It may seem like I’m obsessed with moles, if you read some entries on this blog. Obsession is really not what it is all about. It’s more of a eureka kind of thing – after about 13 years of half-hearted attempts of trapping moles around my house, suddenly, this year, my success rate has dramatically increased. I believe the reason is 1) observation, 2) understanding failure, 3) persistence, and 4) and a realization that trapping is not as difficult I used to believe.
After about 2 months of little mole tunneling activity, tunnels began appearing in several of the areas I had cleared out this spring and summer. This is most likely due to 1) youngsters growing up, and 2) softer soil after the 1/2 inch rain we had about a week or so ago. As in the past, attempts at trapping in the tunnels winding through the lawn area came up empty. So, I watched for those major runs, large, wide ridges, indicating a lot of dirt is being pushed up from a deeper run. Deeper runs are used frequently, as opposed to shallow surface runs where the animals are searching for food. I found a couple, set a harpoon trap, and less than 10 hours later had mole #9 for the year. Sometimes tunnels/runs will intersect, and you have to be careful not to set traps in those locations since moles will usually run into the buried trap and go around.