Current Score: Gophers=1000+ Me=1and counting

I could write 600 blog posts on how much I hate gophers and how much they have terrorized my life. I have tried every method under the sun to try and eliminate their threat from my garden and pumpkin. Oh I can count the ways.

1. Tried to flood their holes with massive amounts of water.
2. Tried to hover over an active hole and guillotine them with a shovel.
3. Borrowed my brothers match quality pellet rifles and go on evening gopher re con missions.
4. Pulled my 4runner out back and hooked up a garden hose up and try and eliminate them with carbon monoxide poisoning (a legit technique in the annihilation of gophers).
5. Tried a very small amount of poison, because we need to be pet friendly in my yard for bubba and the deers sake.

Nothing has been more successful and more gratifying than actually doing some research online. I hit up craigslist and found people that will come out and battle the war on gophers for you , for a small fee of course. After talking with an awesome guy who basically told me that he comes out and teaches you how to do it, because it is so easy, I thought that I should hit up the poor mans cliff notes and went over to youtube. I found an awesome video that made it look like a piece of cake, and headed over to Home Depot to pick up some traps.

What happens next, is absolutely beautiful. I went home that evening and set a bet with my roommate that I will kill a gopher with the traps by the end of the weekend. I did a different re con mission keeping an eye out for recent activity by the way of gopher mounds and fresh holes. I poked and prodded, finding a gopher lane in the ground and started digging. Set traps, covered them back up and prayed.

The next day (today), rushing home for lunch so that I can check the traps, and on the first one, Whammy, One in the trap. This was the greatest feeling. Now I doubt that it was the same gopher that completely clipped the primary vine off of my pumpkin last year, but I am allowed to make believe whatever I want.

Watch out gophers, its trapping season, and it is survival of the fittest between you and my pumpkin. Although a blog post might not be created, the slayings will continue.