Any advice on staking or anchoring OOS's due to critters taking them with moles in them? I've lost several this year. Actually embarrassed to tell you how many.

You could probably attach a cable stake to each one and anchor it fast. Definitely extra work and time involved but you won't lose many traps. When you start trapping fields and pastures you run a much higher risk of exposure to predators.

I wouldn’t want to hit one with a mower. I heard about a homeowner running one over the a predator carried off.

Sure it's an animal, and not a human?

The OOS is also the main mole trap I use along with the Talpex and Trapline Mole traps to a lesser extent. I’ve only had 1 trap set thievery with a set of Trapline traps tethered in the 17 years in the business. All of my mole customers live within my home range of 4 or so small urban cities (2,500 to 9,000 pop.). We are also loaded with the typical nuisance wildlife critters found around rural urban cities (raccoons, skunks, possums, foxes, etc.) not to mention dogs and cats. I have more heck with these critters depredating my gopher trap sets than messing with a stinky mole. The Eastern Mole has a musk gland on its ventral side which maybe helps keep predators at bay. Just a WAG, but I would think that these predators would dig up the trapped mole, step on the trap and rip the mole from the OOS’s trap legs rather than drag its meal with an anvil attached! This is what they do mostly with my gopher trap set depradations leaving me only with a leg or piece of meat. Hope you figure out what’s happening with your traps.

Ive had to put buckets over some traps where they have dogs or I get trapps taken by coons coyotes or who knows. Use a rebar stake and attach your trap with cable or check out the screw in anchoring stake mole reaper has.

Thanks for the input guys, appreciate it!

As stated above most animals won’t actually eat the moles because they are unpalatable. They normally don’t go far with the traps so look under nearby bushes, brush piles, decks, etc. They generally look for quick cover.

Anchoring is a possibility but adds ALOT of time on both the setup and closing of the job, not to mention if you end up shuffling traps around during the job.

I get lots of operators questioning me on this topic and my answer is to work your yearly losses into your price. You’re gonna lose traps, so adjust your price accordingly. I work with several operators running several thousand traps and they lose a few hundred every year. It’s just part of the game. Between mowers and predators, no mole trap is 100% safe lol.

I just recently told a customer...the only way to keep it from happening is to stop trapping. Between mowers and critters I've lost 25-30 traps this year. Probably a small amount compared to some folks. Just simply a business expense.

My lesson for the day.
Never knew they didn't taste good to predators, figured coyotes and foxes ate them as often as they could catch them

I did too! Although I wondered about those big ol' paddle front hoofs! They were thought to be aquatic mammals, using the front feet to swim, although that's what they do in dirt. Hence their scientific Latin name "Scallopus Aquaticus". LOL