Friday, April 16, 1965
Friday April 16
Windy, warm, tiny shower. May flies everywhere this A.M. Caught lots at Uncle Herbert’s with minnow seine with Faye and Bub. Put 15 cans in our freezer 27 in theirs plus enough fresh ones for a week. Took all morning but we've got enough for awhile. Went to town after the pork. We wrapped it. Cost $4.00 to cut it up. Had some chops for supper. Bought Peggy a pretty slip $1.00, plus some white and blue flowers to take to the cemetery Easter. It will take several days to fix the truck, will give us something to drive. The Keeners gave the girls each an Easter basket, they always get them something. Ray's Dady & Lewis Murry Tanner came out after may flies.
Mayflies
Mayflies are a type of insect that, in Florida, can be found in both freshwater and saltwater habitats. Their presence is a sign of a healthy aquatic environment—fisheries biologists and other researchers may use the abundance and diversity of mayflies as a measure of water quality when conducting surveys or monitoring programs.
They hatch in large numbers and they’re an important food source for many animals, including fish. They can also be a nuisance for humans!
Fishermen today often use artificial flies that resemble mayflies, but in the days of trotlines, real mayflies were used. Myrtle’s journals describe the many ways they caught the insects and preserved them in the deep freeze for later use. In this entry, she describes using a seine net.
Peggy recalls, “We’d catch the mayflies at night. Often we’d drive 2 trucks alongside one another through the tall grass on the lakefront. Someone would be in the bed of each truck holding one side of the seine net. The mayflies would get caught in the net and we’d fold over to trap them inside.”
