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Nicepix

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Everything posted by Nicepix

  1. Nicepix
    Well, you have shamed me into fettling my old 'J Duffus & Son' trap ready for action. It has the Duffus name on one side, but not the patent on the other. The wires had corroded a bit and the triggers needed fettling but while working on it I got chance to notice some striking differences between the old girl and my shiny Flatpack Stainless traps. The Duffus is a lot narrower and has a steeper arch to the body. The original Flatpacks are narrower than the current version, but the Duffus is several mm narrower than the early S/S Flatpack and considerably narrower than the later Flatpack
  2. Nicepix
    They are not as fiddly to set once you've got the hang of them. I carry three pairs ready-set in a plastic box that stops them sliding about too much. It is rare that one trips unless I'm really clumsy with the basket. Even if they are not ready set it only takes as long to set one as doing one side of a Duffus. Opening up the tunnel is the same and all I do is probe with twisted fence wire to check there isn't a junction, rake out both sides with a spoon and slide them in. One peg, either a piece of fence wire or a plastic flag secures them and then the clod goes back on. All I then need
  3. Nicepix
    They breed four times a year over here and traditionally the January and August hatches were decimated by the severe cold in winter and oppressively hot summers. Over the last few years however there hasn't been much of either extremes and so they are thriving. People who have been here twenty years or more and never had a mole problem are being over run by them. And there are virtually no mole trappers. My nearest competition is over two hours drive away. If anyone is thinking of retiring abroad there is plenty of mole trapping opportunities as long as you register with the authorities. H
  4. Nicepix
    And wear some ear defenders. They don't half make a noise at dusk.
  5. Nicepix
    This site wasn't always so secret squirrel: http://www.thehuntinglife.com/forums/topic/46307-setting-thetalpex-mole-trap/
  6. Nicepix
    I found one of those once. I think they're pretty rare in England now. Yep, they are rare in the UK. I did some work in a paddock up in the Haute-Vienne and it seems that they are established up there. Did you know that Hungarian anglers rate them very highly as a bait for wels catfish? They reckon that if you don't get a bite on them there are no catfish in the swim. They even make bait out of crushed mole crickets.
  7. Nicepix
    I've got one of those. Same vintage, clean with no mole in it. And a small Fenn mole trap. But I was under the impression that after JND sold the company the new owner still put 'Duffus' on the barrel? Perhaps Old Trap Collector could enlighten us? But, I have to say that if I had to choose between one of those old Duffus traps and the original Flatpack Ultimate Stainless trap I'd go for the Flatpack every time. I'd even put the latest Flatpack Stainless above the old Duffus.
  8. Nicepix
    But Matt says that any idiot can set them. What does that make us three?
  9. Nicepix
    I echo the above comments. I've tried bending the trigger and not bending it, over filling the hole and under filling it, on its side and upright and I still don't get anywhere near the success rate I do with Flatpacks and Putanges.
  10. Nicepix
    But forums are meant for discussion, not SPAM otherwise all these pages would be full of adverts and nobody would read them. And you are hardly likely to pick up much work off a forum full of mole trappers.
  11. Nicepix
    There aren't any moles in South Yorkshire. That's why I'm over here.
  12. Nicepix
    I'm envious. The most exotic things I've found is a slow worm that I thought it was a copper bracelet and a mole cricket.
  13. Nicepix
    I regularly set traps in runs that become flooded and sometimes I find trapped moles. I was surprised at first but now have no problem in setting traps even if I dig in and find a tunnel running with water. I'll not set them in fully flooded tunnels though.
  14. Nicepix
    I've been trying to lose my Traplines for ages now but they keep turning up.
  15. Nicepix
    I'd like to know where he got that information from. I've not been able to find much in the way of scientific studies of moles. Straightening runs is what I meant by altering the tunnel. Along with packing where I've cut to much out, lowering the floor, taking out big stones, chopping roots.............. In fact I'm surprised the mole recognises its own home with all the 'improvements' I've made. Its like that SOS Builder program sometimes. One thing I notice about opening up molehills is that many of them have a dog leg of up to 90 degrees. Rarely are they straight runs. That's
  16. Nicepix
    Me too.
  17. Nicepix
    I just get gloves from the gardening section. In the really cold, wet weather I use ones with a fully latex palm and put dry ones on every job. Otherwise I use a similar type but thinner and with a lighter latex coating on the palm. They last about a month, the thicker type three months at least. When I was renting a cottage on a farm and walking to the traps I didn't bother with gloves, but I don't like getting the car mucked up.
  18. Nicepix
    I suppose it all depends on what you do. I've got about 50 Flatpacks, 20 Talpex and 20 to 30 Putanges and I've not run out yet. But I mainly do garden jobs where I'll typically need 10 to 20 traps per job and I manage the work so I don't have three bigger jobs on the go at once.
  19. Nicepix
    Sometimes you can trace an old tunnel by looking at the vegetation. Airborne seeds often root in molehills and years later, well after the tumps have gone, the location of the molehill can be seen in the form of dandelions and thistles. It is always worth probing down a dandelion root. In shallower runs you can often feel the give if you use your heel instead of a probe.
  20. Nicepix
    I think that there are often less mole hills on a main run because the run was constructed many years before and has become hardened and requires less maintenance to keep clear. Often you might just see a bit of crumb not much bigger than a worm cast in an area of pure grass. That is a mole clearing a bit of debris from an old tunnel. I've been to some houses over here that are more than 500 years old and the tunnels are like polished clay drainpipes. Not much soil drops into those and so the mole doesn't need to make a great mound like it does in new tunnels and recently excavated ones in loo
  21. Nicepix
    But what if you weren't doing farms where a 90% (say) catch rate was acceptable and you were doing a garden where the customer wanted 100%? Tricky mole under a patio or along a concrete wall where you can't get a Duffus or Talpex to sit right. How many visits might you make before the mole plays ball and comes out into the open? Or what about open areas where your shiny Duffus traps will get nicked? That's why discrete traps like the Nomol, Trapline or my own choice, the Putange are worth having.
  22. Nicepix
    Alternative to the chain harrow is three car tyres fastened together and towed behind a garden tractor or quad.
  23. Nicepix
    I've just measured the distance properly and it is more like 20mm than 25mm. Most are caught at the back of the head in front of the shoulders or just behind the shoulders.
  24. Nicepix
    Thing is PK if I was a householder how would I know how many moles I had and therefore how much I might have to pay. I took 21 out of a garden recently and I've got one going at the moment that will top that. In other similar sized gardens I've had just the one. A lot of people vastly over estimate the number of moles that they have got and so many would be put off from booking a pay by mole arrangement. I certainly would have been. And from my point of view as a trapper I ain't going to drive 60 miles there and back twice for one mole fee and I would feel uncomfortable about asking a househol
  25. Nicepix
    About 25mm from the prongs and as close to it not protruding at the other side as is possible, No more than 1 - 2mm proud of the trap. Then put the trap down, prongs up and to the right, set another and place it on top, prongs down and to the left. That way they stack one on top of the other. I use a 2.5 litre ice cream tub (from Lidl) that has been cut down to about 2" high and place three pairs in that ready for use. Another cut down ice cream tub goes inside, on top, with the pegs and flags I use to secure and mark them. I use a piece of string as a handle on the top box to make it easier t
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