I Wanna Be A Gopher Guy

The Santa Rosa Press- Democrat had a fun read yesterday about this Gopher Guy. He stumbled on to a niche business where he charges $200.00 to control gophers with traps, but he also gives classes on how to do it for free. I've thought for some time about trying that.

Years ago, back when Food Mart was in Henderson Center, there used to be a community bulletin board at the front of the store. I saw a fellow advertising back then as a gopher trapper. He charged something like $5.00 per gopher caught. I thought at the time that might be a fun and easy way to make a few bucks.

Problem is, I've not much experience with gophers and have only had to deal with one in my life, although I seemed to have succeeded with that one.

I was horrified when I noticed a gopher mound in the first ever garden I started at the place I lived in out in Cutten back in the early 80s. Surprised, as well, as I'd never seen any other gopher mounds surrounding the property. All of the sudden here's a gopher mound right at the edge of my garden. What was I to do???

I don't remember where I bought it, but I found some Gopher Gasser bombs. They looked like large firecrackers. When you lit them they emitted tons of sulfur smoke and would kill gophers in their tunnels.

I dug through the mound until I found the tunnel, lit the fuse and, after getting a snoutful of the smoke myself, dropped the bomb into the tunnel. I quickly covered the tunnel up and that was the end of the gopher. At least I never saw any more mounds.

I'll have to give the steel traps a try. Every now and then I'll bump into gophers in a yard I'm working in. I'll try the traps and, if I can get good at it, maybe I can become a gopher guy? About the only problem is, being California, you actually need a license to do that now. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Either that, or do it bootleg.

Here's some more tips on getting rid of gophers from the Garden Web site. I'd forgotten about the Juicy Fruit gum method.