I don't need any feed back on this, I know I am stupid sometimes. This morning I put one of steves gopher traps in a gopher hole, turned around to get a sod staple to tie it down and you guessed it. Down the hole it went. Put a stick in the run and it went down about 3 feet without feeling anything. Enough said.

I had a Bud's modified mole trap go off right next to me while I was setting another trap one day. Since then, it has been fresh on my mind to stake Steve's traps anytime my hand isn't on them. Thats crazy that it actually happened to you! Knew it could, but haven't ever heard of it before.

Are you going to try to find it with a metal detector or anything?

I have three jobs going that have active grey fox dens nearby, they are marking all of my sets, and then digging up all the moles and gophers that get caught. They have cost me a lot of gear already.

Anytime I have use Steve's traps without a tie off the gophers seem to get several feet down the tunnels before they expire.

Anyone ever had 1 of Steve Albano's mole traps disappear?

Yes, client decided to sod the yard rather than wait for me to finish.

Anyone ever had 1 of Steve Albano's mole traps disappear?




I have had a few over the years missing. I believe the incidents to be local dogs, cats, coon, hawk or owls, or fox in most cases. I only use a wire marker flag to hold and mark our traps and locations in most cases. Not a very secure way of anchoring the traps but I rarely have this occur.

However when I am in a rural area that I suspect this can be a problem I wire the traps to a piece of 16 ga. trapping wire and drive in a rebar to tie the wire too.

I have found a couple of traps over the years being lucky I suppose by looking for the wire flag that has a bright red flag on top with our company name and info printed on it. Some times I only find one trap. The trap that most likely had the caught mole was never recovered.

I would think in these circumstances the mole may have been caught and managed to wiggle to the surface and obviously this movement was seen by a predator or some animal most likely. I would think raptors particularly screech owls or great horned owls which are plentiful in this part of the country from my experience. In trapping this area I see many plus I hear and see them often in the evenings.

Raptors could make off with a catch and trap after a bit of a tug of war and get away with traps and flag at times with not a lot of effort. There are several scenarios that could explain things.

I have had a few come up missing, mostly animals that have dug them up. If I am in a area with small kids I just put a lawn staple to hold the trap and paint the site and put a flag at the location, that way if the kids take the flag I still have the flag and the staple holds the traps in place. Works for me.

For the number of traps I set per job, speed and convenience is necessary. I add any lost traps to the clients bill at the end of our trapping program. They are explained this fact in the beginning so there is no misunderstanding when or if this occurs.