This week I declared war on the gophers that have been dining on my new landscaping and vineyard. "The Gopher Guy" Greg Crawford came out to the property and gave me the two day course (~2hr per day) on Gopher/Mole trapping.
I now can tell gopher mounds from mole mounds, identify "slammers", (active feed holes), and set traps with a hair trigger. All this means I spend a lot of time on my knees digging up gopher mounds to set my traps cleanly in the tunnels.
Groan - you have to get down on your knees again each time you check a trap. You need to check traps about twice a day (particularly before dusk). Why you may ask? The answer became apparent after the first night when the neighborhood fox carried off two of "The Gopher Guy's" traps. The fox leaves empty traps alone and dines on gopher from full traps. If it is a female fox with pups she brings the trap with gopher back to her den and pups.
I now have dispatched, to the gopher "great beyond", 15 gophers. I used the phrase great beyond because The Gopher Guy says that Sebastopol is Gopher Heaven!
John
1 comments:
Hello "neighbor",
I found your blog because I'm looking for "the gopher guy". We have a small vegetable garden on Olivet Road and the gophers have been feasting! I've always had the attitude that I'm willing to share with gophers but this year they're not leaving us anything. If you have a number for the gopher guy I'd appreciate you forwarding it.
Gail
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