Anybody gopher trapping? We're killing em!

Rob424

Rob424

New member
My son and I have been trapping on a couple of farms that we do some coyote hunting on in the winter and have been cleaning up on them. Last Wednesday I took him to the county clerks and he got a check for $209. 68 pocket($3 each) and 5 striped($1 each). We trap together but he gets all the cash. Since then we've got 2 stripes( one had a run in with my 17 REM) and
66 more pockets. 33 from last night alone. I'm seriously thinking of selling most of my canine and coon traps and concentrating on the gopher trapping for next year. Would sure leave a lot more time to spend hunting in the fall. The next time we clean up I told mitchell we'll take a few pics.
Anybody else having any luck?
 
ksboy2, we have 53 of the death clutch traps and absolutely love em. The farm we're trapping now is an 80 thats divided into 4- 20's. We have only been on the East 20 portion. We put out 16 traps tonight but had a hard time finding much(must have done our job). The farmer was baleing tonight and has the next two 20's ready for us. We'll keep you posted.
 
Here's a few pics for ya. Mitchell took his gophers in this week and he had 181. We took all the traps out last Sunday to take a break but stuck out 35 tonight so we'll see what we get tomorrow.
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That is great! One happy farmer too I'd bet.

Did the county collect the entire animal or just tails? Is this in St. Croix or Polk ? Was the soil sand or sandy loom? My kid would love this, in a few years.
 
The townships collect the tails only. We've been trapping in St. Croix and Eureka townships but last weekend we took a beating from the area coyotes. We couldn't check the traps on Saturday night due to rain and when we got out Sunday morning we only found 6 left in the traps. We had 17 more that had been pulled out of the holes and had the gopher eaten off and we had one pulled and taken. Walked quite a while and couldn't find it anywhere. We lost one trap on Saturday as well. Mitch dropped off his tails last week and had 181. He's pretty happy, he gets the check tomorrow.
 
Sounds like a good idea to keep some carcass' frozen for bait come trappin' season. I didn't know yotes would dig like that. Fox, coon, badgers, and skunks diggers for sure - now add yotes to that list too.

I honestly hate yotes, only cause I like trapping fox so much. Most of the yotes I catch have mange. Some worse than others, but almost all have at least a red crotch, sure sign of the start of the disease.

Funny, over the weekend a gopher mound appeared in my yard. last night I dug out the tunnel and pop'd in a victor easy set. I left the hole open. This morning the hole was pluged, trap was sprug, and no rodent caught. Will reset tonight.
 
Originally Posted By: Rob424 Walked quite a while and couldn't find it anywhere. We lost one trap on Saturday as well.

Don't worry, the owner of the property will find them with his swather when he goes to cut hay again
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I know this is an old thread, but these little dufuses are tearing the crap out of my pasture. I've never trapped pocket gophers before, but I think I want to give it a go.

Is the "Death Klutch" trap referred to above the DK-1, like this? DK 1 Gopher Trap
Does it typically kill the gopher?
How often should I check them?
How does one find the tunnel? -- I've heard of probing with a steel rod or something, but where do you start? At the mound? Is it pretty obvious when you hit it?
 
In the mound there will be a small spot where the dirt has a different shape. Sometimes a fifty cent piece bump, divet or just odd shape. Tunnel is usually directly below it. We used #0,1 long spring traps. Dig down place trap in tunnel, cover and check next day. We would leave the tie wire so we could tell if it moved. Uncover if wire has moved, retrieve gopher. A rod can be used to tell which direction the tunnel takes from the ground level hole.
 


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