Eric, Try Permethrin on high cotton content outer wear (long pants and long sleeve shirts. I'd try the Permethrin first. For exposed flesh (face, neck, wrists, hands not protected by outer clothihng (oh, aND DO YOUR SOCKS TOO.)... There is a micro encapsulated DEET product in a creme base. IT is a time release system with the DEET in the microscopic protein balls. IT lasts quite a while and gives the user a much lower dose of DEET than regular topical applications. It will protect you from ticks, chiggers, mosquitoes, and such. If the horseflies still get to your face and neck (unlikely) you can wear head covers made of mosquito netting. Say you wqnt to go to the barn to do horse stuff and don't want to get doped up with DEET, just ware your treated clothes and don the head net.

You can buy the Permethrin as an aerosol spray at Wally World etc. IT is for spraying cotton clothing NOT YOUR SKIN. Your body chemistry will pasivate the stuff if applied to you. Applied correctly to cloth it will last a year or 50 hot detergent washings. It is what the DoD has the cloth treated with before cammies and fatigues are made from it.

If you are nervous about using a CHEMICAL you can read stuff for it at Atlanta Center for Disease Control site. Permethrin is not something I would drink or bathe in but it is pretty safe when used as directed. It is the active ingredient in the shampoo they use on little kids who bring lice home from school.

Permethrin can be bought at the ag store for about $60/gallon for 10% solution (or in smaller quantities.) It is avail from several internet sources in higher percentages for way way higher prices.. I buy it at ag stores. A gallon of 10% is the equivalent of about $1800 (yes, almost two grand) at Wally World aerosol prices. This is an effective chemical to but in the big sock looking things that skim over a horses back when they go to feed (fly rub?.) For cattle it is often diluted with diesel. I don't know the amounts to use or how to dilute for horses.

I don't know how to trap or otherwise rid you of flies but I think you can prevent the horses and people from being bitten.

I really like FAMOUS AMOS but any kind of "Proper Biscuit" is fine.

I have mused about building a LASER fly deterrent. You can buy a green solid state LASER for a few hundred$ that is powerfull enough to burst a balloon or burn a hole in a plastic trash bag. If you can bait flies so they enter the "kill zone" of the little death ray they will be fried and fall to the ground or into a "funerary receptacle for easy disposal (or use as fertilizer.)

I also mused about using cheaper and less powerful IR LASERs to blind flying insects. It might be interesting to watch them wander aimlessly. Of course in California (left coast) or even the right coast this would probably be illegal and carry immense fines and prison terms.

Pat