Moles: October 2007 Archives

This morning I was greeted with this sight - right along the driveway, at the corner of a flower bed and patio. This is not too far from where I caught mole #10 last week. There has always been a major tunnel system along the driveway, and I have never been too successful in catching moles there. Perhaps because of the concrete ledge underground sticking out, causing the legs of the trap to be in line with the tunnel. Unlike finding a plug of dirt and pushing their way through, if moles encounter a foreign object in the tunnel, they will often go around, under or just plug off that tunnel. At any rate, I know where to concentrate my next efforts for trapping.

After reading The Moleman's web site, I've come to believe that the years of half-hearted trapping allowed the moles to  create a very extensive tunnel system that allows moles to freely re-inhabit areas from neighboring areas.Trapping will be a fact of life for this property for some time to come.

For the last several weeks, moles have once again been making their presence known on my little slice of land. I've already trapped 9 moles this year. As the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum, and it was only a matter of time that moles would migrate in from neighboring property. At least, that is what I theorize - there could be some remaining from my spring and summer trapping, but the neighbors have also been getting a lot of mole mounds. Now they've been working in my back yard and front yard.

So, I've been trapping for the last several weeks near the areas of mounding. But, it has been very dry since July, and the soil there is very sandy. So, moles have been pushing right through and under my traps without tripping them; the soil just sifting around like in an hourglass. I've been waiting for a good rain to help the soil hold together better.

A major tip for trapping moles is to keep moving traps if they don't get tripped within a day. A promising run showed up yesterday evening along the sidewalk. It was a little deep, so I used the Victor Out O' Site trap. This morning it was sprung and mole #10 for 2007 was caught.