters something slightly and it helps keep them away.

Later that evening I sat in another car drinking heavily

We did the same at Loch Rannoch a few years ago. We eventually hit the tent, crashed out, then woke up in the morning and stuck our heads outside. The little sods were just as bad. We got out the tent, zipped it back up with everything still inside, pulled out the pegs, chucked the lot in the car and had left the campsite less than 3 minutes after leaving the tent.

In my experience Skin So Soft doesn't keep midges away but it does kill them. If they're out in quantity it's still annoying to have them landing and then leaving lots of little midge corpses stuck to your oily skin. I think it also isn't very rain or sweat resistant so probably doesn't last long if you use it while mountain biking.

the last defence if you have enough space to carry is a dozen cans of Lynx and a few lighters – flame throwers do the trick and you can watch their charred little bodies float silently to the ground in a sort of black snow 😈

Just remember not to try that in the tent mountain club

there's no defence other than DEET, it's nasty stuff but it really does work.

We camped on idyllic inaccessible beach on colonsay last year and what was supposed to be a perfect night with sunset views followed by a morning skinny dip surrounded by otters, dolphins and mermaids turned into a nightmarish panic of packing and bike pushing as apocalyptic numbers of midges swarmed us. I got up for a pee in the middle of the night and the blighters attacked my winky like a geordie hen night high on wkd blue. I had to run and release as it were but there was no escape.

Our (admittedly yellow) tent was so thick with dead midges drowned in condensation that it was black on the inside. sadly the experience was too traumatic even to take pictures of the carnage.

not an inch of uncovered flesh:

There's loads of suggestions here that may work for you or may not – it could be painful finding out.
I come out in enormous lumps from the little bastids

The only thing listed here that's guaranteed to work is high concentration DEET

Stand close, but out of nose distance, to her.

Stay indoors.

Go to Wales.

Seriously though – Jungle Formula does the job. I was in the Outer Hebrides (Lewis) at the time and had all exposed parts smothered in the stuff. It was amusing to watch a cloud of the little barstewards hovering about 30cm away from my face, unable to get within biting distance and buzzing furiously with rage and frustration…

nothing works, camp somewhere very windy or get a big fan!!

maybe this