SteveB wrote:

"Doug White" wrote


A coworker of mine in silicon valley had a ranch up in the Santa Cruz
mountains. He thought gophers were "cute" until one year they had heavy
rains. An entire hillside detached from the mountain & made a hell of a
mess. It was sort of like "tear on dotted line", the hill had sheared
along a surface passing neatly through a large network of gopher tunnels.

He suddenly started pumping me for info on .22 rifles, scopes, ammo, etc.

Doug White


I think there's a misconception here. I have never seen a gopher. They do
all their things below ground. A prairie dog, or a ground squirrel spends a
lot of time on top of the ground, so one can get a shot at them. Maybe I
don't know the proper stakeout for a gopher, but it doesn't sound like
anything I have the patience for or capacity for that much beer before the
first one shows up. I'd probably hit the house.

Steve



Yeah. There are gophers and then there are gophers.

The underground ones are usually better off being referred to as
Pocket Gophers (known as moles around the farms I shot ground squirrels,
also known as gophers).

Best fastest and most effective thing I have found for pocket gophers
is a trap called The Black Hole Trap.

Like any trapping, the set-up is key.

You have to plant the trap with one end sealed to the tunnel, and the
other end open to air. The area around the mouth must be sealed to the
tunnel, usually with a bit of sod or dirt.

I had great success, setting the trap in the mouth of a fresh mound,
as well as tee'd across the side of a tunnel run, found by either
feeling it cave underfoot, or some judicious probing with a wire,
between fresh mounds.

My best time was 6 minutes from set to trapped! :-)

Cheers
Trevor Jones