gophers????

[bucketmouth64]

I have several mounds of dirt that seem to crop up overnight. Are these gopher mounds? I haven't found any holes yet. I can shovel the dirt away and find nothing, but then later in the week another mound surfaces. These mounds are in a small area. What's doing this so I know what to do or look for. Any advice how to get rid of the varmints would be helpful.

[Gissert]

You have pocket gophers. Here is how I catch them,

Take metal rod and probe around the mound's perimeter. When you feel the rod 'give' a little, you have hit the tunnel network. With a small shovel, dig until you have the tunnel exposed. Set a gopher trap or a #0 size foot grip trap in the tunnel. Put a board over the hole you dug, and cover it up to seal out the light. Check it in a few hours and you should have the gopher. Sometimes they will plug the trap by digging, but you will catch them if you keep at it.

[jlm]

Come on now Gissert, you know it does not work that way, we have all seen Caddy Shack!!!!! LOL! Actually, he stated it perfect!

[HOF#13]

Gissert nailed it....Have fun trying to trap those little ________!!!!! It get's frustrating at times. I swear they would bury my trap in the dirt just to make me mad. I went to the local seed & fertilizer place to see if they just had poison to put in their tunnels...They did but you need a license to be able to buy it. Must be some potent / dangerous stuff.

Good luck!

[doubleUcubed]

Gissert explained that method pretty well. Another one my Dad alway's used was to locate the entrance to the tunnel as Gissert explained, stick a hose into the tunnel (old vacuum cleaner hose) and duct tape to the exhaust of a running vehicle, about 20 minutes should do the trick! My brother likes to grab a chair, sit back with a cold one and his 12 gauge shotgun and when you see the little mound of dirt being pushed up pull the trigger and it's all done with!

[SilverLakeBoy]

When I was a young lad we used to make a slip knot in our fishing line and place it over the gopher holes down at the cemetery
and hide behind the tombstones with our rod & reel. We would whistle once and awhile and when the gopher stuck his head up you set the hook and you are land fishing! The parish priest would give us $.25 ea for the tails.

[jlm]

LOL!!! I am glad I did not know about that one when I was a kid, they would have probably locked me. Very creative!!!

[bucketmouth64]

I thought I would update on my quest to trap gophers. So far gophers 1, trapper 0.
Lost one trap already. Can't find the darn thing after digging for it. I feel like the grounds keeper from Caddyshack.

[jlm]

Oh ya, one thing we forgot...always stake your trap down! Sometimes we have to learn the hard way I guess!

[bucketmouth64]

Final tally? Gophers 2 trapper 0. Lost my second trap. So I think I got them. Haven't seen any new fresh mounds of dirt for quite a while. If they comeback I may try the poison pellets or sticking a hose down a hole.

[bigbucks]

Bucketmouth64, maybe you should borrow somebody's metal detector to get your traps back. I don't know how much earth a detector will work through, but most runways are under less than a foot I'd say.

You might want to go to the local hardware store, Fleet Farm, or Fleet Supply & ask about a different type of trap. I've got trouble with both striped & pocket gophers in my tree plantings & alfalfa field & have had a lot of success this year with a different style. I don't know what it's called, but it works with a wind up spring & is basically a metal rod that makes two right angles, it'd be like a Z with right angles. Anyway, it's got to small curved hooks, maybe two inches long, like small baling hooks, that come together pincher style when the trigger tab gets hit. You still stake it down, but that's really only necessary to retrieve the trap if they plug it. If they're in it, they won't be going anywhere, they're dead, period. They work best if you can find the end mound of the tunnel system, which in my experience is usually the smallest mound. This mound will just have a tunnel coming up. You leave the whole wide open & when they come to check out the light, it gets real dark for them suddenly, if you follow my drift... These are a little tricky to get the hang of, as far as setting them, but I've caught 4 pocket gophers & two stripes with my one trap like that this spring & have mostly quit using my leg trap because I'm sick of unplugging the holes & resetting it, just to do the drill again the next day.

You can set these down in a runway, & I still don't cover it, it's just a 50/50 on which direction to face it. If they come from the opposite direction & trip it, the jaws won't hit them & then you get to unplug. Be careful too if it's plugged when you're pulling it out, because a lot of the time it just won't be tripped as the trigger won't go off easily from the opposite direction. Sorry it got so long-winded, as you can tell I've been having my Caddy Shack battle so far this year, as you have, although with more success so far.

[bucketmouth64]

Big league chew you say. Sounds less expensive than buying more traps or buying poison, and it sounds effective. All I need now is for the gopher to blow a big bubble and leave it on the surface.

[Guest]

Believe it or not, a good way to get rid of them is to take some bubble gum, like Big League Chew (you know, the shredded kind) and put a bunch of it in the trail.

These greedy little rats can't resist it, but they also can't digest it properly, and they wind up suffocating.

Not a pleasant death, but it does work.

[bigbucks]

Hey workinman, you're just plain evil. I like it.

[eyesontonka]

People and gophers...cant we just get along...heres another fast easy way to get them lil devils...go buy yourself some turkey chit pelletes used as fertilizer...gophers leave A.S.A.P...only problem is they just move about 50 yards from the pellets...good way to pizz off the neighbor! But atleast they wont be back till next spring...just think what fun ya can have with the neighbor!

[Uncle Grump]

Pocket gophers - I got them too....**** things. Got to try the gum idea. I am partial to lead poisining - .22 cal lead poisining.

BigBucks: The traps you describe are called "clinch traps" - very effective.

The trick to setting traps is:
1) set two traps per tunnel - one facing each direction - so that the "wrong way" approach of a gopher doesn't allow it to bury the trap

2) don't enlarge the hole - an enlarged hole/runway allows the gopher to hunch up and pack the tunnel w/ dirt.

A garden trowel is a good tool for opening up a runway. The probe I use is a 3' piece of 1/4" dia steel rod. I bent one end over a piece of pipe to make using it easier on my hand (like a long "J")

Here are excellant resources on controling pocket gophers:

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7433.html

http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/wildlife/g1290.htm

Hope this helps

UG

[The Grebe]

"Hey, hey, wait a minute!" why do you want to get rid of them gophers? If you do that, whose gonna get the coffee, the mail, the hammer? Whose gonna run into town and get bait, or refreshments when the supply is low? If ya ask me, I say let the gophers live!

Besides, those are'nt gopher mounds....one of my clients told me that she was sure that they were made by beavers!

[Guest]

"Licensed to kill Gophers--by the Government of the United Nations".

Karl Spackler, Bushwood Country Club

------------------
Chells

[Hotspotter]

Just a few tips from my dad, who financed his teenage party years via a county bounty on pocket-gophers.

If you do go with the pan-style traps, make sure to set the trap in an intersection of runways. If you set it just inside the entrance to the mound, he'll have too much dirt pushed up in front of him and it will set the trap off without the gopher inside. Also, clean out the hole well so there's no excess dirt. Make sure no light gets into the hole.....a section of shingle works best to form to the hole's opening.

Stake down your trap with with the eye of the chain pulled away from the trap. That way, when you come up to the hole and see the eye of the chain pulled tight against the stake, you know you got one. You don't have to pull off the shingle to see if you got one, and replace the shingle if you didn't.

Be sure to use a T-stake, or some other stake that won't allow the trap to be pulled off from the top. Fox, badgers, and hawks will cause you to lose more traps than anything, and as long as you stake it down well with a T-stake, you shouldn't have too many problems. Make sure to leave the dead ones on a fence post....when I was younger, at least two hawks would circle over me while checking traps in our hayfield. The gopher was usually gone within 15 minutes.

Pull any trap out of the hole slowly or you'll rip his leg(s) off and he'll get away. They're tougher to catch with no legs!

I find the pan traps to work better than the clinch-style, but maybe that's because I know how to use the pan traps better than the clinch traps. Never could figure those buggers out.

Good luck

Joel