Woodchucks/groundhogs

Or whistle Pigs, whatever you prefer. Can't shoot 'em in suburbia. Trapping, what's the best method and bait.

Large HavAHart trap and cantalope. Take them to a stream and give them a bath.....

This was the subject of a long discussion here a couple weeks ago--I believe Glenn F started it as he had the same problem, though I don't recall seeing how he ended up making out. Where legal, a 220 Conibear (body-gripping) trap is quite effective--you may need a couple as they usually have more than one hole. Bear in mind that Conibears are VERY dangerous--by design, they will kill whatever enters them, and a 220-size trap can break bones or do other damage, so they need to be used with caution--lots of things besides a woodchuck will investigate a woodchuck hole, including kids, pets, skunks, and other non-target animals. Live traps can also be used--a woodchuck is a burrowing animal and thus doesn't have the fear of entering an enclosed space like some animals do, which makes them more susceptible to cage-type live traps. Good baits include apples, muskmelons, cantaloupe, and similar things. Some people also use leghold traps placed at or around the den entrance, though the first two methods seem to be more popular, if for no other reason than a leghold still requires you to deal with the animal after they're caught, and they're still mobile other than being held by the leg. Woodchucks are nasty little critters when cornered, and I've seen them beat the stuffing out of more than one good-sized dog that didn't realize what they'd got themselves into!

Sure you can shoot them but you need a pellet gun to do so. That said I have trapped a good number of them by setting the trap in line of where they are wanting to go. Had one eating up my cabbage so I set the trap so to get to the cabbage it had to walk into the trap and yep the very next day I had him. Live trap by the way but he did not live long after getting into it

I have had good luck with a two door live trap. No need to bait it, just put it in one of the paths to their hole and he will enter it sooner or later....Of course then you have live, MAD hog to dispose of ....

Here is good one

http://www.havahart.com/x-large-2-door-trap

Flex pipe run from exhaust into the hole a couple feet works well as well. Try and cover the other holes as well when doing this.

A 330 conibear puts them out fast! If your man enough to set it...even with the tools.

Oh, they'll do the trick, no doubt about it, but a 330 is a tad large for the job in most circumstances. They're more expensive to buy, harder to set, and even more dangerous than 220's--enough so that in many states they can't be legally set on land, they can only be used in the water--typically for beaver trapping. Granting that most game cops have far better things to do than looking for people trapping woodchucks on their own land with 330's, but if the neighbor's beagle comes investigating and sticks his noggin in it (as happened to a couple friends of mine when trapping during high school, which cost their father $300 that they had to work off!) it's not going to end well, at least for the beagle.

A couple 4th of July smoke bombs down the hole and cover all entrances, when you know they're down there.
Keep a baseball bat handy, just in case.

Speaking of ground hogs.... Several years ago, I had a few of them helping themselves to whatever I had in my yard and garden. I also had a 15 inch blue tick beagle. One fine day, the beagle cornered a ground hog in the yard against my tool shed next to the fence, For some time, the beagle was baying, the ground hog was hissing and snarling, and it looked like a standoff. Then, the ground hog made a move and nipped the beagle on the ear. He should not have done that. The beagle got VERY angry, got ahold of that ground hog and shook it to death in a matter of seconds. Other than that, he was a friendly and gentle dog. I was really sorry to lose him.

Probably not a good idea any more but we had the neighbor empty his honey wagon down a hole once, the hog never came back but sure did have a lot of crap shooting out in the hay field below the hole!

I chimed in on GlennF's post with this trap. Only seen one other like it. It fits down into the burrow and has jaws at each end. Gets em either way.

Tim,

You are so right to warn people not to depend on all dogs coming out victorious when it comes to woodchucks. Not only does it take a fairly large dog but he must be a little bit wirey and have the constitution to win at any price. I have heard of some fairly large vet bills from dogs that underestimate their opponents.

i use the 220 bridger or connibear traps on ground hogs. i use the rope trick to set them instead of the tongs. here is a video on using the rope method. works good, even on the 330 traps.
poke here

tim, if its in a dog area, i use some 11 ga weldded wire fence and a single tee post and put a small fence around the trap. keeps most critters out away from the trap. i use a stout piece of rebar to anchor the trap chain to, otherwise the coyotes will drag off the carcass with your trap. lost a few that way.

Agreed, there's certainly ways to minimize the risk of unintentional catches, but, knowing how permanent a mistake of that sort can be, I try to limit my use of body-gripping (conibear-type) traps to where they're not apt to be bothered by pets or found by kids. Being a bachelor with no pets and no other houses for a mile or more in three out of the four directions from my house helps considerably in that regard--at least if something shows up unexpectedly, it shouldn't have been here in the first place. I've got two dirt-floored lean-to's off my garage, and, despite every effort to keep them closed up, it seems every year at least one woodchuck decides they're prime spots for digging a hole--typically first burrowing under the lean-to wall and then digging the actual hole under the concrete slab my garage sets on. Having had issues in the past with old tunnels serving as channels for Spring flooding washing out under the garage slab, I will immediately trap or otherwise remove any woodchuck that digs there, and as it's inside the building, it's a natural spot for a body-grip trap, particularly as they never seem to dig the usual two holes, either because there's no easy way to do it through the slab or because, one way or another, they don't last long enough to fully set up housekeeping! Even filling the holes with debris such as old wire mesh, concrete chunks, and similar materials doesn't stop them, though it will slow them down enough that unless I happen to go a few days without checking things I'll notice them digging and can prepare a suitable welcome party. I typically anchor my traps with at least one (sometimes two--one on each spring) of the twist-in dog anchor stakes, simply because I have an abundance of them picked up cheap at garage sales and such over the years, and I haven't had a problem with trap loss using that method, though your method is more typical of what most trappers use.

I've trapped five 'chucks plus a possum in the past couple of weeks using a Havahart baited with muskmelon rinds, strawberry tops, celery scraps -- seems like just about anything works. My younger dog (92 pound Lab/??? mix) has killed another three so far this spring/summer. I've been surprised how easy it is to get them to enter the Havahart. I'm still after a huge female -- looks like a 25-pounder! I want to get her before my dog decides to take her on. I already have almost $600 in him in vet bills this year (majority his own fault) and don't want to add any more.

Had good luck with old rusty (cheap) chain link fence around foundations & slabs. Conforms well to the ground, grass grows quick through it, can then be mowed over easily. Seems that if you can keep them 5-6 ft away, they'll find other places to den.

Sounds like these animals are universally disliked!

They make smoke bombs that work pretty well. Cover all the holes but one - light the bomb and toss it in, and stuff the hole full of rags.
Pete

Mike, I looked at your post from several weeks ago about this trap. When I googled ABC MFG CLEVELAND OH, I got a lumber co. Adding trap to the end of my search brought up several pictures of identical traps, but they are marked "SABO MFG." They appear to have been hand stamped, and several were not struck deep, appearing to say ABC. Just thought I'd throw this out there.

Smoke bombs. I nearly got one with the tractor yesterday. I was spreading fertilizer and I had forgotten that there was one that hung out there. His hole is off the side of the field, and he hangs out nearer the middle, but he doesn't pay much attention to what is going on around him. When he started running it was too late for him to head for his hole, so he had to run for the far end, but he didn't have the stamina to go that far. I could have run over him, but I didn't.