New to me Mole trap

If there’s one mole there are two..and if you don’t trap them fast enough there are 6.

Just setup one of these TomCat traps 1.5 days ago and caught my first mole. A truly momentous occasion. Put it on a different set of tunnels, fingers crossed!

philtickelson wrote:

A truly momentous occasion.

Calls for a Hamm’s or at least a Mountain Dew!

Just looked at Fleet Farm on line and is the MOTOMCO trap the same trap as the tomcat?

No. It’s not a poison. See photo.

Attachments:

1. 

   Tomcat.jpg
   

Nope not a poison. Hope this works.

https://www.fleetfarm.com/images/product/0000000222827/l/1.jpg

One more try,

Attachments:

1. 

   Motomco-Mole-Trap.jpg
   

That would be the one.

Thanks for all the knowledge guys. I mow close to 3 acres, and had moles everwhere this year. I have got 4 so far and maybe 2 left.

Old thread but new story… Last year I had moles destroying my lawn. Not a big do it yourself guy so I paid a local “mole expert” $200 to clear them out. All summer he claimed to have trapped two. Screw that waste of money.

Came across this thread and bought 3 of these traps. Set them last night for the first time and in 16 hours I have killed 3 of these varmints! Thanks for the tip BK I love these traps!

Attachments:

1. 

   2C222AE2-B3B6-459B-AF5A-41694ABCB28D.jpeg
   

2. 

   FF7A2C92-234E-495F-822D-3BB8EC245542.jpeg
   

Also a fun way to get them if you have time to kill, go out and stomp down a few trails, set back on the deck with favorite beverage, watch the trails with 25 cal pistol in hand and straddle tunnel and shoot them. Not always productive but does at times and if more than one of you , can have a contest.

David Vold wrote:

25 cal pistol in hand and straddle tunnel and shoot them.

That sentence should not be used in the same paragraph as “favorite beverage”. Just saying….

eyefishwalleye wrote:

I love these traps!

Every year I say the same thing. Why didn’t someone invent this long ago!

Now it’s on to Japanese Beetles…

Bought these traps a couple years ago and instantly was successful

However, lately I never catch one do they need to be cleaned or boiled ?

The daughter lives over by East Bethel and its gopher heaven, I trapped 12 out of her yard, I got a couple of traps from Menards called the Gopher Hawk.. they are the real deal, suppose to be good for moles too. DK.

I have to bookmark this. It’s summer so I don’t really get the soft paths this time of year because I think they go deep. Although a month or so ago I went to move a potted plant and when I lifted it, a big day mole plopped out of the drain hole and was gone.

In the winter the front yard is hard to mole…mow because it is as soft as a beach. In the back yard I get trails and holes. I don’t want to keep putting it off until one of the dogs breaks a leg and I say damn it why didn’t I take care of the problem.

lindyrig79 wrote:

do they need to be cleaned or boiled ?

Never heard of a need to boil, but a person could just rub a night crawler on it.

If they are placed in an active run properly, you should be having mole for dinner.

lindyrig79 wrote:

However, lately I never catch one do they need to be cleaned or boiled ?

I have the all steel version of this trap and the instruction sheet inside said to avoid at all costs touching or handling the jaws and pan with bare hands. I guess the moles have incredible smellers and if they pick up human scent they burrow around the trap. I always handle mine with garden gloves on….maybe try that.

Its my understanding that moles only use the tunnels we see in the yard for feeding and that their comfort zone is well below the surface. This fall I’m going to make a pipe exhaust from a 4 hp Briggs and fashion a hose coupling to it so I can attach a chunk of regular garden hose a few feet from the metal exhaust pipe so its cooler and then run the hose into a run and simply let the engine sit and run at half throttle on a full tank.

We get moles every spring and every fall.

I’ve tried plungers and scissor type traps over the years and have never caught a single mole.

I switched to the death gummy worms 2 yrs ago and never looked back. Take a small dowel rod, ream out a hole in a newish tunnel, drop in the worm, pinch the hole closed. Repeat in 5 or 6 different tunnels. Clears them up completely in about a week.

I figure if the owls could catch moles I would have lot less moles and a lot more owls. Also I don’t believe moles spend much, if any, time above ground. I could maybe see a fox or a dog or a cat maybe digging them up but then again i’ve never seen evidence of that happening and I don’t own any of those anyway .

My trap is getting delivered today!

I’m going to get some of these scissors type traps.

Half of my yard is forest with a stream and the moles seem to come from that area. I’ve tried the poison worms, plunge traps, going bat sh!t crazy with a sharp metal rod when I see the tunnel move but have had little success. I also have a lawn service fertilize and add grub control as part of the yard maintenance. I’ve even tried the pistol in the past but have stopped short of that technique at the new house. It wouldn’t look good for an elected village trustee shooting into the ground in the front yard while the neighbor kids watch.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

This fall I’m going to make a pipe exhaust from a 4 hp Briggs

FYI Tom, I tried that with pocket gofers and moles and it seems like they block off their tunnels before they run out of air. I could see the exhaust coming out of the ground all over the field.

But give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

PS those plunger styles aren’t worth the space they take up in the garage.

I can’t say I recommend poison. The chance of an unintentional death is very very small but it is there. Death to the neighbors Rover by poison is extremely painful for all involved.

BUT I’m not telling anyone what to do…just my thoughts on poison.

Best ones I’ve used thanks to an older neighbor that’s trapped all kinds of stuff over the years. Have 6 traps and I loaned them out to our oldest and he’s trapped a bunch at his new property.

Less touchy the better. Rubber gloves help. Think I’m up to 8 gopher moles this yr and the kid has gotten 7 or 8 the first week in their place.

Neighbor tipped me off to putting the carcasses back down the holes to keep the traffic down in that tunnel because of the rotting corpse.

Snap wrote:

I switched to the death gummy worms 2 yrs ago and never looked back.

Snap –
Please post what “death gummy worm” brand you have had good luck with. Im looking to try something different…

Snap –
Please post what “death gummy worm” brand you have had good luck with. Im looking to try something different…

I use the Victor brand from Ace Hardware. Comes with 10 worms but they’re packaged in sets of 5. Around $25 dollars, I believe, so not cheap. The active ingredient is 0.025% Bromethalin. I would think any worms with that combo would probably work as well. When you stick the dowel rod in the ground you should feel resistance and then no resistance when you hit the tunnel shaft. Spin the dowel rod around in a circle a bit to ream out the hole to make it easier to drop in the worm. The worm should slide down into the open tunnel shaft completely. Pinch the hole back closed with your fingers so no light shines in. Use ~1/4 dowel rod or anything slightly bigger than the diameter of the worms. Don’t stomp down the tunnels. Wear gloves. I’ve read a lot of negative reviews about death worms and I don’t know why my experience has been so good compared to others. In the 12 yrs i’ve lived here it’s been the only thing i’ve used that has ever cleared them up.

Ironically this thread started being active again about the time I started getting moles. Pocket and streaked gophers have been a problem all year but the moles have only shown up in the past month.

I think I’ll order one of those Motomco or Tomcat traps, looks like you kind of just dig a little trench, place them and step down on the yellow lever thing?

Get a few dogs, put the water hose down a hole and crank on the water, crack a beer and watch the fun!!