Braised maybe. Or breaded and fried.

Anybody have a good recipe?

Jim

The vast majority of people who report success with gopher management say that trapping is the closest thing to "guaranteed".

It's much more than a matter of putting a trap in some hole, though.

1. You need to find FRESH scouting holes (the big mounds of moist soil).

2. Push away the mound and clear out the main vertical hole wide enough for the traps to go down easily.

3. Clear out the horizontal tunnels that come into and go out of the vertical tunnel that goes to the surface. These tunnels aren't necessarily at the same level nor go in perfectly opposite directions. These horizontal tunnels should be dug clearly so that each trap can be pushed into them without problem.

4. Set two traps (I like Macabee) with a chain or hard cord that is tied to a stake that will be stuck into the ground outside the hole.

5. Place the two traps, one into each horizontal tunnel, with the "biting" end facing into the tunnel.

6. Partially plug the vertical hole with a big wad of torn up turf or weeds. You want to block ALMOST all of the light from getting into the tunnel but you want to allow just a teeny bit of light that will signal the gopher to come back and fix his or her hole.

7. You need to set at least 4 traps (two pair) per 1000 sq. ft. of gopher-mined property.

8. On large properties, you may want to put colorful flags at each hole where you've set traps.

9. Most gopher catchers set traps on Friday and check them on Saturday and Sunday. If nothing is caught by late Sunday, set the traps in another hole the following Friday. Spring season (NOW) is the most important for trapping and it may take 3-4 weekends to get ahead of the gophers (especially if your neighbor is "managing" them by hosing them out, gassing them or using bombs -- which simply sends them into your property.

A few weekends twice a year usually gets you ahead of the game.

Joe

No Gophers, but ground hogs. I have a fence. I have a husband. He has a shot gun for killing nasty varmints! It's not nice. It's not pretty but it works.

To stay on topic, I have some recipes for groundhog, although I've never tried to cook one.

We had the same problem with Ground hogs (a little family moved in under our shed for the winter)--dug huge holes in the yard. We ordered coyote pee on line...haven't seen them in a while. Heaven help you when you have to post the little 'tags' around the yard, yikes!! Smells pretty BAD!!

You can gas gophers in their holes....you can buy a fuse thing and stick it into the hole, plug it up and all the other "entrances" and light it and let it smoke....
Sometimes it works....sometimes it doesn't!
The best "fix" I ever say was a neighbor who had an itty bitty car...one of those 3 wheeled things and he drove it into the yard, attached a hose from the exhaust to the gopher hole and let the car run for an hour.
It would work with a motor scooter or a mo-ped too.
Linda C

Actual coyotes worked for me when nothing else would. I don't care for coyotes, but they don't eat my crops and I haven't seen a woodchuck since they moved into the neighborhood.

Jim

As Linda mentioned above, gassing. That was the only sure fire way I had to control them. Those smoke bomb things never worked. I got some flexible hydraulic tubing from a mechanic, about 20 ft of it of a large enough diameter to just fit inside the tailpipe of our truck snugly. I'd drive around and stick it down the holes and cover the other holes with dirt so they couldn't run out. It was very time consuming though.
We had a cat, Boots, who was a champion gopher catcher but he disappeared one night as well and never came home.
Little Ben was just becoming a good chaser/catcher of them as well before we moved.
Other times I had to resort to a shotgun

I wish I could loan you my husband's cat, he's sheer gopher doom. He occasionally brings home a mouse or a bird, but for some reason he's obsessed with gophers. Every time a new one moves in, I try to warn it but gophers just don't listen. One had the audacity to situate it's winter home under our gazebo (nice cover from the rain, I guess). His corpse is still sitting on our neighbor's roof a year later.

Get yourself a Dachshund. She has got 3 in the last couple of weeks. Sorry don't have any good recipes, she likes them raw.
Clare

I had to post this!
{{gwi:119902}}

In answer to your second question........NO, the vibration stick things DO NOT work. I had moles come up right next to it (almost buried it). So now I own a plastic stick with 4 D size batteries in it.

Raised beds with heavy screen mesh bottoms or these!! LOL!!!

Swimming pools with holes drilled.
Yep! They're tacky. Nope! The varmints don't get in.
They've last me about 4 years so far. Not bad for a $6 investment. And, nobody sees them but me!

The large wooden beds have multiple layers of cardboard under the soil. Every few years I have to dig it all out and put down more cardboard. Sigh.

Deanna

Clare, I agree with the dachshund method, WonderWeiner was diligent in killing any gophers, chipmunks, mice, voles and any other vermin he could catch. He never ate them though, he'd hunt them down, kill them promptly, then toss them on the ground and walk away, his job done.

Darn, I miss him, now the Cat from H*ll catches a mouse and I have to kill it myself. She's too stupid to kill the darned things, she just tortures them for a couple of days and then lets them go.

Annie

What's wrong with my Dachshund?????? Adorable picture! Unless there is a mole or gopher snuggled under the covers of our bed, I don't think she'd find it! Her favorite outdoor past time is rolling in stinky cat poop! We are trying the vibrating sticks - working so far in one garden, but it is early.

Another vote for gassing. It works. Unfortunately you have to gas the young ones, as well. It's sad, but what's sadder is what they do to our gardens and yard.
After having them destroy our hard work for more years than I can remember, we're pretty much hardened to the little ba$tards.

Dachies just doin' what they were bred to do!!!!!! It does my dog lovin' heart good to see the natural instincts carried through. So many have lost it or it has been bred out and looks take over.

Wow, Deanna, those swimming pools are a great idea! I wonder how heavy they are...if they could be dragged a few feet in one direction or another as the sun changes the way it angles into my yard, I might be able to plant more vegetables than I do now. Pots that are large enough are so expensive that I have to restrict myself to tomatoes, cukes, zucchini, green beans & herbs. Lettuces and greens take up too much surface space...it's not worth buying a big pot and filling it with soil to plant a few radishes or lettuces.

Say, instead of the cardboard, couldn't you lay down a layer or three of a fairly fine mesh chicken wire?

Peppi, WonderWeiner was indeed doing what he was bred to do. I got him from a kennel who was breeding the long haired dachshunds as rabbit hunting dogs, and they were darned good at it too!

Annie

Gophers are why I have my vegetable garden planted in two huge stock tanks.

Annie, when you are ready for another one, let me know. I know a top notch breeder. Heck, I almost took a wire from her myself 3 years ago.

So, is anyone going to post a recipe for gopher? You never know what will show up in the markets around here. I stopped at the local asian market tonight and they had a freezer case full of "wild rabbit". Mine are missing, TG!, but it does make me wonder.

I have a recipe for squirrel stew, maybe you could substitute gopher.
Clare

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Thank you all for the great ideas! Great laugh's!!! I love the picture of the dashhound! We do have a 100 pound Bouvier des Flandres, but all he does is chase our cats for the fun of it. The cats catch field mice and an occasional vole, but mostly they all lay around in the sun. My daughter in law who is from Portugal talked with her mother who told me to go to the 5 and dime and buy 4 or 5 cheap transister radio's. Set them on high to either white noise or Rap. Put them in plastic zip lock bags and bury them in the garden. I buried them on Wendsday and I haven't seen any movement since. Mabye dumb luck, but I will wait and see.

Rachelellen:
The chicken wire PARTIALLY decomposes after some time and it's a pain to pick out and it quits doing its job. The cardboard just adds more compost to my nasty clay soil (which is why I have raised beds).

You can buy the long thin planter boxes and plant lettuce, scallions, herbs, etc in those. They take very little soil and you can still pick them up and move them when they're full. It's amazing how much 'greens' you can grow in one. The pool isnÂt budging once itÂs full of soil!
I have a couple that are about 24" long by 6" wide and deep.
I can keep the two of us in salads all spring/summer. I don't pull the whole "head" or plant. I pick off the outer leaves and they just keep growing!

Something like this:

Good luck!
Deanna

Ah, that's an even better idea, since the shelves will lift the boxes up to where they'll get more sun. I just happen to have a wire rack like that too that isn't really being used for much.

I hadn't thought about the chicken wire decomposing, but now that I think about it, I guess it would. Gosh, it would be maddening to have to do that much extra work because of a few pesky varmints. I get angry enough at the snails.

Yep, gassing them works when they are in their holes. That's how my Dad got rid of his groundhogs. If you can't do that call your local pest control to come out and take care of them. I know you have to take care of your cats so I guess traps wouldn't be good.

"So, is anyone going to post a recipe for gopher?"

Look at the title of the thread. Bonjo, does that mean you are seeking a recipe for Gopher Diablo?

Jim

There once was a cook book for "road kill". Anyone have a copy?

Thought not. Oh well......
;-)

Ok! I'm tacky enough to post a recipe or two. I haven't tried these though. They come from "Cooking with the Groundhog" compiled by The Adrian Hospital Auxiliary of Punxsutawney, PA. Mind you, I don't have any gopher recipes, but I think you could substitute gopher for groundhog (you don't know how ridiculous this seems to me to type that!)

Groundhog, Punxsutawney Style

Cut, cleaned dressed groundhog in serving pieces. Parboil 1 hour in water to cover, with 1/2 teaspoon soda. Drain. Cover with fresh water. Add 1 teaspoon salt and black pepper to taste. Boil until tender. Drain. Roll in pancake mix. Brown in butter and shortening, mixed half & half.

Groundhog (or rabbit) in tomato sauce

Groundhog, cut into serving pieces
Salt
Pepper
1/8 teaspoon oregano
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 3-ounce can tomato paste
1 No. 2 1/2 can tomatoes
1 cup water

Brown groundhog (or rabbit) in hot oil with salt, pepper, garlic and oregano. Add tomato paste, tomatoes and water. Cover. Simmer until tender about 1 hour or more. Add more water if needed.

I caught the gopher in a trap but I just cannot seem to catch the moles....but at least they don't eat the roots.

Road kill recipes? Where is Nancy of the North and her 16 brats, I mean kids? She is the resident Queen of Kill and Duchess of DumpsterDivers so I am sure she has some great recipes for road kill.

Bonjo, this is a great thread!

You might want to try looking at Granny's Beverly Hillbillies Cookbook, which contains recipes for Possum shanks, Pickled hog jowls, Gizzards smothered in gristle, Southern-fried muskrat, Goat tripe, Stewed squirrel, etc. My biggest pest is the squirrel. I keep hoping it will get run over. I've never seen gophers, moles, or groundhogs. I did have a dachshund as a child in Texas, but my brother Mike shot it after it killed a baby pig. If we'd had groundhogs, I guess it wouldn't have gone after regular pigs. I do get an occasional possum here, but much less so after I got rid of the papaya tree, the avocado tree, and the passion vine. I'd like to replace the avocado tree, however, and I think I could put one where the tangerine tree used to be. I won't have a dog in the city, but cats are fine to have here, except that I'm allergic.

Lars

Peppi, your Asian market probably imports from the Eastern Market in Detroit, LOL. Remember, here's the sign from my visit last year....

I'll bet THEY have a recipe for gopher.

Annie

So Far those b!stards haven't come back into the vegatable garden! This morning though hb and I out drinking our coffee when I noticed a 5 foot vine I bought him for his birthday that cost me 50 bucks looked rather ill. Went over and Hb reached down and yep they wacked it off at the roots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so mad I swear I started jumping up and down, and yelling some great words. It is a good thing we live on a hill by ourselves!! You all will get a good laugh when I tell you that my former job was not only as an Animal Control Officer!!! Ha Ha! Yep I once had to help Vector Control go out in the dead of night to poison a 3 acre parcel used as a walking trail that was over run by ground squirrels the people kept feeding thinking they were cute. They were suppose to expire underground, but lo and behold the next morning, a Sunday, phone starts ringing off the hook, people hysterical, finding furry little bodies everywhere!! And no one wants to know how fun it is to trap skunks.

Brunswick stew - easy to make and accomodates a large variety of meat/game.

Good luck.

Another DOA Vole on the patio this morning! Go Mario and Luigi (My Cats)

Gophers were here long before we were. We built our houses on top of theirs, so it seems pretty arrogant to think we have a right to cruelly kill them if they eat a plant. Some of the "solutions" above sound more like something out of a serial killer novel than gardening advice. Besides, they're all doomed to fail. Like most animals, gophers are territorial, and any killing is for nought as another gopher will move into the vacated territory. In our experience, most plants do fine with gophers. If you have some that are particularly vulnerable, put them in a solid bottom planter.