This wicked-looking device hanging in Mother’s basement came from HER parents’ backyard garage in Advance. I can remember seeing it and being fascinated by the grisly tool when I was a little kid.
The way it worked was you would look around your yard until you saw the raised portions of ground where the moles had created runs. You would cock the trap by pulling up on the handle at the top, which would compress the spring and raise the spikes.
After that, you would put the trap straddling the run with the big stakes on both sides, sticking it in the ground just far enough that the flat trigger at the top of the spike platform would rest across the raised dirt. The theory was that a mole passing through the run would jiggle the ground just enough to send the spikes plunging through him.
I never checked for success
I’m not sure we ever deployed the device with any serious intent to dispatch any moles, and I certainly never dug around to see if it had been successful if we had.
If you have a sadistic bent and moles in your yard, I’m pretty sure the trap ended up at Annie Laurie’s Antique Shop.
Wow! I just did a Google search for “mole trap” and came up with a whole bunch of more modern devices for dealing with the rodents. After looking at a couple of videos, I am more convinced than ever that ignorance is bliss. I’m glad I never checked for results.
We have one of these that our neighbor, Bill, gave us before he died. We tried it a few times but we never caught one, thank goodness. It hangs in my garage now!! lol
I had a talk with a woman who lived across from Umfleet Park in Advance several years ago, and she said her husband had caught over 90 moles with this trap. My dogs were digging up my yard to get the moles, so I actually bought one of the traps and set to work to eradicate my yard of the underground creatures.
Fortunately for me, I guess, I never skewered a single mole! I’m sure I still have the trap, rusting away in the basement or shed somewhere…
We probably have one of those in our barn, and we had one when I was a kid. I’ve probably set them myself, and maybe even got a mole or two with them, though I don’t remember any specific instances. Seems to me they were a lot of work for little return.
I don’t worry too much about the molehills in our yard. They are unsightly but easily raked out and taken care of. I figure they’re a sign of a healthy invertebrate population underground.
However, I don’t like when a mole goes down a row of garden seed we just planted, cleaning out the whole works overnight.
Last fall we got a kitten/cat to keep the chipmunks from invading and destroying our house. She was a little late for chipmunk season, but during this unusually warm winter weather she has learned how to catch moles (and mice). She sometimes brings them to our front porch to show off before she eats them. Sometimes I take the corpses away before she gets around to eating them, and it doesn’t seem to discourage her. At the rate she’s going she’ll keep the mole population down to a tolerable level.
I have never seen one of those before ,but glad to find out what it is ! Poor mole ! 🙂