Bad Boy Mower Blade Question

[Oklahomabassin]

A friend swears by the GopherHawk trap. I use Victors with good success. Small cable is what I use and a stake. Sometimes a gopher will be caught by a foot and the gopher will pull it further down tunnel until all the slack is gone so don't leave it a lot of slack.

 

[Johnny]

Had a friend that was retired, always looking for a project to do. He was a engineer in the metal industry for over 35yrs before relocating to Oklahoma to be near his daughter. Anyway he experimented with different lawn mower blades because he never could get a set to last all mowing season due to sandy soil. He tried different blades and finally modified a set. He welded a alloy of some type over the blade ends then grinded it down, rebalanced the blades then put them thru a heat treating process. Those blades were on the 3rd year when he passed. I helped his SIL load the mower from his place. Those blades still looked almost new, I wish I new the alloy he used and the process cause I go through 2 sets of blades a year.

It was most like some kind of hard facing rod. It is what most equipment owners will weld back over high wear spots on a dozer blade or digging bucket on a hoe.
I never would have thought about surfacing blades with it. Pretty cool.

 

[rickm]

At work we use to take our brushhog blades in and have them refaced but it got to the point you could just buy new ones for the same price or cheaper so we quit having that done.

 

[trekrok]

Don't use chemicals. Waste of time unless you have one of the three point planters that dispense poison pellets underground.
I've been trapping them for over 30 years at our place. Tried everything on the internet with limited results.
The aways gets them trap is the Gophinator trap. There are imitations out there in the hardware stores. Stay completely away from those. Junk.
Get the gophenator and watch some YT videos to see how to set them. Pretty much 100% effective once you get it right.
Most of the videos suggest digging out the tunnel to put a trap facing each direction of the tunnel to trap them coming or going, but I've found an easier, less invasive way using only one trap.
When a fresh mound is found, I take a steel rod with a handle on it to drive into the ground to find the tunnel. Use a long handled steel kitchen spoon to follow the exit plug into the tunnel and hollow out a little area to insert the trap so it takes the gopher a little work to get enough dirt up to the trap as it wants to plug the hole again. When the critter pushes the dirt far enough it sets off the trap and basically suffocates the gopher with the spring jaws.
If you go this way. be sure to put some string on the trap and anchor it with the steel rod used to find the tunnels. I've had critters find a trapped gopher at night and take off with the trap and critter to never be found again.
You will find there are a zillion stories of what is the best way to trap them but this is the one that works the best for me and a couple of other landowners.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nk...pe=e&msclkid=bab14a392ca1164110bb2e058ea95611

My granddad would set me up trapping them in the summers when I'd visit as a kid. Used a method similar to yours but the trap looked like the vicker trap above.

Thought it was pretty fun as a kid. Now, not quite as much.

I never had much luck with moles though.

 

[dennishoddy]

My granddad would set me up trapping them in the summers when I'd visit as a kid. Used a method similar to yours but the trap looked like the vicker trap above.

Thought it was pretty fun as a kid. Now, not quite as much.

I never had much luck with moles though.

Moles are tough. I've found that I can use a roller behind the ATV to roll the yard flat, then pay real close attention to the new tunnels that show up and put a trap there.
I’m fairly successful with this method and these traps work the best of any I’ve tried to date.