i am going to be trying to get rid of the gophers on my father in laws farm this year and was wondering what the best techniques are and also what traps are best. thanks very much.
Tubby

you put a 220 conibear on the trail and put some #2 and 1 1/2 outside the hole and im not sure if it works but they say you can put a onion in a cage and catch em

Cody, what kind of gopher are you after?

Try the gophinator traps made by steve albano.
Search archives there are lots of posts on gopher trapping.

Justin

im talkin bout grounhog where im from gopher and grounhogs are the same thing

I thought that may be the case Cody, didn't mean to be off handed about it.

Just didn't want a guy after pocket gopher to be out throwing 220's on the ground and wondering why
he wasn't catchin anything.

where i grew up, groundhog, woodchuck, whistle pig all covered ground hogs.

of course now i live where it takes 20 minutes to be sure they aren't talking about rock squirrel, ground squirrel, prairie dog, pocket gopher
or moles which aren't here!

Thanks for the clarification, again no offense intended.

Justin

Tubby, depends on the acreage and other factors including how much time you want to spend, money you want to spend. Some folks use toxicants, others mainly traps
.
http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/pocketgophers.asp

Try that link to get started, plenty of others with tons of experience on here. Most large fields near me send farm kids out with traps for $1.00 a gopher and such, though I know others in the state making good money on doing those same fields professionally.

Justin

its all good man lol im just backwards i reckon lol

Thanks HD. its a small plot of land at 20 acres. is it worth only buying a couple traps or will that not thin them out fast enough before they repopulate? also i will be starting work on a sod farm in the next couple of weeks and guess they would have the equipment too so i might see if they have any gear gathering dust that i could borrow. is there any brands of traps to stay away from? ive only started looking but so far the gophinator gopher trap seems alright.
Michael

Tubby, my work with pocket gophers is limited to residential lawns and only steve's traps which I very much like.
Because pocket gophers are constantly on the move and maintaining their burrows I've found most are caught within
the first 2 day check up. But, if next door lots more exist which is common, they will backfill, especially depending on
the time of year, (new young looking for space, etc..) There are a couple of papers that are interesting on protecting large
fields by bombing the whole thing with traps then setting up perimeter with traps and keeping them out.

Frankly, I love trapping them, just can't get the price I'd like, or rather my wife would like!



others have input?

Justin

is the death clutch a good trap to use?

ttt

there are quite a few folks that use that trap, might try an archive search,
there have been some talks about gophinator, death clutch and others in the last 6 mos. I'd say.

justin

My little son invent a cool new set , he took a number 1 long spring and flipped it over and placed the pan over the hole , so when they pop there head up they get caught , I was very impressed with him , it works well , not saying I would use it on a job , 330 has some nice traps for them

any one ever invent a small little conibear?
if so, lets see some pics...

I always thought that the Death Clutch was what the bride used on the groom's hand to get him to say "I DO".

They make some small round ones , they also make one that has a mounting bracket so you can screw it the the house

I use Revenge Quick-set and Death Klutch depending on size of run. I'm sure I could round up a few to use and show you how I like to set them feel free to PM me I'll send you my number and we could talk if you want. but right now I gotta go skin some beaver.

I just ordered a couple different versions form Wildlife Control Supplies, www.shopwcs.com You can check out what a few of them look like. I ordered to try different traps with moles. I think if I had a field with gophers it would be the excuse I have been looking for to order one of them Propane/Oxygen exploders. Got to love blowing stuff up.

Tubby, I can recommend these http://www.traplineproducts.com/ They work great and I like that they are stainless steel. . I tie a sturdy piece of twine on each one and stake and mark with flagging. for 20 acres I would use at least 6 . I locate fresh mounds and probe the soil with a rod until I find the tunnel. dig it out with a trowel, leave it open and slide a trap about as far as I can reach. I work the trap into the soil just a little to 'bed' it and to make sure the jaws are not tipped up. Most of the time I get 1 or 2 within an hour of setting.
Good luck