Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints How to get Badgers out of their den / hole ??

Greetings fellow rodent-radicators

I have been asked by one of my farmer friends to put the big hurt on his LARGE population of Badgers. Problem is I have tried several things including throwing road flares (LOTS of smoke!) down the holes with zero success. Anyone here been successful in getting these guys up out of the ground?

Going ground squirrel shooting in eastern OR. Tommorow !!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!

Call them out...

calling will work I would suggest early morning and I mean right before sunup. And as dark as you can still see. Use a lip squeak. This has worked for me. HAPPY HUNTING

Not the most convient way but what my grandpa always did was to load up the water tank in the pickup, probably about 500 gal, head to town and fill it up. Go back and start dumping it down the hole, always brought them out where I was waiting with my .410. Often times they do have another hole they will come out of so keep you eyes peeled. Like I said not the most convient way but very effective and at the time only got us 50 cents for the water.

2nd the idea on the water. Can take lots of water though. Best to fill in most of the holes, watch the open one.

The Ol'e water wagon works great, and makes for some exciting trigger time when they abondon the holes.

Maybe you could "noodle" them ;-)

Seriously in WI we don't shoot them as they are the state animal/mascot...

Hire a Dachshund - I believe they were bred to hunt badgers in their holes

Thanks everyone. For great ideas and more than a few laughs, you all ought to see what the guys over at 'hunters campfire' here did with the same question. Shaman and the other clowns really did themselves up proud. A few good ideas thrown around,but lots of funnin too. A good read.

Didn't anybody watch Dirty Jobs when he went "Catfish Noodling?"

Reach in the hole and come out with one on your arm...

I got the joke TD...laughed so hard my wife asked what I was reading.

J

now this works, (in NON-residential areas) but there probably some law against it....dad used to drop an un-lighted oxy-acetolene torch (from his plumbing tool pack)in the hole and cover the hole entrance, with both the gas and oxy valves full open) with old junk plastic tarp,blocking the enterance, wait 1 minute then pull out torch, and light it and place it near entrance while staying low, resulting loud THUD! and flash seems to irritate them enought that they come out! TICKED off looking for a fight so be armed and don,t park the truck within 50 yards
BTW finding the other entrance is usually simple useing this method also, (cloud of grass/smoke)

Throw moth balls down the hole......

Lure them out...

Lures by DuPont ALWAYs work...

In Europe and especially Germany we have badgers, too. But they look a little bit different from yours. Althoug as they are from the same family they might have the same behaviour and the same interest in sweet food.
Some hunters in Germany dig them out with the help of a especially trained dog. Others are await them when they leave their hole. To lure them they dig a five feet long pole of wood about two feet into the earth an cover the top with dried plums and lots of cheap honey. Soon after sunset the badgers come out of their holes and try to get the prepared meal. And that is their final meal. When standing on their hind legs and stretching for the honey and dried plums they are killed out of a blind or from the stand which is often up to ten feet from the ground.

bird sound's and rodent. i'll be doing calling this fall in boise Idaho. there every were. Rick

Pour boiling water down their holes, the trick is to get them to hold still long enough.

Send a weinerdog down the hole. Very effective. Probablely more effective than NOODLING. Grin LOL.

Noodling- that wood be a good one to see the "dirty jobs guy" pull out attatched to his arm! That was a funny episode.
Those badgers are some angry critters, my dad caught some badger pups as a kid up in Big Sandy, Mt and they kept one for a pet on a chain. It was not a good pet.
Anyways, my 'ol Swede grandpa had dumped up to 2000 gallons in a hole before getting one little bugger, so I'll suggest this, get a bunch of those round colored smoke bombs from the fireworks stand. They will put off alot more immediate smoke than a flare down the hole, and I will also suggest white smoke bombs as the colored ones cause the rascals to come out as the prescribed color of the bomb. You can probably even buy marking smoke grenades from a surplus outfit and those would work way better.
I have not used them on badgers myself, but I have used them on gophers that went down a badger hole, and the gophers came out fairly quick blue as a smurf.
Best-Mike

My dad, a Wyoming rancher, who was born in 1917, showed me this trick years ago and it has never let me down. He used to always have a piano wire snare in his glove box, or in his pocket if he was horseback and if we came up on a badger and his hole, he would put a noose around the hole. They angle down and you want to be on the top side of the angle. then he would point out the hole to our dogs and they sniff and growl or bark (don't let them dig or they'll mess up the noose). I don't know why but most of the time that badger who's down there safe and snug will come up for a fight. When he sticks his head out, give him a yank, (you want good gloves and a good wrap) then swing him around untill he's stangled. Don't let them get ahold of your dogs though, even if a tough dog kills the badger, he rarely gets it done unscathed. You can do this same thing with a good sharp shovel, a prarrie guillotine. a badgers primary concern in a fight is keeping his butt in the hole and using his head like a snapping turtle in and out of the hole. I saw my dad end up with one some how by the front leg and it was swinging but would not strangle he walked a few hundred yards swinging this badger in a circle over his head to a fence and smoked him as hard as he could into a fence post. I wish I had a picture takin in the 60s with me (It's 50 miles away at my folk's) I'd post it. My dad has his shirt off and looks like a pro football player and he's swinging a badger but you can't see the cable in the photo it looks like a flying badger is going to land on his head and he's got his hand up to block it.