Customer Reviews

Black Hole Rodent Trap

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

We had 5 acres and over ran with gophers. After trying all sorts of traps and poisons with little success I discovered the Black Hole Rodent Trap. The first year I used the black hole I caught over 120. The biggest catch of a day was 9 with 12 traps set. I highly recommend this trap.

I've had a gopher problem for a few months now, and being an animal lover, I tried another friendly way of getting rid of my gopher. How? I bought a dried blood powder mixed with chili powder stuff from a local store. Did it work? No! I begged the gopher to leave. I even suggested he move over to my mean neighbors yard, but he wouldn't go. Finally I decided to buy the Black Hole here after seeing such positive reviews for it. The trap was easy to set up and didn't require any bait. It worked the first try! It broke my heart to have to kill the poor little gopher so I said a prayer has I placed him into the trash. I think (hope) he was the only gopher, but if he's not, I'm sure the Black Hole won't let me down again.

This is, without question, the *finest* gopher trap available. The gophers appeared in my yard during my first deployment to Iraq, where I was powerless to do anything about their depredations. Upon my return I tried everything: bubble gum, crystallized fox urine, EasySet(TM) gopher traps, smoke bombs, CO, poison, rifle fire... nada. At best it was hit or miss and the flowers/trees continued to be consumed. I read the reviews of the Black Hole Rodent Trap, here on Amazon, with a jaundiced eye. Still, I was at the end of my rope. Well, no exaggeration, these things catch gophers- fast! I had one out for less than 24 hours and bang! dead gopher. And unlike the EasySet trap, it's easy to extract the gopher. My foxes love the free snacks too....

This thing works, period. And nothing else does. I know, I've tried. Take care to make sure there are no light leaks, and it should work like a gem. Here's a really valuable trick: place them in pairs, back-to-back. Since I started doing that, my success rate has gone to about 95%! I've even caught two gophers at a time this way.

There's nothing like the thrill of your first gopher kill, after they've run amok tearing up your yard. I actually took a picture of his lifeless corpse so I could keep the memory.

Okay, gotta go take my meds now...

I'm pretty squeamish, so I didn't want to do this. I also didn't want to waste my time on voodoo magic audio sticks and the like. After much hemming and hawing I went for it and got one of these traps. I couldn't figure why I would even HAVE a gopher. My yard is bare. Literally bare. Dirt. Rocks. There is no plant life for this guy to eat. What the heck is he tearing up my yard for? I let it go for nearly a year now, but I just had the yard tilled and irrigation installed. I'm growing a yard, and I'm putting in plants, I can't have a gopher anymore.

Surely the tilling of the yard would be enough to send him off to greener pastures? Yeah, no. He had made up his mind: my bare, fruitless yard was his playground, now and forever. And so did he force me to resort to this unseemly violence. And gruesome it is, too - but effective. I put it in the ground and two days later, well, see the title of this review. It works, and that's unfortunately exactly what I needed. Five stars. I hope I don't have to do it again, but at least now I know I have the upper hand.

Edit: I spoke of the gopher as if it were one. Oh, what that it were so! I'm THREE dead gophers in now, and this last one broke the trap. The trigger paddle broke off the shaft while I was attempting to extract what seemed more like a small cat than a freaking gopher. I believe the gopher was CHEWING THROUGH THE SHAFT the moment he got owned. It seems obvious, then, that the trigger mechanism needs to be metal, like my gophers (rock and roll wooooo). Ask me how much I care about the broken trap. Not even a tiny little bit. I'm buying another, these things WORK. Oh and I won't wait the two weeks it will take for signs of more gophers to show up. They're there. You should see how fat and happy these things are. They're eating SOMETHING - even if it isn't my yard, and I'm betting there's a TON of them. I can feel it in my bones. It's going to be a never-ending dead gopher parade. Too bad I'm not a sociopath, I might actually be enjoying this. :(

Second Edit: After becoming somewhat of a gopher killing superhero, I would like to add for those of you who are squeamish like me: this trap obviously kills the gophers very, very quickly. I have NEVER found one mobile in any way once the trap is sprung. As regards its effectiveness: only once has the trap sprung with nothing in it. Also... it's not as horrifying as you initially imagine it's going to be. Only about the last third of the gopher is visible. Getting the gopher out of the trap takes some doing (a lot of shaking, basically) - but there's never any blood or guts. I know this is probably cold comfort, but I thought I would add it.

Number of gophers I have currently killed with this trap: 6
Most recent kill made on: December 5. 2010

My poison probe seemed to stop working (didn't stop fresh mounds from appearing). My local paper printed an article about a couple that had just bought a property, only to discover there was a bad gopher problem there. The property owners seemed to swear by this product, so I ordered 2 of them right away.

Gopher activity seemed to stop a couple of days before I received them, so I knew already that a little patience would be important. After a couple of weeks, I finally found a fresh mound. I set the first trap that evening, then discovered that it caught a gopher before I went to work the next morning. A week or so later, I found another new mound in the back yard and set another trap. It took a couple of days (no new mounds were popping up anyway), and I at first wondered if I was really even dealing with a fresh gopher hole, but after a couple of days...it caught and killed yet another gopher.

Things to know about this product:
1. Trap diameter is probably at least twice that of a typical gopher tunnel. You will probably need to make the "damaged" area a little more "damaged" by displacing a little more soil in order to get the trap set. Consider the alternative (additional new mounds throughout) and you will hopefully realize the necessity of doing this.
2. Don't worry about setting trap completely parallel to tunnel. It doesn't take much light coming in the back of trap to get a gopher's attention.
3. Cover as much of the trap as possible without covering the end hole, if necessary. The first mound I had success with was in my front yard right next to the sidewalk. I also live at the end of a cul-de-sac where kids frequently play. Hiding as much of the trap as possible might be necessary to decrease the odds of a curious kid tampering with the trap. Don't be afraid to completely conceal the mechanism with a little soil. The springload on it is sufficient to make it easily throw the cover soil out of the way if it catches something.

You might have a hard time stomaching the site of a dead gopher hanging by its neck or chest from the end of this thing, but I personally take joy in getting payback for the damage that frequently gets caused to my lawns. Even if you can handle the site, you won't have to even touch the animal. Just hold the trap over an open trash bin, push down the mechanism, and the carcass will fall into the trash bin.

As long as you cover the trap entrance with dirt, this thing should work well - even if you have to wait 2-3 days for the gopher to return.

I've used this product for many years now. I can't count the number of gophers I've killed with this trap. They tend to break after a couple of years, but I figure they're cheap per gopher killed. It can be difficult to find the best run to place them in as they tend to be more effective in the deeper runs, and I've never figured out which way the gopher is going, so some of the time I'm sure they get the wrong end. Sometimes they spring the trap by filling it up with dirt. That's always disapointing.
It seems to help to soak the trap in a bucket of water a kill. Otherwise they seem to avoid it.
I'm glad there's an alternative to poison.

ALL OTHERS FAILED BUT LAST YEAR THIS ONE GOT 35 SQUIRRELS AND 7 GOFFERS, MANY BAITS BUT PLAIN DAB OF PEANUT BUTTER THE BEST, LIVE IN THE DESSERT, LOT OF SHRUBS & PLANTS, ALL WATERED.

We have tried EVERYTHING to get rid of the moles in our yard. Nothing else worked. With only three traps, we have killed five of the little destroyers. The ground is frozen solid now, but come spring, look out rodents! We would highly recommend these traps.

Great gopher trap! I rated it four stars because it didn't kill the gopher, but the nice part was the trap design made it easy to clean up. I just carried the trap with gopher inside over to the trash, released the spring and dropped the body into the trash. If it would have killed the gopher I would have given it five stars. This was my first time gopher trapping so it was nice that the trap worked on my second try within 45 minutes of setting the trap. I would definitely buy this again.