Mole traps

What ,in your opinion, are the best mole traps and why. We have clay soil here in Georgia...

Well, I don't know 'em all, but I do fine with some harpoons and out-o-sites.
...yes, harpoon traps. As I tell many of my customers who fail with the same traps, "It's the trapper, not the traps."
Steve Albano's traps are well-liked by many.

Fred your gonna get two traps recommended The Victor OOS, and Steve Albano's Trapline Products Mole traps. Both traps are good traps .


I like Steve's traps because they work for me -just like OOS does for others. Steve's traps are set underground out of the way from lawn equipment. They are made of stainless steel and and do not rust. JMHO

Without a doubt the best are Steve Albano's trapline mole trap and that is specifically for our clay. I do however recommend you keep some victor oos traps for those mulch or sand soils.

After that post that Warrior had RE;must haves for the truck, I am looking at getting ready for a productive year...I hope

I have been using Steve Albano's 100% of the time, but I am adding
a few Victor OOS. Steve uses and make his traps that he sells.
So they are American made! That is a plus right there.

The reason for keeping some OOS is that while Steve's are the best they have one basic requirement, a somewhat intact tunnel to shove them into. In sand or mulch soils the tunnels tend to collapse, especially when you go to shove a trap into the tunnel. The OOS while also at it's best in good firm soils is the better bet in loose soils. At least that's been my experience. Maybe Steve will chime in on this one as I seem to recall a post of his where he uses both as well for similar reasons.

We have been using Steves trapline mole traps more and more these last few years. They will work just about in any application.The out of sites are a good shallow run trap as are the spear types which can be checked visually quickly without disturbing them. The others require uncovering to determine a catch.

There are uses and places for each type trap. Just have to get some experience with all of them to determine what you find you can master the best and what the soil conditions are as well which will really determine trap selection.

Do any of you use the EZ Set Eliminator mole trap? Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Wire-Tek-Eas...hy=9019258&hvtargid=pla-728325650383

They catch moles. But from a practical standpoint there are less expensive, less bulky, easier to set options for the professional. I have a customer who used to be a distributor for that trap. He gave me one. He still paid me to trap his moles with oos. Judging by the size of his and my house, you might say there's more money in selling the traps than setting the traps.

bjansma
Are we looking at the same trap, $37.00 dollars and the size, look an the size.

I was responding to the Amazon link in the post above mine

Bob:
Today I check the traps I re- set 3 days ago and bedding the tongs deeper. I only had one dug under and one tripped but had some mole fur on the tongs. Might have set it to deep.
Before in the same traps I had 6 dug under. I think if I had set them deeper my catch rate would have went up. The traps that I was checking was not the first check but the second.
From now on I will be bedding the traps different and taking a little more time. Thanks for the heads up.

You don't need to get carried away in the bedding of the trap. Just get in the habit of pushing the trap front end down into the soil to get the frame and lower jaws where they attach to the frame down to level tunnel grade or slightly below. It will become second nature once you have practiced this technique for a while and you will become very proficient at doing it quickly.

Thanks. That's kind of what I was guessing.