What is the best method,in your opinion to cage a groundhog?
In front of the main hole?One door up or two?Bait or no?Dirt covering the cage bottom?Cage covered?Staked or no.
Thanks in advance.

When I trap ground hogs I want the trap infront of the hole, no bait, double door trap with both doors up, dirt on the floor. Force it so it has no other way to go.

Double door wire trigger cage with a nose cone so that there isn't any option to get out without making a new hole.

I don't bother with dirt, they got to come out of the hole eventually.

Groundhogs here have at least two holes,sometimes three.Would you block the other holes or not?

Block them all with traps if you can

I use cantaloupe and jamesons f 1 or 2

If you dont have enough cages, block the other exits with something that would take a bit of effort to remove. And sometimes it feels like you can take a piece of constuction paper and put it in front of the hole. Ive set up places where I was short on traps and just shoved some leaves in some of the smaller side holes and the groundhog is always sitting in the trap the next day, sometimes two.

Thanks a lot guys.

If woodchucks always have at least two holes, does the second one come out in China or some other country on the other side of the

world?

If it's a one holer it's probably a jump in hole and he doesn't live there. He will come back to it though when the want or need arises. A little ground hog poop and or some of Jamesons lure are long lasting lures while you wait. A trailing scent helps him find the entry end of the trap opposed to working around the blocked hole.

Ditto on the double door cage traps, the smallest possible double door cage for ease in setting with nose cones or similar set up, no bait required, which means you are less apt to attract and catch a non-target. You can do it with home made nose cones, several kinds of commercial nose cones, solid or wire, sometimes a flush mount double door trap and also a multipurpose type set, each able to take chucks coming and going because you never know if they are "in or out." Some set ups are good for straight on setting, while others offer the option of side mounting too, straight on, left or right, which can come in handy when there is a boulder, tree or farm equipment in the way. This does the same thing as a conibear without worry about injury to pets, There may be only one hole at a location, but numerous holes scattered in the general area. When there is a large cluster of holes, 4 or 5, I may set only 1 or 2, depending on what is there. I ask the client what they see. If they see mom and a bunch of kids I may set 6 or 8 traps to save trips, time, gas and be done with it. If it is a solitary male, just one or two cages will usually do the trick. If its evening or early morning, you could set and wait a few minutes if you wanted to and actually do it in one trip. If you see a chuck dive into a hole, all the better. Since you pushed him into the hole and it was not by choice he ducked out of sight, he will often pop out quickly into a waiting cage. My quickest was five minutes, with best day of 6 chucks in 4 hours, from 10 a to 2 p.

One of he best stories was about a young fellow who had tried with bait and single door cages, up to 4 at a time, for 16 days with no "luck." He got a double door cage and noes cone, had the chuck in a few hours.

I know all "good" trappers are supposed to be up early, crack of dawn. I'm more like crack of noon. Chucks do come out early in the morning and of course they are out again in the evening, so you get two opportunities at seeing them feed, and two opportunities to find dens you might not find.

As I mentioned above, sometimes you can see them dive into a hole if you are lucky, often a non-descript hole you would never find without seeing the chuck dive into it. Happened just that way last evening. There was a bunch of boulders placed along a road at the resort. The chuck was in the grass, saw me and went toward a hole you would never see. I pushed him and he dove into the hole. Making sure there were no hidden exits, I did some blocking, especially where I saw the tell tale "Woodchuck" flies. I then took a short double door cage trap to cover the single entrance as there was no room for a long one which is often the case. While getting set up I did put a rock in that hole just in case the chuck tried to make a quick dash. Better to be safe than sorry as it seems too many times as a kid when catching whatever, a critter would give you the slip. Anyway, I pulled the plug, set the double door cage and left to check a beaver location. Returning at dark a couple of hours later, a nice fat chuck was waiting.

It's nice to know that someone else thinks that early birds are crazy and worms are vastly over rated.

You can still get in 8 hours plus while starting at noon on long summer days. I guess I'm a sight hunter, like to see what's taking place and often evening is a great time to see the chucks moving and pin them down. Same works for beaver that begin to move at dark. You can see and learn a lot at dusk and better yet, make catches in from as little as hours to as little as minutes. We usually think of setting one day and catching the next, but you can't discount the day at hand. Always nice to prime the pump and come away with a catch on the very first trip, which might shorten the episode and end the program a day early with a saved trip.

Wrapped up a nuisance beaver job last year in about a half hour.I was doing a few other beaver jobs in a remote area and a guy from the hydro company flagged me down and mentioned a spot that I was familiar with as I had taken beaver out of that spot the year before.He said the crew had cleared the culvert that morning,so this was in the afternoon and I told him I would set it up before heading back to town.I went and finished up the other spots and detoured by the spot the hydro guy told me about just before dusk.I always carry my 22 mag and I figured I would have a good chance to pop one beaver as they would be working the culvert.
I wound up popping the one on the far shore on land,and about 20 minutes later popped the other one swimming towards the culvert from upstream.Both the same size,about 40 lb,a male and a female,done.

I never am armed when doing ADC work in spite of the fact that I have a concealed carry permit. I figure that over the years I have

probably missed the opportunity to "pop" about a quarter of a million dollars worth of pests. On the bright side, I have never

accidentally shot myself because I got excited either. I liked Boco's story. Maybe I'll have to rethink my relationship with guns.

I'm sure they would love the chance to get out of that big, dark gun safe.

Had a duplicate experience of Boco about 10 years ago. Beaver swam out when we got there. Saw one coming after we spoke to the landowner. Popped that one and a minute later the other came out. Popped him in the same place. Went back to the house. Client said, "you didn't see any." Said, "nope, we saw them." Oh he said, "didn't get them." "Nope, got them both." Took about the same as Boco, 20 minutes. Was a little embarrassed to collect on it so quickly, but we did. Helps even it up for the ones that don't go so well.

Lucky works!

Back to chucks. Just had another spot where the chuck was there, then gone for two weeks, then back for 5 or 6 days. I got the call and set. Gone again, just behind him, frustrating as I do like closure. At least with positive sets you know he's not there. Seems that people wait just long enough before calling to allow the chuck to eat what he wants and leave. Of course he will no doubt return, but you never know when. A friend of mine waited 3 weeks for a happy ending.

Just the nature of the beast. Hogs can frequently be nomadic and quite unpredictable at times. If they aren't denning on the job site they can drag things out for a while with their selective interests.

The foraging and disappearing act is a common behavior of hogs around here and it appears to be common all around the country. They will travel to where ever it is to get what they seem to desire whether it be a preferred food, looking for a friend, to visit an area doing recon for new den sites or to get lucky to find a vacant den that he can use if needed to save a lot of digging.