Gophers

Anyone have a trick to trapping/killing gophers?


I try to trap and relocate as much as possible, I don't like killing any creature unless I really have to, even then I don't like to take the life of another. I've relocated about 5 gophers from my yard every spring the past few years, and 3 so far this spring (I Flood em' out of their hole, then grab them quickly with leather gloves and toss em' into a bucket and then I let em go in an open field a few blocks from my house)...So I've removed (or killed) about 15 total over the past 3 years, but as soon as I remove one it seems like 2 more appear in/around my yard within just a few days. And trying to flood them out of the ground doesn't always work.

I got a few traps a couple months ago but they rarely work. Out of the 30+ times that I've set the traps over the past 2 months I've only caught 2 of them. All the other times the traps just end up buried, and/or the traps go off but no gopher in them.

I despise poisons for many reasons...but I don't really know what else to do to control the gophers in my yard. In an urban area like I am in, I can see poisons not being detrimental to the local eco-systems or spreading into the food chain like it happens when people use poisons when doing guerrilla grows or growing out in the woods/bush/within natural habitats.


Any of ya'll know about some traps that are known to be great for gophers? Or any techniques?...Or home-made bait/"poisons" ?



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The gopher stakes that emit high frequency buzzing noises work well imho, you have to have one every 100ft2

Havahart traps work pretty good for relocation. I used one of the bigger ones for woodchucks in the past. Luckily I haven't seen them around in a few years.

https://www.havahart.com/small-1-door-easy-set-trap

NotSunlight said:

u mean cocaine blunts. if you do that with people breaks with the gophers. mine never connected. if the tunnel is there first its going to use the tunnel. probably makes it mad or something idk. going this direction.

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This logic is golden

i have a few guerilla grows on my property.

some of them get eaten by gophers. so far not decimated.

i'm pretty sure the gophers are attracted by the moisture, when it's dry - and i can't blame them.

when it is dry, i run a sprinkler near one of the grows, in the evening, so the gophers can have a "wet area" without eating my plants.

one strategy is to plant multiple grow sites. 3 of my sites are having gophers. sometimes they eat the plants. sometimes they just dig holes but don't eat anything.

then when you figure out where the gophers aren't, you plant more there. maybe have some extra seedlings ready to go.

theJointedOne said:

The gopher stakes that emit high frequency buzzing noises work well imho, you have to have one every 100ft2

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I forgot about those things.

I heard about someone using them a while back. IIRC they said they worked at first but after a while the gophers got used to the sound and didn't really care.

They do work well in your experience with them tho?

Green Squall said:

Havahart traps work pretty good for relocation. I used one of the bigger ones for woodchucks in the past. Luckily I haven't seen them around in a few years.

https://www.havahart.com/small-1-door-easy-set-trap

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The smallest one they make might work for gophers.

Just a pain in the ass trying to bury it and place it just right in their tiny tunnels. Not sure how well a trap like that will work underground/buried.

I might look into getting something like that tho.

BYF said:

u mean cocaine blunts. if you do that with people breaks with the gophers. mine never connected. if the tunnel is there first its going to use the tunnel. probably makes it mad or something idk. going this direction.


This logic is golden

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I don't have any idea what is trying to be said or conveyed there.

What "logic"?

St. Phatty said:

i have a few guerilla grows on my property.

some of them get eaten by gophers. so far not decimated.

i'm pretty sure the gophers are attracted by the moisture, when it's dry - and i can't blame them.

when it is dry, i run a sprinkler near one of the grows, in the evening, so the gophers can have a "wet area" without eating my plants.

one strategy is to plant multiple grow sites. 3 of my sites are having gophers. sometimes they eat the plants. sometimes they just dig holes but don't eat anything.

then when you figure out where the gophers aren't, you plant more there. maybe have some extra seedlings ready to go.

Click to expand...

I'm growing in my backyard, I don't have multiple grow sites or multiple places where I can grow.

There is nowhere in my backyard where the gophers don't have tunnels under ground.


I don't think they're attracted to moist soil, just because it's moist, but rather roots/plants that they can eat. Gophers don't eat soil. I am pretty certain gophers can smell roots/exudates through the soil.

In my yard they are attracted to what ever plants are growing, they've been taking out my sunflowers over the past couple weeks.

I have most of my cannabis plants in fabric pots because of the gophers in my yard so those plants are safe...But I do have a few in the ground that are vulnerable to gophers, and my entire garden in general is vulnerable.







Thanks for the replies tho ya'll...



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"[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The smallest one they make might work for gophers.
Just a pain in the ass trying to bury it and place it just right in their tiny tunnels. Not sure how well a trap like that will work underground/buried.
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] I might look into getting something like that tho."[/FONT]

I've never had to deal with gophers, only woodchucks, but couldn't you just place the trap in the vicinity of the tunnels and throw some bait in it? Looking it up, carrots, celery, apples and peanut butter will attract them.

Green Squall said:

"[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The smallest one they make might work for gophers.
Just a pain in the ass trying to bury it and place it just right in their tiny tunnels. Not sure how well a trap like that will work underground/buried.
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] I might look into getting something like that tho."[/FONT]

I've never had to deal with gophers, only woodchucks, but couldn't you just place the trap in the vicinity of the tunnels and throw some bait in it? Looking it up, carrots, celery, apples and peanut butter will attract them.

Click to expand...

I suppose I could open up one of their tunnels and try to place one of those types of traps with bait right at the opening of the tunnel. That's kinda what I've been doing with the traps I have but somehow they never actually get caught in the trap and the trap just gets buried again when they re-seal their tunnel. (It's a "pinch" style trap, usually kills em', but one of the two I did manage to catch in the trap was still alive so I had to use the pellet gun to take em' out since it was injured)

That's basically the only time a gopher will come near the surface, is when they re-seal their tunnel. The only time I've seen signs of them coming up to the surface is when they eat/follow the roots of a plant from in the ground all the way up to the base of its stalk at the surface...Occasionally they'll come up to the surface right next to the stalk of the plant and they take a few bites out of the base of the stalk, so the plant falls down, then they'll go back into their tunnels and re-seal it.



I'd rather trap and re-locate if possible...But I've thought about placing some dry ice in their tunnels, as a way of suffocating them with something non-toxic like CO2. I feel their tunnel system is pretty extensive tho and dry ice isn't cheap. And now that I'm typing this out I just realized I can get a small cylinder of CO2 gas and fill their tunnels with up with CO2, that might be a cheaper approach than dry ice. (I haven't look at prices of CO2 yet)

I've heard of people hooking up a hose to their car exhaust, there are adapters for this specific use, and then placing the other end in the gopher tunnels. Pretty effective but I feel the exhaust would seep into and harm the micro-biology of the soil as well as critters like worms/etc. That's really not something I want to do.




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Three hundred pounds of dog helps me locate and euthanize them. It ends up being my responsibility to dispose of them however....

Check out the Rodenator

The hell with trapping them. I have a large population of gophers where I'm at so when growing anything in the ground I will make a cage out of hardware cloth and close up the bottom with zip ties. Then leave about 2 1/2 inches of it sticking above ground so either them of rabbits cant chomp on your stocks.

I dont have any weed plants in the ground this year, so here is an example with some chili plants. Having a fierce cat will catch them for you.

I have never had any luck with buzz sticks or anything like that. The best thing to do is just protect your main root ball. I use pre made gopher baskets made for trees. They are 15 gallon and can break apart rather then suffocating your roots. This will prevent a gopher from killing the plant. They can still disturb the outside roots but you won't really notice any slowing of growth. They won't mess with them too much.
They usually don't go into smart pots. Beds usually have hardware cloth at the bottom. Holes in the ground they seem to mess with most, but holes really are not ideal anyway. At least in my area that is mostly clay. The water just puddles up at the bottom and is a recipe for root disease if you are watering enough.

If your yard is fenced in, consider getting a badger or even a wolverine to control the gophers.

A good dog like a husky will just chill in front of a hole for days waiting for it to pop out. My buddies husky didn't move for about 2 days. I have heard sacrificial plants work.

Crushins right. Protect your root ball is the best way. I use hardware cloth under fabric pots and make big baskets for in ground plants.

The trap that works best for me is the Victor black box 0625 from home depot or lowes. They have a new model out I haven't tried. Works best when used on fresh escape hole. Seal the sides good and I put some leaves or something light over where the back meets the dirt so no light get in the wire holes. Otherwise they will back fill the hole too early. I haven't seen a way to trap and relocate. I let the trap kill them. I relocate squirrels and ground squirrels using rodent traps. Good Luck