Ron Lee

Ron Lee

Well Known Member
One of the possible factors in creating problems in grass runways are pocket gophers. As one of the RV community resident experts I will offer the benefit of my vast experience in eradicating these hazardous pests.

Some background info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_gopher

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7433.html

For those who need video, watch Caddy Shack to see how problematic these pests can be and difficult to eradicate. I have tried gassers, water, car exhaust and gasoline. It was not until I was told about gopher traps that I was finally successful in ridding my estate of them. The trap I use is model 0611 on this site:

http://www.victorpest.com/mole_gopher_products.htm

One of my arsenal is here:

GopherTrapSmall.jpg


The string attached to the trap connects to a piece of wood that prevents the trap from being lost.

It is best to look for a fresh mound of dirt. Using a metal tent stake, I probe around the edges of the dirt until I find a hole leading to the tunnel complex. Open that up enough to place the set trap in the hole, then just wait for the critter to come out. Sometimes it may catch a gopher in mere hours. Other times the trap may be sprung and have to be reset.

While I am not 100% at finding a tunnel opening and not 100% at catching a gopher, I have been successful enough that last year my gopher body count was down to five, down from over 50-60 in previous years.
 
Last edited:
Ron, use one trap in each tunnel, most mounds will have two tunnels.

Put a piece of plywood over the opening you make, and cover the edges with the dirt you dug up------you want to keep the light and fresh air out of the tunnel, or the critters will shove fresh dirt ahead of them to plug the openings, and that will spring the trap.

Been eradicating these pests for over 50 years, and traps like the one you use are the best I have ever found.

I also return the little corpses to the tunnel, seems the rest of the family doesnt like the smell.

Good Hunting!!

BTW, Caddy Shack had a mole, by the tunneling.
 
Last edited:
Mike S said:
SNIP

I also return the little corpses to the tunnel, seems the rest of the family doesnt like the smell.

SNIP
Click to expand...

EXCELLENT!!!:D:D

I used to trap the little monsters when I was a kid, and the county would pay us pretty well for each one. I agree, you really need to cover the trap with a board and put dirt all over it. One sniff of air or light, and they'll plug it tight without setting off the trap.

A little reminiscing: I would bring the air rifle along when checking traps, because the pocket gophers (at least around here) had nasty front teeth, much like a beaver. Of course, it was much more fun to plug them with the rifle than beat them over the head with a shovel. When I'd see the chain to the trap tight, I knew I had one. So, I'd wear leather gloves and pull the cardboard up. I remember one specific time, the little rascal was playing dead, so I remember nudging it with the air rifle barrel. He chomped on to the end of the barrel and I let him have it. The scratches from its teeth were on that gun forever.
 
Sigh, I thought I would be the expert

Then others who know more reveal me for the grasshopper I am. To add insult, a friends dog caught more gophers in 2007 than I did.

I do reuse my traps. I use surgical gloves to set and remove the carcass and periodically clean the traps in a bleach/water mix.
 
Beer cans...

AlexPeterson said:
....A little reminiscing: I would bring the air rifle along when checking traps, because the pocket gophers (at least around here) had nasty front teeth, much like a beaver. Of course, it was much more fun to plug them with the rifle than beat them over the head with a shovel........
Click to expand...


When I lived in Oceanside, CA, our small back yard faced a large hill - which, along with our yard, was riddled with gophers.

Our favorite sport was trying to hit them with empty beer cans....:)

gil A

PS... our patient cat did much better - sticking his claw down a hole and coming up with a gopher...
 
I have some---no, make that I had some because it's mostly illegal now---a chemical my dad used to sell called Larvacide or generically chloropicrin. It was used pre-EPA to keep rodents out of grain bins. A half pint properly contained would keep them out of huge silos for months. A teaspoonful in any rodent hole would bring them out in seconds, gophers, groundhogs, muskrats, anything. It took a shotgun to get the muskrats, but you could shoot or club anything else. I understand it is the strongest form of teargas and having gotten downwind a couple of times, I don't doubt it. I see a real use for it here if someone could get it. We never considered it dangerous because nothing can stand being in an area with even tiny concentrations of it.

Bob Kelly
 
Geico266 said:
I prefer a little C4.
Click to expand...

There was a time when primary critter control was with a 30-06 but due to the cost of ammo and other political correctness considerations, the modus has been down graded to a .22. Latest victim was a nasty wood chuck attacking my wife's flower garden. When this guy first showed up, he was easily spooked off but he kept getting more and more obnoxious. That's how they are, pretty soon they think they own the place. Years ago I sent one to the other side when he chased my kids in the yard...that dispatch was with the big cannon and he never felt a thing is was so complete. They just don't know when to leave well enough alone. If they'd use a little common sense now and then, I'd leave them alone.

We have not had any gophers around here, but there are plenty of deer. I know one guy who hit one on take off recently at a local airport and had enough room to abort. Sure wrecked his airplane. I hit one with my Honda Pilot on December 22 - over three grand to fix the car - was I steamed. Deer strike damage runs in the billions of dollars lost each year and not a few human fatalities along with it.

Critters, there's too many of 'em (or too many of us).
 
I don't know what critters you have that guns or beer cans work. I have NEVER seen one (pocket gopher) come out (day or night). Just so the uninformed know how bad these things are they can decimate shrubs and have killed six foot pine trees. The tunnels can cave in under you causing foot/ankle injury and may have been a factor in a recent 7A tipover.
 
Beer cans...

Ron Lee said:
I don't know what critters you have that guns or beer cans work. I have NEVER seen one (pocket gopher) come out (day or night). Just so the uninformed know how bad these things are they can decimate shrubs and have killed six foot pine trees. The tunnels can cave in under you causing foot/ankle injury and may have been a factor in a recent 7A tipover.
Click to expand...

I never said that throwing the beer cans actually worked....:D

But we did see them during the day - sticking their heads up out of the hole, just like in the cartoons - and the cat got them during the day while we watched.

The back yard was riddled with tunnels... kitchen chair legs would slowly sink into the lawn, and then tip over as a leg hit a tunnel - caving in just like you said. Great fun when associated with emptying the beer cans to throw at the gophers...:)

gil A
 
Ron Lee said:
One of the possible factors in creating problems in grass runways are pocket gophers. As the RV community resident expert I will offer the benefit of my vast experience in eradicating these hazardous pests.

<snip>

It is best to look for a fresh mound of dirt. Using a metal tent stake, I probe around the edges of the dirt until I find a hole leading to the tunnel complex. Open that up enough to place the set trap in the hole, then just wait for the critter to come out. Sometimes it may catch a gopher in mere hours. Other times the trap may be sprung and have to be reset.

While I am not 100% at finding a tunnel opening and not 100% at catching a gopher, I have been successful enough that last year my gopher body count was down to five, down from over 50-60 in previous years.
Click to expand...

Wow, that brings back some memories. Of my otherwise utterly meek, pacifist Danish mother going on the warpath with those traps. She swore by them, even as she swore at the gophers she caught constantly in the hills behind Santa Barbara, in her garden. As others have said, she always put a board over the hole, and she always used a piece of celery (cheap enough that despite her frugal nature she could stand to part with it) as bait. Seemed to work. She had to tell me about every one she ever caught.
 
When we first moved to Air Troy, we had a regular prairie dog city in out yard. We used to shoot them with a pellet rifle until they got to wise. One day Rich got out the waterhose and a shovel. That summer he flushed and smacked them out of existence. We haven't had a gopher on our property in over ten years. The hose sometimes works.

Roberta
 
Ron Lee said:
I don't know what critters you have that guns or beer cans work. I have NEVER seen one (pocket gopher) come out (day or night). Just so the uninformed know how bad these things are they can decimate shrubs and have killed six foot pine trees. The tunnels can cave in under you causing foot/ankle injury and may have been a factor in a recent 7A tipover.
Click to expand...

Ron, same family of pocket gophers here in MN. You will simply never see one. I recall a very unique cat we had many years ago. We saw him sitting out a few hundred yards in an alfalfa field for hours. Never moved, in fact, we thought maybe he'd croaked. Anyway, a couple hours later he paraded by with a pocket gopher. Never heard of that happening before or since.

We also have what are called striped gophers around here by the billions. The don't leave a mound, just a little hole. They are just the opposite of pocket gophers - it is easy to whistle them up from their holes and pop them.

One time many decades ago, my grandmother (still alive today at 104!) told us to bring the garden hose over to where she was. We flooded water down the hole, and she clobbered a striped gopher that came gasping up.

This is the classic striped gopher:




And, while it seems to be difficult to find pictures on line of them (probably due to their not coming up when anything is around), here is about what the MN version of pocket gophers look like:

 
We have the striped gophers in Wisconsin. I guess that they are dumber than the pocket gophers, but smart enough to stay away.:D

Roberta
 
I have those striped critters too. I called them ground squirrels but may well be wrong. I used to shoot them with a 22 but no longer worry about them since it is the pocket gophers that seem to cause the most damage. The pocket gophers look like what I catch.

I also have bunny rabbits, jackrabbits and an owl seems to be flying out of a tree by my house often. Plenty of coyotes too. I have a live and let live attitude except with the pocket gophers.
 
Moles

AlexPeterson said:
[U
here is about what the MN version of pocket gophers look like:

]
12671.jpg


On my airstrip I have been trying to eradicate what I call 'moles' (most people call them pocket gophers).....These critters make the nice mounds of dirt that a wheel can hit. I use a 'black hole' trap and have caught at least 100...You never see them during the day as they are a nocturnal creature.....but they will come to plug the air hole and get caught in the trap.....Badgers love to eat these little animals as well and their holes are about a foot in diameter and deep, enough to lose a wheel or small kid..:) I just fill in these holes and move on......and hope I don't hit one with the -4...
Click to expand...
 
DIY Rodenator

The Rodenator costs somewhere around $800, but if you have an acetylene welding setup you can do the same thing yourself. I was told about this maybe 15 years ago before the Rodenator was ever thought of. I have forgotten how to make the ignition system, but I am sure most of you folks can figure it out. And portability is a problem, so you may want to use some of those small tanks they sell.

The basic process is to light your torch and adjust for a neutral flame. Take a block of wood and tap the tip with the wood to put the flame out, then stick it down the hole with the gases still on. Fill up the hole with gas; I don't know how much it will take so you will have to do a little trial and error on this. Pull the torch and drop a spark plug down the hole, stand back and using some electrical source, give it some spark. I am sure some of you can tell how to rig the ignition. I wouldn't do this hear any building foundations until I figured out how much of a blast you get & how much gas to use.
 
RScott said:
SNIP

The basic process is to light your torch and adjust for a neutral flame. Take a block of wood and tap the tip with the wood to put the flame out, then stick it down the hole with the gases still on. SNIP
Click to expand...

Be very careful with this .... the gas mixture inside the torch can ignite and it can blow up the end. I've seen the torch end that this happened to.

A few years back at Van's homecoming, I was talking with Van about all the pocket gopher mounds on a field directly outside their building. Van doesn't own it, but he did tell me how they used to take care of them. I guess they'd get some sulfur, dump a little pile into on of the holes. Then they would take a propane torch, aim it at the sulfur and down into the hole. Guess the critters didn't like the sulfur dioxide much.

One can buy the little smoke bombs, which seem to be just sulfur. I used one under my front porch - never did see a gopher out front again.
 
Alex, I tried many of the Gopher Gassers and usually they were pushed out of the hole within a day. The gopher traps I posted about have been very successful.
 
Ron Lee said:
Alex, I tried many of the Gopher Gassers and usually they were pushed out of the hole within a day. The gopher traps I posted about have been very successful.
Click to expand...

I think the smoke needs to be blown into the hole. When the thing was burning, I lightly blew into the hole with compressed air until I saw smoke coming out elsewhere. I know traps work, but there is more fun in a smoke bomb!:D
 
Grass Strip Maintenance

I have a problem with armadillos, ant mounds, and deer. Any suggestions? I have dispatched alot of the armadillos but can't seem to get rid of them. Fire ant mounds are a real problem, I have tried all of the name brand fire ant poisons and nothing seems to work. The deer situation is a accident waiting to happen. They will stand on the side of the runway, look at you then dart in front of you. We did have a problem with hogs, but local trappers solved the problem with them. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Gerry
RV-9, N92GC
J-3, NC88583
 
RScott said:
The basic process is to light your torch and adjust for a neutral flame. Take a block of wood and tap the tip with the wood to put the flame out, then stick it down the hole with the gases still on. Fill up the hole with gas; I don't know how much it will take so you will have to do a little trial and error on this. Pull the torch and drop a spark plug down the hole, stand back and using some electrical source, give it some spark. I am sure some of you can tell how to rig the ignition. I wouldn't do this hear any building foundations until I figured out how much of a blast you get & how much gas to use.
Click to expand...

I used to live next to someone who did this, ground squirrels in horse pasture, worked well.

But LOUD!!!

Warn your neighbors if you are going to blast the little buggers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.