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Spring is Swarming: Bugs Invade Factoryville

FACTORYVILLE — This was the warmest day of the year so far in many parts of our area, and that has many signs of spring popping out all over the place. Th...
wyo bugs

FACTORYVILLE -- This was the warmest day of the year so far in many parts of our area, and that has many signs of spring popping out all over the place.

The flowers are blooming. The leaves are budding, and in one part of Wyoming County, the bugs are hatching--thousands and thousands of them, taking over the borough of Factoryville.

Spring is swarming in Factoryville with bugs coming off the south branch of the Tunkhannock Creek as it passes through this part of Wyoming County.  They quickly spread out all over town.

"Every year, around the same time, as soon as the weather gets warm, they come out in swarms," said Al Mroz.

Mroz and his son were doing some tractor work with the caddis flies swirling around. The stream where all those bugs are coming from is only yards away.

"It's unbelievable. Every year, the same thing happens."

Fly fisherman like Len Gorney love when this happens.  This birth of bugs is called a hatch.

"There's just millions, millions of bugs," said Gorney.  "I haven't seen a hatch like this on this stream in years."

Usually a hatch like this gets the fish jumping.

"Except nobody told the fish!" Gorney added.

People in Factoryville say dealing with these bugs is just part of living along a stream. They say these hatches come and go, but they do tend to "bug" them.

"We get a lot of them and they fly around and you duck!" said Paula Lewis.

Lewis has lived in Factoryville for decades.

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission says this is just nature at work, and that some of these hatches can be bigger than others.

This is a big one.

But the burst of bugs doesn't usually last too long; days or maybe just hours.

"They're all over the place. You feel itchy. They bug you," said Lewis.

The Fish and Boat Commission points out there are some big hatches that happen on streams and rivers all over our area now that the weather has warmed up.

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