PLEASE hELP! tHE GOPHERS HAVE TAKEN OVER MY YARD!

Have you tried setting some claymores? Granted, you would have to conduct some recon to catch when they pop up out of the holes, to time setting off the ordinance :p
 
My brother-in-law shoots them with an AR-15 from his porch. It rolls what's left of them about 15 yards accross the field.
 
The REAL solution...

No feret poop, no flames, no guns in gun0unfriendly neighborhoods. Just chewing gum. Juicy Fruit, specifically.

Get yourself a big pack of gum. Drop half a stick in the holes and in the tunnels...wherever you can. Soon enough, there will be no more gophers. They get all stopped up and can't "go."
 
Claymores *might* work, but satchel charges really are better suited to that kind of demo work. The wife (if there is one) may not be too happy about blowing up the house, tho... but hey, you can always build a new house, how many opportunities do you have to reduce the rodent population with satchel charges?
 
For us city slickers,wouldn't a .177 air rifle do the trick?
I never shot one,but somebody must know what they are capable of taking out.
 
I can't believe no one suggested the most logical solution.Trap them.
There are several good types of humane quick kill gopher traps including the the Death Clutch,easy set,Macabee,and Lanesboro.
Just do a search for trapping supplies on the net.
 
LMAO with capnrik's tale!
Reminds me of the time 3 of the Garden Club Ladies brought my wife home after the monthly meeting and she offered them an impromtu tour of her flower beds and landscaping. As the 4 well-dressed flowerlovers came round the house I crawled out of one of the flowerbeds, dirt streaked, bug-bitten and armed with a .22 Buckmark Silhouette w 4x Leupold.
"good afternoon, Ladies. er..,uh.. gopher patrol"
Wife didn't speak to me for 2 days.
 
This is another fairly dangerous suggestion, but it should be extremely fun ;) I heard about it for ground hogs, but I imagine it would work for gophers, you may have to do it a couple times at different holes though.

Anyway, you'll need five gallons of gas or so, a funnel and a very long hose. And a lighter or matches.

Step one: feed the hose into the hole as far as you can. Then reel it out so your as far from the hole as possible, it helps if you uphill also.

Step two: funnel the gas into the hose. Let it sit for a while to make sure it has run all the way down into the hole, and has had a chance to fume up. At least with ground hogs, they won't come out of teh hole if they know something or someone is near by.

Step Three: Hold the match up to the end of the hose, one of the long household lighters or a burning stick might be better.

The result should be a large explosion, in the hole that will push the ground up all the along the tunnels and cave it in. Should also be very lethal for any critters in the hole at the time.


Or, another idea

Take a look at all the holes you can find. Pick the one that you think is being used the most ( ground wil be dug up going in and out, grass or plants wil be smashed down at the mouth, fresh dirt etc.) Now, drop smoke bombs into all the other holes, get them down into the hole as far as possible, and cover them with something if you can. You want as much smoke building up in there as possible. Once thats done, camp out at the mouth of the hole that is well traveled with a shotgun .22 or any other weapon you choose. Be prepared for them to be moving quick if they come out at all.
 
Probably a lot less effective than the propane and gasoline bombs mentioned earlier. Less effective at blowing up your house, that is.


:rolleyes:


I've noted the Juicy Fruit idea for future reference, should I ever need it. Non-toxic and non dangerous. If it works, why look further?
 
It's also going to be a lot less effective than trapping,which is perfectly safe.
Gopher traps go in the ground way from the sight of curious people.
 
well

a .177 caliber air rifle scoped is VERY accurate at the distances uw ould be shooting and would kill them instantly if u do ur part-(head on the spot or vitals-a tiny bit later)-I have used one for starling erradication in our neighborhood because htey have been infesting-it does the job and very quietly with a tasco 3-7x20mm scope its low profile and the gun is a daisy powerline bought at walmart for 40 bucks-it has fiber optic sight which wasnt shooting straight when we got it-so scoped it and then it shoots awesome-i head shoot them and they fall on teh spot at up to around yards-(not joking) if u aim good u can put it through the neck or skull-this gun goes abuot 700 fps with 10 pumps..at 5 pumps it doesnt scare them as much and is a LOT quieter-both pluses and u dont give up anything if ur shooting them in the head-and less distance traveled if u miss-
 
In College we had gophers that lived out back of the dorm. The Janitor fed them stale bread. They used to come running at the time he put it out on the back hill after breakfast.

Leave them some bread and after a week or two they will be easy to remove via .22 CB caps or subsonic, it pretty quiet out of a bolt action or even a semi auto rifle.;)
 
Cyanide Gas!

Be Careful this is extremely dangerous!

But I always liked playing with explosives! So what the heck!

Seal off all the holes you can find.

Fill a GLASS! Beaker or bowl with about a quart of concentrated Sulfuric acid! Caution Sulfuric acid alone is quite dangerous! You can get it from plumbing supply shops, rubber gloves are advised.

And from a chemical supply house 500 Grams of Sodium Cyanide or Potassium Cyanide! Caution both are extremely poisionous!

Do the next thing VERY quickly!

Put the cyanide in a paper bag, and have a cover ready for the gopher hole.

Place the acid bowl in the gopher hole.

Then place the Cyanide in the acid.

Cover hole and LEAVE THE AREA! For say 8 hours or so!

Come back remove covers and try not to breathe!

Smelling "Almonds" is NOT good at this point!

Let holes air for say 8 hours.

Presto all gophers will be dead along with all the earthworms around the area, and any nosy cats!

Cyanide kills by disrupting the Krebs ATP cycle, quite painless actually like turning off the power to a light bulb! :D
 
I have been told that gophers are very inbred and that as a result are all hemophiliacs. When I heard that, I immediately busted up some old fluro light tubes and put them down every gopher hole in my yard. 1 week later, no more gophers. They get a slight nick or cut and bleed to death in the tunnels. The beauty of the broken glass is that it never loses its potency, it will still be sharp years later for the next batch of the little bastards. All I know is that this worked for us. Good luck!

michael
 
This is the dangdest set of recipes for enjoyable horribles I've seen in three years of TFL.

From the bottom of my heart, Thank You, All!

:D, Art
 
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