There are 3 pretty straight forward methods of getting rid of a gopher. Not a golfer, that you’ll get locked up for. I’m talking about those hairy, little bastards; gophers.
1. Non Lethal
Pet droppings. That’s right. Get your pet droppings and scatter them all around the gopher holes. Keep your cat litter, save your dog droppings, and throw that stuff right down the gopher hole. You won’t need very much, but the more the merrier, those little bastards deserve the worst. Cats and dogs are natural gopher predators so the smell of their number 2s is a natural deterrent to pesky gophers. When they smell the poop, they will assume a predator is nearby and high-tail it right out of your golf course.
2. Use smells that gophers don’t like
Gophers have sensitive noses, so if they smell something they don’t like, they will probably leave. Here are some ideas of smelly things gophers are going to hate.
- Fish. Save your fish guts next time you’re out on the open waters. Gophers hate fish, little known fact about the animal kingdom. It’s like cats and dogs, but the kinds that don’t like each other.
- Castor oil. I don’t even know what it is, but I know gophers hate it. Put it in a spray bottle and apply heavily around the gopher holes.
- Coffee grounds. Don’t throw our your coffee grounds! Well, I mean obviously don’t throw out perfectly good coffee grounds, make some coffee with them, but then don’t throw out what’s leftover. Gophers are very sensitive to coffee grounds because they can’t handle the caffeine. Silly gophers, coffee is delicious. Boy, are they missing out.
- Dryer sheets. Get your laundry soft, but don’t throw out the used sheet. Gophers are rugged animals and don’t like to be soft because then it makes them look like sissies to other gophers.
- Tabasco. Gophers are sensitive to spicy foods, especially tabasco. Such a shame. I love a little tabasco. Once I exploded tabasco all over the kitchen at the golf course and had to get everything cleaned. The only saving grace was this kitchen hood cleaning Sacramento.
3. Dynamite
That’s right. Good old fashioned dynamite. This is my personal favorite. I really like blowing things up and gophers are no exception to the rule. As a groundskeeper you have to know when enough is enough and when you need to bring out the big guns. Sometimes you really just have to lay down two, three, four, five, six, twenty sticks of dynamite in your gopher holes and just blow those little suckers sky high. Now you’ll have some damages to the grounds, sure, but any gopher within 200 miles of that blast will know for sure not to wander into your golf course.
4. Some Stupid Gopher Plant
This isn’t as fun as the dynamite and requires you to plant some stuff, which isn’t so bad, I guess, but it’s not like blowing anything up. There is a plant called Gopher Spurge. This is supposed to drive away gophers, but I don’t know if it works at all. Personally I think you are crazy if you read past dynamite.