Whoever recommended mint spray for this
should have their head examined.
Wild mint blooms and attracts them, and other bee-like insects. We have a couple of areas with low-lying spots that have a lot of this mint growing in it. It is LOADED with bees. We then also get so many yellow jackets by mid summer trying to nest inside tube pipe gates and irrigation valves they are a hazard, and have to be evicted. Also get ground wasps… they are fun. Not.
(Mud wasps, by contrast, look the scariest but are the most benign and really don’t have any interest in stinging you.)
The only annoying insects that are repelled by essential oils of mint are mosquitoes.
I routinely mix up a mosquito repellant that works extremely well, based on the same herbal formula that was “supposed” to work to repel flies, called “Nature’s Defense” (have a horse that is allergic to certain commercial fly spray repellants, which contain certain chemicals, he immediately breaks out in welts.) While this stuff was “meh” okay for repulsing flies, it was REALLY so great at repelling mosquitoes, which also tend to swarm at dusk, that I started using it on myself. I am pretty sensitive, but I can use this on myself with no reaction, been using it for over 10 years. All I do is put several drops of the same essential oils (citronella, mint, lavender, clove, eucalyptus, tea tree, etc) in a spray bottle with water and a little bit of alcohol to aid dispersement.
I tinkered with experimenting with each type of oil by itself on the horse and myself, and sure enough, our local insect population of bees and yellowjackets enjoys mint - except the mosquitoes.
However, cannot use this multi-ingredient diluted oil spray during the time of day/area if I am going to be in an area where there are lots of yellow jackets, because THEY love it so much when it has mint, they will literally start bouncing off of me.
This has happened, most of the time I don’t get stung, but, of course, getting stung can be dangerous, not to mention painful, and I don’t want to heighten my chances.
To say this “mint” stuff attracts yellow jackets, honeybees, other bees, and other pollen and nectar feeding bugs is an understatement.
If you are using any sort of herbal essential oil concoction, always test them on a small area of self first to see if you react, and do NOT use these oils on cats, or on dogs that live closely with cats, as essential oils can be very hard on a cat’s liver function. Do not spray yourself in the house where a cat tends to walk, eat, or drink, do it outside. If you have a horse with allergies to flysprays, same warning, what will work for one animal may not work AT ALL for another one and your horse who gets along with citronella and mint, for example, may be living with another horse which does not- and has to use regular spray.
(always label the spray bottle with a sharpie pen as to contents, date, and who and what the bottle is for, goes without saying)
If you are using a multi- ingredient essential oil concoction, you may be able to tweak the formula to add in or omit any type of oil which either doesn’t work as you wanted it to, or was giving you a reaction.
Perhaps try washing the kayak and your PFD jacket, and start over. You may have some sort of scented, oily sun screen residue that has gotten onto the PFD and is attracting them. May have to use some everclear or other alcohol on the PFD to get the residue off. Also, things like laundry detergents, dryer sheets and some deodorants and hair conditioners are so full of very heavy flowery scent they can be attractive to some insects. Just changing the type or scent of these things that you use can make you much less attractive to certain insects.
Also, you may want to routinely wipe down your kayak handle and vehicle steering wheel if someone is eating greasy food and then using it, Yellowjackets adore fast food and fast food wrappers, and any sort of cooking grease. I don’t think they care about the color as much as how “delicious” something smells to them, which is why some soda pop in a half-emptied can is notorious for attracting them, too.