How To Set ONLY Gopher Trap That Worked For Me: DK-1 | AnOregonCottage.com

Hey man, thanks!

This trap is fabulous, ive used it for several years and it works!

Omg do NOT adjust the trigger plate with your hand over the jaws like he is doing once it's spring loaded under tension. If you click it one too many notches while adjusting it your going to land in the ER with your entire palm pierced like a gopher and gloves won't do a thing to prevent it! 🙈

Just acquired a property in the Willamette Valley from some older folks that weren’t mobile, there must be 500 holes in the 2 acres. so I’ll let you know how this works out.

Great video! Thank you. Ordered my traps on Amazon.

Man, the prep work required to set one of those is horrendous. The odds of it working for smaller coastal gophers questionable. The best traps are those stake type that drive a spike through the varmit. Time permitting a pellet rifle

I use the DKTraps, but the gophers fill the entire hole around the trap with dirt. Usually the trap is still set. Smart little buggers.

I`ve got 10 kills this year. 6 with gopher hawk, 3 with the green traps and 1 BB gun kill. I like the gopher hawk the best. Very quick and humane kills.

Where thick leather gloves when you pull the trap out of the hole. One time I had one barely caught by the fur and he was still very much alive I was glad I wore gloves , I also had a long copper wire attached to the trap and a long piece of rebar to stake it with.that rebar was used to finish the job , my version of wackamole

Thank you this video helped a bunch.

My brother and I used these back in the 70s for our Dads alpha field….the best traps ever!
He paid us 25 cents a claw..lol

DAMN GOOD VIDEO THANK YOU 👍

This trap is the best! Thank you for the video. Question? How many gophers are in an area you think? Are they big colonies? Just wondering if I should supplement some poison in other holes? There’s just so many mounds!!

GREAT! Thank you!

@AnOregonCottage, do you find that you need to sanitize the traps after catching gophers? I have been using cinch traps and gopher hawks with some success but after a time they seem to ignore them just fill them in with soil. I am wondering if they can smell the previously killed gophers on them and need to bleach the traps. We are having a terrible gopher year here in Northern CA and I am at my wits end.

Hi, great video and well documented, too! I don’t have a DK-1 yet, but am thinking of ordering one. I did get rid of the colony of 4 gophers in my back yard, but it was a grisly process which I did by hand, and I didn’t like doing it. So I would rather trap them but I fear that the kind of gopher here in Idaho is smaller than you pulled out in the video. Do you possibly have some insight as to the minimum gopher size this trap would work with? I have spent hundreds of dollars on other methods and none of them worked.The county here reportedly uses the DK-1 but they admit it is time consuming and not all that effective so I suspect our gophers might be too small for the snare distance. But I also read a lot of bad information about gophers in general so I don’t know what to believe.

Sir, I use the cinch trap and sometimes I catch them, sometimes I don't. I also live in oregon, thx for your advice

Your passion for getting gophers is admirable, thanks for the tips.

Set a gopher trap

I wish I had found this video sooner. These were the cheapest trap at my local supply store but they didn't have a model number for me to try and figure out how to set it. After being totally flummoxed in the store for about 15 minutes, I bought a couple other types of traps. The gopher population in my back field has gotten out of hand so I set four traps and 6 hours later 3 out of four were set off with 0 gophers in them. After seeing how these work I'm dead certain they will be more effective, though I'm a little hesitant to try bait because we have one farm cat that kills way more gophers than I do, so I'm hoping to keep her away until after the trap has gone off.

I hate gophers as much as anyone, but PLEASE DON'T USE POISON. You will kill hawks, owls, bobcats.

Great video. I haven't tried the DK-1, but I will, just to see. I am in the Santa Cruz Mountains (California) so a bit drier. The trap that works for me, that I think you might like to try is "The Gophinator" (easy to find on the web). Sets the same way, but a little more foolproof ad far as the trigger. 
Also, I use pipe marking flags. You can get them at any hardware store and the stalk part is metal. You can stick it directly through a little natural hole in the Gophinator so its fast, easy, very cheap and the little plastic flag is usually fluorescent. Two things I would like to add though that I think might help people:

1) Gloves serve an important purpose. they keep your human stink off the trap. I always use gloves when handling traps and then rub the trap in the dirt before putting into the tunnel. Believe me, it totally matters and they can smell you. 

2) I don't know about your method of leaving the hole open to the air. That has never worked for me (well, once with a cinch trap). In general though, that would repel them. You need to cover up the hole with something loose. I use old hay or grass, then gently put dirt on top. You really need to block out the light. Some people put a wooden cover over the set trap, but to me that's just more stuff to carry around and keep track of. If it works for you to leave it open, great. I've just never seen that as being effective.

UPDATE: I did try the DK-1. That thing is awful to set. You can do it, but you'll likely get hurt at some point. The Gophinator is way easier to set especially if you are setting a lot of traps and you don't want to screw around. It works on the same principal too.

I wish we had your soil type. I'm fighting lots of rocks and sandy conditions. But l like your videos.

This is the first video which tells you how to set the trap easily, without any spring tension until the last step.

After watching this video, I knew this trap would work and I'd catch my gopher; in my experience, the gophers operate just as he describes. If you find their tunnel, and open it, they won't like that, and naturally want to close it. I did make one adjustment to his approach though: I poured Uncle Ian's Gopher Repellent in the hole, because I've noticed the gophers will be extra determined to close a hole or tunnel when you pour this stuff in there (enough of this stuff honestly repels them for about a month without traps, but they tend to come back). You would think gopher repelling would make stay away from a tunnel? Wrong, it draws them to the tunnel, because they want to close it due to the smell. I previously tried almond butter with a different trap, covering the hole, hoping the almond butter would lure them in but it didn't work. That said, I left my trap, and the gopher repellent in one of their active holes for a few hours, and bam, that sucker was caught!

I just ordered a set using your link. I'm confident theyll work. I live in Idaho, just bought a house that has 2 shops on the property that had poisons and flares for gophers already in there. Seems they didnt work. I feel bad for the little animals but they have to go, I cant grow anything with confidence till they're gone.

My problem is finding the tunnel. Got mounds though

Great and entertaining video

Too much Blah Blah Blah for gopher trap

Thanks! Good show. The war is on!

You are the man AnOrangeCottage. I did what you said and within a short time (as soon as I remembered and checked the trap just a few hours later) I got the rascal. I’m sure there are bigger ones but he? was awfully plump. I usually just used poison and usually didn’t get to the main tunnel like I should but it would usually work at some point. I was not having much luck with this guy though and I found your video. And the DK-1 is really the way to go. I may have not got it way down in the hole as far as you did but I thought it was down far enough to get him. Thanks for the info. I still worry about how you had your hand and wrist right near the claws in the video.

You had the spring set and when you were adjusting the trigger you had your hand right where the jaws could trap you. What am I missing?

thank you for Sharing this video I will try it hope I have some l luck.

I purchase the DK-1 traps a couple of weeks ago ,there's no way I can turn the trigger all the way around, I just don't seem to have the strength to that. What a waist of money,

Hey this is like the traps we use. They work in almost the same way. It is called a death trap and the brand is cinch traps. They work the same exact way.

I have tried about everything that you talked about. Right now I'm using the victor, I only trapped 3 . There laughing at me. I'm in north east Washington and I'm going to order the Dk 1 tomorrow. P.s. I also have the gopher hawk. Don't buy it. It's very expensive and doesn't work. Now I know how they got the dialogue for caddyshack lol

I've gotten a couple with the Victor Black Hole trap, the old version, the newer ones I hear are useless.

I used to Run one of those on my gopher traps and surprisingly I found this out a while after using it that it was actually a mole trap and it was our best trap

This device makes it four different gopher traps I'm using. The gophernator is my main squeeze.

Been trying this for years. I have been unable to find the tunnel after digging and digging and digging. My holes are so little and they cover their holes/tunnels so fast. My poor tree's 😭

I have not tried this trap. It looks good. I caught my gopher with a Gopher Hawk.

Gross. Why do you feel need to kill all the wild life and Gophers are that. You talk about killing so easily.

Thank you for this information. I only have a 1/4 acre property and they are destroying it! Last year I lost most of my plants to them. We have been trying poison, but with very little success. I have neighbors on either side of me that do nothing about their gophers and so they are breeding and coming into my yard from both sides! I have declared 2020 the year of gopher war and I intend to win!

I just received my dk 1 Gopher traps! Oh please dear God wish me luck!

Great advice! I found an abandoned DK-1 trap at a public park today and will be testing it out on the pesky gopher that has come by my yard. I spent a lot of money and effort to have nice gravel landscaping in my yard and when the gophers show up and makes a mess in the nice gravel...they gotta go! It's a lot of work to clean the dirt mounds out of the gravel, only to have the little rodent make another mess the next day in a different location of my yard. Not only that, the little beasts eat on my fruit tree roots and have been known to kill them. I use a Gopher Hawk trap as well in the areas that don't have gravel with fabric beneath and it works like a champ!

That's disgusting! Leave them alone! Why the heck do you have to trap them? Not humane!!!!

Hai, just curious to know - what's a gopher? ( I live very far from the US 😁)