Ive been asked to do a little ADC work on a property with a groundhog problem. Ive found two dens, one under a shed, and another inside a pole barn. The property owner thinks there are at least five ground hogs, two adults and three little ones. I have a 220 BG on the entrence of each den (there are no pets in the area), four live traps baited with mush melon and pears that they have been eating on the property as well as, two coil spring traps, one where they go under the pole barn door and another on a run into their den. I was thinking I went a little overkill on all the traps, but in the last three days ive only caught one big femal groundhog. Is there a chance that they moved on, or are they somehow just avoiding all my trapping efforts
(I ended up flipping this one righside up, there is one CS here too)
(i caught the femal in this one)

From MY experience I found that if you catch them in a foothold they will sometimes bury themselves . Don't recommend footholds . Make sure they are not going through your trap , from the picture it looks like a pretty good size gaps .

those don't look very stabilized nor blended in IME

I usually drape a vine or grass over the trap and run cross stakes like when setting a 330 for beaver so the upper jaw corners are held in place

for sure the conibears need to be stabilized better than that and fastened to a something solid so they can't drag the trap away.the 220's allow them to be hip caught at times..I prefer 160's

Trapping groundhogs with footholds is the best way imo, and easy.

I'm trapping some now. cover every hole you can find with a trap and don't let them go any where else. trap must be stabilized. 160 proper size for a groundhog, I put the trigger on the outside part of the trap if that makes any sense. You can also cover the trap with ply wood if you are worried about people, pets, cattle, lawn mower, ect.
like this

you'r going to need a shovel. to set this up. sweat equity

Y'all are making it hard lol.

160's are definitely the way to go . Nothing hard about it .

For rural consumer and commercial work I agree 160's are the best sized trap. Where no pets or other issues would be a concern. Cage trapping is very effective also with lure and bait or comstocks where there are concerns.

I have Jameson's woodchuck lure. Ideal for a cage type set.

My wife text me and let me know my 9 year old had a groundhog in one of his box traps under the lean to on the barn this morning . It was baited with apple chunks from an apple that had some bad spots. It is our first time catching them in a box trap. Normally I catch them in snares or a 220. I did buy a 6" round body grip this month just for groundhog.

Stuff the hole with leaves, stabilize and cover the trap, it frustrates them when the hole gets covered and they just plow through, i use it all the time with single door traps and coni's, seems like got that tip on this forum a few years ago. It works pretty well.

Cabbage keaves in a cage trap works here

Though we have seen countless trappers drop the use of bait for chucks in the past dozen years and go to positive sets or trails sets using double door cages, once bait trappers have gone baitless, they just don't go back to "bait and wait," which pretty much tells the story. After using both methods they stay with baitless. If baited sets were superior they could go back, but they don't. At least a conibear will take a chuck going in either direction in trails or positive sets like the double door traps, while the single door trap is limited by being only half as effective as it can only catch from one direction and most often relies on bringing the chuck to the trap, rather than bringing the trap to the chuck.

I have to disagree with baiting Jim. I have been at this for longer then most I would think. I have lots of experience with baiting, conibear and forced double door trapping. If setting close to a den presenting 2 baited set ups placed a couple of feet away perpendicular to an active den is what we do. Works 100% if there is a hog there.

You don't want to crowd and spook a hog by setting too close. That is one key point I learned years back when placing baited sets. That is probably one big reason why some will not get fast results on set up acceptance to baited sets. Hogs can be wary / suspicious of new unfamiliar things like a object that wasn't there before. Home owners can educate them too I have found in some cases. Not often but it happens.

Using a little trailing scent, scented bait, gland and visual suspended in a cage it is only hours in many cases that we get a call . We catch what is coming in/out, visiting from another area or one that is out wandering around and comes home. Not much different than forced trapping. It all works.

We get doubles in baited cages a times which is a treat. Two hogs ( adults) in one trap. We get many doubles and triples with juveniles during denning time.

Good lure and bait works as good now as it did 40 years ago. Each device has its applications. We use all types of traps at different times of the season. We get several double catches during the year by setting two single traps per den area baited up.

This tells us a lot about chuck behavior and how much den hoping or investigation that they really do. Gland lure really makes a big difference when cage bait trapping. Makes it a sure thing.

Trap choices are all about what is productive for the job and making traps work efficiently as needed. There are several options for cage choices and methods used. I am all for what works for you and what has proven to be productive over time. Use what you have if necessary. Make it work. I try new things frequently just to see what I can get away with at times. Makes this job very educational and entertaining to prove a point or just to experiment.

Like said above, there are several ways to trap a woodchuck . I bait all my live traps. Just me. I think Bob made a good point about not crowding the site. I keep the live trap 4-6 feet from the hole sometimes further. Let them find the trap. They will investigate because it is something new. You are not forcing any thing on them. Watch several trail cam video of raccoons and opossum. You learn a lot. It works for me, you just have to find what works for you and both Jim and Bob have lots of experience.

We always have these discussions every year, that time of year, can count on it like a sunrise. Everyone has their own methods. In the past ten years, though there could be some who might still use bait, once we turned them on to baitless chucks with double door cages, they didn't go back and were amazed at how easy and productive it worked. For chucks almost always is not necessary. Saves money not using bait, don't have to rebait, hands don't get sticky, few non-targets and I don't have to worry about whether the chuck is gonna like what I got for bait or go past a set. He's gonna love what I got for him, a one way to exit or enter the den most of the time. I do rake the dirt up well first so he walks on fresh thick dirt not wire, sometimes even pile more dirt at the entrance to make him think someone else may have dug his den out. And if the trap I have it smelly, all the better. Just like setting a conibear like lots of guys use in a den hole, the same thing now, just doing it with a cage on top instead, with few worries about domestic pets.

I once watched a guy break out a double door trap to set up for a chuck on Youtube. I thought, "this guy knows his stuff." Then I watched him set the double door trap back five feet from the den. Couldn't believe it, missed the whole point. Crowding critters is what I do best. I crowd everything, when I can. Don't want to leave anything to chance if I can help it, just intercept him in his daily routine. When I knew there was a bunch of chucks at a den I have put several fanned out cages together and had them all in minutes. Nowhere to go but through the trap.

I think back about bobcats in California in the 80's, listening to the competition, such as it was, talking about "visits." We set trails, they set lured flat sets in the brush. We had cats, they had visits. In time we did add gland lure to the trail sets, but that was for the fox, didn't matter cats.

I'm not a non-bait guy by any stretch, but I do it out of necessity when nothing else is available, just not as a first choice. Still, you can't spend all day looking for that perfect blind set either. If its not readily available, its a whole lot better baiting up quickly and moving along. I still enjoy the challenge of looking at job site and picking out where critters will cross, trapping, blind sets. Clients always, as you know, ask "what bait." Love to see their faces when I tell them I don't use any. Just get a puzzled look. Have thought about playing with them and just saying, "oh no, I forgot the bait, but I'll just set a trap anyway to see what happens," knowing exactly what's going to happen. Still catch a lot of squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, coon, possum with baits when I have to, just no better feeling than having a set placed right smack in the middle of the travel way for confidence. All they gotta do is move.

The one critter I won't waste time looking for a blind set is beaver. If there are no close runs within a few feet of the bumper, the castor comes out.

I saw mentioned that sometimes multiple chucks are caught in one trap, which is not unique to baiting. Same thing happens with chucks in baitless sets. One trapper had 4 chucks in a short 18 inch trap, mom and kids. I have caught 3 at a time myself. And, on a different critter, one Washington State trapper caught 5 otter in one double door cage positive set under a deck where the otter were going under the house, all 20 pound males. The photo was just a mass of fur, so you really couldn't tell where one otter started and another ended, just a trap packed with critters.

I use both. 98% baitless, but sometimes you can't get a trap where they will walk through it. Being used to trapping bait free has made me a better trapper when I have to use bait.