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I have everything, just need to put it back together.

The car looks awesome Dave maybe you can give us a sound clip or video when it hits the road .

Dave the car looks great!!!

Now for a change of topic, how do you get rid of pocket gophers?! The little bastids are destroying the yard and garden. I've herd of trapping, are there any poisons that can be used?

Please help?!?!?!?!

I've not poisoned them but I've trapped hundreds of them growing up

The car looks great Dave!

Rooster, are you 100% sure they are gophers and not moles? Moles are far more common (and not as destructive as they appear).

Dave that car looks amazing and you haven't even put the shine on it yet! Contests, it's beautiful

Well..since I have not been to J Elky's house to observe first hand, I can't answer that with 100% accuracy.



I can tell you this. If it's pushing up dirt mounds in the lawn and garden that are a about as big around as pizza pan, its a pocket gopher. Their tunnels are closed. You have to poke around the mound with a stake (I used rods off of old potato diggers with one end cut off so its straight) until the rod/stake falls through the top soil easily. This is the tunnel. You can either use pan traps and cover the tunnel back up or death grip traps and leave the tunnel open. When they come pushing a load of dirt to close the hole, they walk through the open jaws and trigger the trap. With pan traps, you dig a trap bed so the open jaws are the same height as the tunnel floor. Then sift dirt over the trap being careful not to get too much under the pan. Stake your trap chain outside the hole and cover the hole with a board, piece of tin or a large rock and seal the edeges with dirt so no light can get in. Sometimes, if the wood has a peculiar smell to it, the gopher will plug your trap tight. They will do the same if they feel your trap before stepping on the pan.

moles push up mounds too. the mounds are generally just a little smaller on average, but not much.

If there are tunnels that have been pushed up in long lines that you can stomp down flat with your foot, then it is moles. They are harmless to the garden. If you can find no evidence of tunnels anywhere, then gophers are more likely.

Your trapping method is right on the money.

I trapped them for money as a kid. The townships will pay you for turning in the front feet. You cut the feet off and store them in a jar of salt to keep them from spoiling while you work on getting enough to turn in. I think I got $2.35 per set of feet. If the gopher chewed one leg off and escaped, they would pay half of that.

Your story brings back memories of growing up near the border of MN and ND about 35 miles north of Fargo/Moorhead. We could turn in part of the gopher to MN for money and different parts of the same gopher to ND for money since the county seats of the two counties were only about 30 miles apart. Used the money to buy many rounds of .22 rifle ammo. Gas was only about 25 cents per gallon so it made sense to do the driving.

rooster7,

Did you have better luck with the pan trap or the death grip?

Jeff

Dave, the Road Runner looks awesome.

Can't speak for "big jelly" but I trapped gophers down in that area as a kid too.

We used the little victor pan traps. Like Rooster said, look for the tell tale ring in the mound, dig with your hand to expose the tunnel, careful to not disturb the mound. Get down in there a ways, in the tunnel, and hollow out a little crater for the pan trap to lay in. like rooster said, you want the top edges of the trap jaws level with the floor of the tunnel. Turn the spring whichever way it fits the best. You can dust in a little dirt but we never did.

I used to carry a bunch of old shingle tabs or shakes to cover the hole back up. Stake the trap chain, many times you have to dig the trap out as they will plug the trap cavity with dirt even if they are in the trap. Sometimes they will be outside of the mound in the trap.

If you want to really wreck their day just stick the garden hose down the hole and flood the bastards out. You can tail pipe gas em too.

Lots of options with them being right there in your yard.

If all else fails, rent the movie Caddy shack, it's a gopher tutorial of sorts.

Guess I will stop at Fleet and pick up some traps and get after the little buggers.

Jeff,

I had much better luck with the little victor pan traps. The reason being is because they are less suspecting of something being wrong in their little underground domain. With a death grip, the tunnel is left open so the little suckers are already coming with a load of dirt to plug that hole tight and it often springs the trap before they can get caught it in it.

Dave pointed out one thing that I forgot to mention. The ring of the mound. The ring is where they last plugged the mound and where the tunnel will start. With pan traps its best to find the tunnel a little ways back so you have a tunnel that runs both ways. If you buy new traps, you will want to boil them to get any scent off from shipping oils etc.

Another tip: When preparing your trap bed, reach your arm down in the tunnels as far as you can and pull out excess dirt so they don't have as much to push on to your pan and spring the trap. This can get intersesting when a salamander or two decides to take up residence down there.



OH...and once you catch one and wack it over the head, don't forget to feel inside the little pockets (hence the name pocket gopher) on its cheeks. It's always fun to see what they have stored in there.

I always had better luck with the pan traps on the 1000's of gophers I caught as a kid.

Build a T-handled poker to find the tunnels. A dull end works way better than a point.

All of this advice is if the explosives don't solve the problem of course.

+1 on the Caddyshack tutorial.

You guys have seen the propane solution right? No Caddyshack deal, though one might guess the original inspiration came from there.

Never saw that one Brent.

Temps in the low 50's with a steady rain right now. The Jr. High, 3 blocks South of us is having a track meet. What a sorry looking bunch they are. Bet they're going to be some sick kids tomorrow.

Go to youtube.com and type in "gopher propane"

If you fill your basement with gas and launch the living room, you never heard it from me