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Nicepix

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Everything posted by Nicepix

  1. Nicepix
    Two moles ain't going to make much difference to most new jobs I get. The average is 6 to 8 per job and you can never tell when the surprises will turn up. For example last week I had a job in a very small garden of about 800 m2. There was one centre of activity in the main part of the garden and an obvious tunnel across a path in another part of the garden that lead from a rockery to a steep grassed verge about 2 metres wide that dropped down to the road. The verge petered out a few metres uphill and went around a corner bordering the lower part of the garden. I put a Talpex in the main
  2. Nicepix
    Gardens are huge out here. And this one has an 180 metre border with a winter wheat field with no wall, fence, ditch or any other obstruction to keep the farmer's moles his side of the legal boundary. It is very, very rare that I get a job with one isolated mole in a garden. I invariably end up trapping moles coming in from adjoining areas too. As in this case.
  3. Nicepix
    I'm sure that we all get them at some time, but I still don't know why some moles walk blindly into the traps and a rare few seem to do everything to thwart you. I set some traps in a new customer's garden last week. On the first check I had a double in Putanges in the back garden and all six traps in the front garden had been sprung or dug under. Two pairs of Putanges blocked, two Duffus traps filled with soil and two Talpex sprung with no body. Same the next time except the back garden was clear. I'd lowered the traps after clearing out the holes as normal, but the mole went even deeper
  4. Nicepix
    Agree with you, but that is for one job in one area! I personally would not drive over 25 miles for any job, (for I am a part timer who works else where as well) But if you have say 3 jobs all fairly close by then your income is nearer to £15-£18. I try and combine work with other things I need to do, eg shopping That's basically what I try and do; arrange my week so that the jobs are in the same sector and then fit in the contract job checks amongst those. I've just finished a block booking where one former client with a pocket handkerchief garden and only ever one visiting m
  5. Nicepix
    Very interesting, mate,..."if the neighbouring land is mole infested and owned by someone else I'll often leave a couple or more old putanges that are coming to the end of their usable life in suitable commuting tunnels and seal up the trap site leaving them to do their dark dees un-noticed by the customer, and hopefully warding off any in guarantee recall",..........i understand, why you do this, ?,.... but its a step too far, for me personally(intercepting moles from neighbouring land),.......just too be sure,of a 'guarantee', in situations like that ? Its bound to end in a programme of
  6. Nicepix
    He probably meant to leave them on to build up confidence in the trap site
  7. Nicepix
    The garden / field conundrum? It happens quite a lot out here. Given that land is so cheap people end up buying a house that comes with up to 3 hectares that they can't do anything with, and so either fence most of it off or more usually just cut the grass where it matters to them and leave the rest wild. I'll get a call to do the moles in the garden area and invariably they don't want to pay for clearing the field area. We all know that if you just did this, as soon as your back is turned the ones outside the garden will invariably find their way inside. I give a guarantee that if the
  8. Nicepix
    I had a guy phone up last year asking for the rate to clear his moles. I didn't want the job as it involved 90 minutes travelling each way and was nowhere near anywhere else I regularly visit, so I quoted €300 after explaining the reasoning. He booked me and I took one mole out of his garden. Same again this year.
  9. Nicepix
    Good going JD. Do you eat the squirrels? I used to get far more females than males and there wasn't enough meat on them to make it worthwhile.
  10. Nicepix
    Heard the first nightingale of the year today, and another cuckoo. And yesterday evening I walked into the kitchen and saw a GS Woodpecker perched on a small tree near the bird table. We had a nest in the bottom boundary of the back garden last year, but they have never ventured into the front garden before.
  11. Nicepix
    Well, i take it, the guy was experienced enough, too turn up first thing in the morning. (at a suitable location, for the 'said' method ?,) He also obviously, figured he would have a fair chance of a 'catch', during the 'run times' ? (& he wouldnt be leaving the trap, in place, overnight ?) No guarantee but ?,....& as youve expressed,... it has its limitations. I get a few enquiries about live trapping from the tree hugging type who still want an unspoilt garden. I have caught them alive by design, and returned them quickly from where they came from. Just to see whether I coul
  12. Nicepix
    The technology is widely available. Trappers use them to monitor traps and they get a signal to their mobile when the trap is activated. The problem I see with moley is that if the mole was trapped at say 1am are you going to get out of bed and drive out to rescue the mole straight away? Because if you don't and the customer sees you turn up at 9am and take out the body there is no point in using a live catch trap.
  13. Nicepix
    What month / months do the sparrow hawks breed in that area? TC According to the books April - July. That said, the same books claim that nuthatches nest at the end of April and only have one brood. Yet the three pairs that visit our bird table were commuting to and from every few minutes from from the end of March last year and again at the end of April, indicating that they had two broods, one a month earlier than is reported. The thing that got my attention with the sparrow hawks was their calls. I'd heard the sort of call you get from marsh or estuary birds, but not quite as m
  14. Nicepix
    Many years ago I bought two Cortland 444 Sylk lines for small river fishing. They are no good for chucking lures and are best suited to light nymphs and dries. Every new season I would unroll the lines, clean them and rewind them onto the reels. They never had any memory and floated like a duck. Wind the clock five years on, reels still in storage boxes, never been used since emigrating over four years ago. Took the lines off the spools last month and neither had what you could call memory. Just a few very light curls that came out after cleaning. Brilliant lines.
  15. Nicepix
    I heard a cuckoo yesterday evening. I've been off fishing near to Marans in SW France for a few days and the area teems with cuckoos in season owing to its marshes and fens. There was a flock of about 20 egrets in the next field and three cranes, we call them grue, got up and with hardly a wing beat took a spiral path to several hundred feet on a thermal. About 7 o'clock I was watching a sparrow hawk giving flying lessons to one of its young. It was so funny; the parent was trying all it could to coax the fledgling into flight but it just hopped from one branch to another just like a harri
  16. Nicepix
    Depends on how you check them Smithie. If you just look at a Duffus, and are confident that if one or two of the springs are up it hasn't been disturbed then it is quicker checking Duffus traps. But you will not know whether a mole has gone under the trap or filled it. So I tend to lift at least some of the traps especially if the mole is still unaccounted for in the traps checked so far. That means clearing and re-setting the trap. If you set a pair of Putanges and use the clod or a board to seal the hole all you need to do is lift the clod or board. You can tell by how the legs are alig
  17. Nicepix
    That one works. The other just kept taking me back to the HL message page. If you are happy to host it I'll leave it there. Saves me faffing about trying to re-load it.
  18. Nicepix
    The link didn't work Smithie. I did mention that in the PM exchange.
  19. Nicepix
    I spotted a Hoopoe yesterday while out mole trapping. That is really early for round here. They are such a funny bird to watch and not one you would think could migrate such long distances. We had a pair nesting at the bottom of the garden last year and raised two chicks.
  20. Nicepix
    No I haven't
  21. Nicepix
    Not to mention the disturbance to the trap site.
  22. Nicepix
    Could be a project for a welder with time on his hands; Take a scissor trap, cut the trigger off, weld two rods at the base of each prong to connect the prongs together front to back, and then fit the trigger between the rods in the middle of the trap like on a Putange. That way the trigger would be hinged at the bottom and should displace more easily. Happen.
  23. Nicepix
    It might also be the way they are hinged. With a Duffus the mole has to push it away and up and that could influence it to dig under if the trigger is a bit sticky to move. Whereas the Putange trigger falls away and down possibly influencing the mole to treat it like a stone and bulldoze it away. Happen
  24. Nicepix
    My brother-in-law got a question from someone on eBay who insisted that he had measured a mole's head and claimed that it wouldn't fit through the Putange. Anyway, he bought some and then later contacted Ian to say that he was wrong. They did catch moles after all. Perhaps those 17th century mole trappers knew what they were doing after all. And we ow it all to this man......... André Le Nostre, who planned and landscaped the gardens of the Palace of Versailles around 1664 and started the war against moles in the King's garden. Smithie, you are right in what you say. Bu
  25. Nicepix
    The slightly wider gape doesn't make much difference in normal use. I've been mixing traps up; normal Putanges, the older stainless ones and the newer traps for new jobs and they are all catching. The main difference is that the spring is so strong I have to use the pliers type tool. The lever is a real struggle to use on the new traps. All my contract jobs are now on the stainless ones. Had two doubles in three-way runs this week in the same trap site. I'm still waiting for a triple. Today one mole was trapped conventionally, another backwards way around. I reckon it had clambered over th
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