pocket gophers

[WARDEN247]

What are the best pocket gopher traps out there?

[Boy]

I got a couple from Runnings Fleet and Farm(I think they have a store in Sauk Center) where they are supposed to snap around the gopher as it runs through the trap and sets the trip. The problem I have is that I can never get the hole dug clean enough to put the trap in. The best thing I have seen take care of pocket gophers is a machine that makes little runs under the ground with poison in them. Worked really slick in a 40 acre alfalfa field.

I hate gophers.

[WARDEN247]

True about the poison thing. Only problem with that I want to give the feet to my nephews to turn into the county. They are getting like $2.00 a pair of front feet. The boys already have a large pickle jar full in the freezer from this spring.

[adokken]

My personal favorite trap is the wood rat trap. you know the over size mouse trap. Dig out a cavity in their tunnel ans put a piece of carrot on the trigger, lay a board over it to shut out the light. if done right you should have one within a hour or so.

[Springer]

They are getting like $2.00 a pair of front feet.

I was getting $2.00 twenty years ago when I was 12. I guess they are holding their own unlike some of the other furbearers.

I used the claw type that would stick into the gopher and kill it. You have to cover up the hole or else they will just plug the hole and go around.

[sportsman18]

I've been trapping for several years. This past year i got 2.50 which isn't that bad. Its pretty easy to trap then in early spring/summer.

[weasle_trapper]

What are the best pocket gopher traps out there?

[/quote]I am probably out of date but I use #0 single longspring traps, and somtimes #1's.

[greenhead]

I like to use the death cletch trap they run about $3.50. I like to clean out the hole really good and stake it with a sturdy stake.

[indsport]

I trapped gophers for pocket change 40 years ago. Gophers only brought in 0.25 each in those days. I used to run a 50 trap line using mostly size 0 jump traps rather than long spring since they would easily fit down in the tunnel. When the new claw types became available, I used them also. $2.00 per gopher, wow, what inflation.

[Dick Monson]

The claw type with the square trigger take the least space and effort. Pick the fresh mound at the end of tunnel, usually the smallest mound. As the gopher extends his tunnel system, he has to move more dirt, thus the mounds. There is a dimple on each mound and that is the tunnel entrance. A garden trowel will open it. You want a straight tunnel shot into the trap, not a T tunnel entrance because the branch of the T will not be long enough to get the trap deep enough into the hole. The gopher sees light from the open hole behind the trap and immediately tries to plug the hole. The trap has to be deep enough into the tunnel so that he doesn't move dirt with his head to snap the trap. If you have a snapped empty trap, you were in a T and he came from the back side or the trap wasn't deep enough (push it in so you can just see the back end of the trap). 50 years ago I trapped for Dad and the neighbors. Better than a paper route for a farm kid.

[WARDEN247]

Thanks for the help guys. I have trapped 10 of them out of the back yard so fall in the last couple of months.

[kvernum3]

who gives you the money for the gopher legs?? and why??

[WARDEN247]

I bring them up to city hall!!