Gophers Gophers Eveywhere

I have had the best luck with the gopher traps. After each kill we boil them in water to help remove scents.

Doesn't boiling the dead gopher produce an even more obnoxious odor? 

 

Likely the gophers you have are botta's gophers.  These much prefer the tuberous roots of dandylions and similar broad-leafed weeds (many of which I see in your photos) to the fine roots of grass, and an effective agricultural management technique is to rotate a field with a grass-crop like wheat or barley so that the gophers have no food for a season.  Using weed-and-feed or a pre-emergent weed-preventer will deny them their food and make them leave.  Non-lawn areas can be mulched.

I've personally found gophers are much more active in poorly maintained (weedy) parts of my lawn.  

I've found that putting poison pellets down the holes and sealing them up seems to stop gopher activity for a month or so.  Presumably the gopher died.  Dig up a section of tunnel to put the poison in, and cover it back up.  If you put poison down an open tunnel the gopher will be likely to push the poison back out because he's excavating there.  

New gophers will continuously move into vacant tunnels, so if you think you've killed the gopher, it is good to damage the tunnels by stomping them in and running a hose into them and adding dirt/sand to the water stream to be carried into the tunnel.  Then any new gopher moving in will have a lot of work to do to make it habitable again and it'll be very evident when one shows up.

I have had the best luck with the gopher traps. After each kill we boil them in water to help remove scents.

Doesn't boiling the dead gopher produce an even more obnoxious odor? 

The traps.....I boil the trap! 

-Brian G

The traps.....I boil the trap! 

-Brian G

Sorry, Brian.  That be my ESL kicking in ...   

The traps.....I boil the trap! 

-Brian G

Sorry, Brian.  That be my ESL kicking in ...   

We could make a joke that I walked right in that trap....