Mole/Gopher Problem

How do I get rid of the damn bastards. Ive considered sitting in the front yard with the shotgun loaded but would probably get a few complaints around the neighborhood when the shots went off..

Any suggestions on ways to kill them or move them...

Or just invite a murder of crows to come hang out in your yard.

Check out this website: http://www.gophergoner.com/
My experience is very good with these traps.  If I put the trap into a newly dug tunnel entrance, I usually have the critter nailed within 3 hours.

Call Carl Spackler "To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong."

Yes!  Welcome to my wheelhouse.  It smells of death here.   

Get two Macabee traps.  Secure them to a piece of rebar with chain or cable.  This prevents coyotes from making off with the trap when they dig up the gopher or the injured gopher pulling the trap deeper. 

This video spells it out very well. 



I like cardboard to cover the hole and then seal the edges with soil. 

Probing to find the main run is the key.  Use the rebar to probe the tunnel.  Start a little bit off the clean out mound and try to probe around until you can identify the main run.  I'll draw a picture when I get in the office. 



Eric Morgan
Trident Ultra 4.7
Not the guy selling the Outback
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I used to flood them out with a hose in their tunnel.  Not really efficient, but I would catch them and feed them to my pet gopher snake.  The first year I moved into my house I caught over a dozen of them.  The year after that half dozen, then the next year just a few.  Haven't seen a gopher in my yard for the last 5 yrs or so.  Guess they must have wised up and moved on! 

So....if ya guys capture any live ones, you can give me a ring!  My snake likes them lots better than store bought rats.

Air rifle or pole spear?

My friend has had good results with those electronic stakes you put into the ground that emits some distress signal. 

He tried other methods but they kept returning after some time but hasn't had any issues since he used these electronic stakes.

22 caliber Gamo Silent air rifle.

 

  I got rid of either a mole or a gopher by filling it's tunnel with propane.  I made sure to seal off any openings I could see, then stuck the nozzle end of the torch into the hole, sealed the nozzle then let the gas go!
  As propane is heavier than air, it will settle into any and all low spaces within the tunnel, replacing the oxygen.  After doing this, the tunnels stopped appearing in my tiny strip of dirt.
  My dad (R.I.P.) had a problem with what turned out to be a fat 1lb gopher eating his garden!  the tunnel was like 4" wide!  Anyhow, he was a landscape Gardner and knew all the tricks, had all the traps, knew what poisons to use and when, but this " Caddyshack gopher"  wasn't having any of what dad was laying out.  The one sided battle went of for weeks.
  Enter Ruger 10/22 with single shot CB cap loaded into the breach.  Game changer.  If there was a Mrs. Gopher, she just got widowed.  Dad took up a strategic position and awaited the arrival of the bunny sized snout to appear above the ground, and when it did, dad canceled it's x-mass!
   Garden saved!  One shot one kill!
So when all else fails, Mr. Ruger won't

I've shot'em with pellets, a 22 and finally a 380auto. All work, and I've trapped them with the green wire traps (Victor 615 gopher trap).  Those traps work great, but usually maim and not kill.

So now my soft hearted self gets a can or bucket ready then floods the hole and waits for it to come running out, they're pretty easy to catch in a bucket on open ground.  Then I take'em for a ride to open space.

Last time I did the hose thing no one came out, and the holes stopped popping up, RIP.

I tried poison, gas "flares" and traps with no success.  The little bastard would come up and look at me when I went out for the paper in the morning.   This is the first time I have had them at this house and we have been here 12 years.    I'm not sure if the recent cold weather had anything to do with it, but the varmint seems to have moved on.   I have used Macabee traps in the past at other houses but I couldn't catch this guy.  The propane solution sounds interesting.  I was hoping to hear that you lit a match and burned them out but that seems just a little dangerous to me.

I have used Macabee traps in the past at other houses but I couldn't catch this guy.

You need to probe the area around a fresh mound.   Fresh soil=recent activity.   Macabee traps effective if placed properly.

I have killed a few hundred with Black Hole Traps http://www.amazon.com/Various-Black-Hole-Rodent-Trap/dp/B0007O24US they work really well, we used to bait them with regular (non-poisonous, the dog liked grain too) grain, and throw a chunk of plywood over it and shovel a bit of dirt onto the plywood so no light showed through. I killed mostly ground squirrels, but a bunch of gophers and a mole or two with these.

My mother used to get cases of those cyanide smoke bombs, they were fun to play with (you could find all the hole openings) but I don't know that they actually killed anything.. The best way to pop them was with a .22 or a .410 when they stick their heads up, but yeah, we didn't have neighbors...