Simple Sets Work for Trapping

Here is some more advice for do-it-yourself groundhog trappers out there…

Spend your money on quality traps rather than the “other stuff”.

Having a good quality trap cannot be under estimated.

And in cased you missed it, we made this post on our preferred groundhog traps not long ago.

Find the link to that post here and review what we believe is the best starting place for groundhog trapping.

Best Groundhog Trap

Having reviewed that post, let’s return to the “other stuff” .

Block Those Holes!

So, assuming you have purchased a great groundhog trap or two, what else do you need to buy?

The answer is probably nothing (assuming you own a shovel) but an eye for repurposing.

That is because once you have a good trap in hand the only other requirement in effective groundhog trapping is getting the groundhog to go through the trap.

How do you do that? You do it by restricting its movement. You make the path through the trap the path of least resistance. Believe us, if they can’t circumvent going through the trap they’ll eventually go through it even if they feel something’s not quite right.

Controlling their movement is accomplished by placing the trap at an entrance/exit of a groundhog and blocking off all the other possible ways to easily get in and out from where they want to go.

Blocking materials that force groundhogs into traps can be fancy or simple. A lot of manufacturers sell wire attachments for their traps that retail from $20-$50. Those would be what we consider “fancy”. They work but are not necessary.

The point of this post and the following video is that simple, common materials work great for blocking. The materials you use don’t have to be specifically designed and manufactured to block a groundhog’s way. They just have to be effective and exploit most animals’ use of the path of least resistance.

Take a look as Ryan demonstrates:

As he mentioned, there are products which are made specifically for the trap that can do the job of controlling movement well. But, these simple materials work fine too.

Ryan didn’t custom-form wire, buy or cut specific lumber for this job, or even carry a lot of material to the job site. He controlled where the groundhog could go through some improvisation and creativity.

You can do this too and it is a way of keeping your do-it-yourself costs down.

Of course, if you’d prefer to use the wire nose cones and manufacture specific covers for the holes, more power to you!

The point is, an effective set is about the results, not the looks.