spear fishing

[nell67]

Either way,it's just wrong,there are better ways to dispatch an animal than that,I bet 9 out of 10 of them do NOT die instantly,they feel pain and suffer too ya know.

[Beo]

We spear them and hit mabye one a week,, we throw the stick and try to hit them, we dont wack them ..

Oh yeah that makes a big difference.... lol... you aren't getting it.
You throw the stick with nails and try to hit them, spear them, and maybe hit one a week. That will not kill them quickly, and there are better ways to dispatch an animal. Heck a .22 would be better, or a snare or deadfall.
A gopher is a small burrowing rodent that comes in many varieties including:
Pocket gophers of the family Geomyidae, native to North America, also called true gophers.
"Many ground squirrels" among the family of Sciuridaes (particularly Richardson's Ground Squirrel, Spermophilus richardsonii ).
Gophers weigh about 1/2 pound, with the head and body about 6 inches long, a tail of 3 inches and have a 2-3 year lifespan (assuming no diseases or predation).
All gophers have in common, the digging of tunnels, subterranean chambers, and the association with the rodent order, Rodentia. Disruption of such human plans for the surface as commercial agriculture, garden plots, and some landscaping, by their underground activities, leads to their frequent treatment as pests. In contrast, North American entertainment culture and non-technical literature tends to anthropomorphize gopher characters as "non-threatening".
Gophers will create a large community of tunnels with large mounds of dirt at their entrances - these are frequently referred to as "towns". Adult gophers will frequently stand watch at the entrance to a tunnel and whistle when predators are spotted, causing all the other gophers to run for the safety of the tunnels. A gopher town can easily spread to take over large sections of prairie or mountain meadow and may have a population in the thousands. The resulting destruction of plant life will then leave the area a stretch of denuded dirt.
Hope this helps.
Beo,

[trax]

boy sometimes I just have to take a deep breath after sorting through the crap. Anyone wants to try whacking and/or spearing animals the way described here, please keep it to yourself for future reference, hopefully you will learn something from some of the real hunters who post here.

Explosives? I've had enough of the crap in here on explosives. Grow up. Explosives are for people who know what they're doing with them. Fishing with explosives? Personally, you just got something in common with the spear hunter above, you make me sick. If someone takes that as a personal attack, suck it up princess.

[Beo]

Bro, that is one board dude with nothing to do but play Whack-a-mole with his gophers. But I agree with ya.

[Beo]

Here's ways to control your gopher problem its a huge deal for your farm.
Control Methods
Gopher populations can be reduced or eliminated over a considerable area with persistent control efforts. Control is best conducted when gophers are most active near the surface, usually in the spring or fall. New activity is usually indicated by fresh mounds of soil. At other times, labor and
material may be wasted in treating unoccupied runways. Control methods include poisoning, trapping, flooding, gassing, encouraging natural enemies, and exclusion. The two most practical and efficient methods are using toxic baits and trapping. Over large and heavily infested areas, poisoning is the most economical control method. Gophers not killed
by poisoning will throw up fresh mounds and these individuals can be trapped. On small areas, such as lawns or where only a few animals are involved, trapping is the most practical method.
Toxicants
Pocket gophers can be killed in large numbers with poisoned bait. Strychnine, either alkaloid or sulfate, is quite effective. Root vegetables, such as carrots or sweet potatoes, cut to conveniently small sizes and dusted with strychnine are excellent baits. Grain baits, such as corn, oats, wheat, and grain sorghum are readily eaten in some localities and often
give better results in fall when pocket gophers are storing much of their food. These prepared baits can often be obtained from local garden supply stores or from pest control operators. Two baiting methods are effective. The first involves dropping baits by hand into underground runways. This
procedure is easier if a probe is used to find the tunnel and to make a hole through which bait can be inserted. Probes can be bluntly pointed brooms, shovel handles, or pipes. A good probe can be made of three-fourths inch gas pipe welded to a blunt point and cut 34 inches long. A “T” joint which
slips over the main probe makes a movable foot-rest. To locate the main runway, probe into the soil four to ten inches from the base of the mound, usually on the side nearest the circular depression, or probe between two fresh mounds. Enlarge the opening by rotating the probe so that
poisoned baits may be dropped into the burrow. Use two to three pieces of vegetable bait or one level tablespoon of grain bait. Close the opening with grass and cover with dirt to keep out light and air. Make one application for every four to six fresh mounds.
Place the baits in the main runways with as little disturbance as possible. Toxic baits left on the surface will not be found by gophers, but they may endanger other wild or domestic animals. If the mounds are leveled as you work the area, gophers that escape treatment will make new mounds
you can easily detect. Additional baits or traps may then be placed where needed. The second baiting method uses a tractor-drawn machine called a “burrow-builder.” This machine make artificial burrows and automatically drops toxic baits into them. The “burrow builder,” developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is especially useful for large areas. It is recommended for use when soil moisture permits good compaction
so burrows will not collapse. In most areas, soil conditions are best in the spring or fall. The effectiveness of the machine depends upon the
gophers finding the artificial runways and the poisoned bait. Hence, the machine must be set so artificial burrows will intercept the greatest possible number of natural gopher tunnels. Under average conditions, ten acres of land can be treated per hour using one and a half to three pounds of treated grain.
Strychnine-treated grain baits consisting of mixtures of whole oats and cracked corn, cracked corn and grain sorghum (maize), or 100 percent grain sorghum have been used with excellent results. Materials used for poisoning gophers are dangerous to man and other animals. So, extreme caution should be used when handling, storing, or applying these toxic substances. All labels on toxicants should be read and followed closely.
Trapping
Special traps are required for trapping pocket gophers. Small spring traps of varying sizes are widely used. Another popular type is a box trap
with a choker loop. Two traps of appropriate size should be placed in the main runway, one set in each direction. This makes a trap-set. Using a stout garden trowel or a lightweight shovel, find the freshest mound and follow a lateral from the mound to the main runway. Clear a place in the main runway large enough for two traps, disturbing the surrounding area as little as possible. Set the pan or treadle so that traps can be easily sprung. Insert the traps, jaws forward, into the hole facing in opposite directions and press them down firmly. Cover the opening in the burrow with a clod or a handful of grass to cut off most of the light.

[Ryleyboy]

well i could try my dads .22 or even trapping them . i have a bunch of old traps that should work..

[trax]

Ryleyboy, I know you told us this already, but refresh my memory for me. How old are you? Have you been trained with a firearm? Safety first, partner and check with someone about the traps you're using, there's different sets for different critters and you're gonna want to get used to that.

[Beo]

If your under 18, listen to what Trax is saying... please. If you have no prior firearms training then PLEASE LEAVE THEM ALONE. Here's an idea.... try learning about what you want to hunt and trap or rid the farm of.

[Ryleyboy]

yes i do have my firearm and hunter safty license.. and have much expirence with a gun

[Ryleyboy]

but i know nothing of trapping . barley nothing..

[bulrush]

I tried a lot of the spearing methods you see in survival manuals. Most of them are a joke, in fact it was the least productive. I can catch fish by hand more successfully than with the spear. If you do try the spear method, you must fire harden the end and add a barb. Even this method looks better on TV than in real life. It took 20 tries to spear one. Has anyone had any success at spear fishing? Any tips?

You have half the equation: fire hardening and a barb.

The other half is knowing which way the image of the fish is refracted, and in which direction. Only intense practice can tell you this. However, after practicing for an hour I learned how to account for refraction. Now if I could only remember how I did it.

Because light bends when it goes through the water's surface, the image of the fish you see does not represent its actual location. If your spear hits the image of the fish you will never hit the actual fish. I believe it is about an inch closer to the sun. So if the sun is to your right, try spearing 1 inch to the right of the fish you see. You should at least feel that your spear has grazed the fish.

And so, you have found out the same thing I have. That many many survival manuals and shows leave out critical details, details you could only learn by actually doing the activity in question.

[Beo]

Good point bulrush,
Refraction can be seen when looking into a bowl of water. Air has a refractive index of about 1.0003, and water has a refractive index of about 1.33. If a person looks at a straight object, such as a pencil or straw, which is placed at a slant, partially in the water, the object appears to bend at the water's surface. This is due to the bending of light rays as they move from the water to the air. Once the rays reach the eye, the eye traces them back as straight lines (lines of sight). The lines of sight (shown as dashed lines) intersect at a higher position than where the actual rays originated. This causes the pencil to appear higher and the water to appear shallower than it really is. The depth that the water appears to be when viewed from above is known as the apparent depth. This is an important consideration for spearfishing from the surface because it will make the target fish appear to be in a different place, and the fisher must aim lower to catch the fish.
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Y is what you see, X is where the pencil really is.
So you'd have to aim back or left or right of what you really see.

[Beo]

Back on track to spear fishing, try this link on Army Ranger Rick's site. It is great for what you want to learn.
http://www.therangerdigest.com/Tips%...ear%20fish.htm

[flandersander]

I have a gofur problem aswell. I actually know ryleyboy, but that doesn't really matter. I was thinking trapping, but I have no idea how. Been looking but could only find pocket gofur trapping. They are what we call "13 stripers" and richerdson ground squirrels. I have no idea the proper name for the "13 stripers", but I do know, they have black stripes on thier backs, and I assume 13 stripes. I really know though how many stripes there really are. So my question is, what kind of trapping setups are there, using legholds, are there, and which work the best?

[Ryleyboy]

keagan just do it the way u told me you know when the gopher goes down the hole but the small foothold upside down on the whole and when it pokes his head up the trap with go off and catch its head.. use a Nagra special for the trap or something small like that..

[Beo]

See the sticky on trapping in the Survival Food: Foraging, Hunting, Fishing, and Trapping, and forum, it should help.

[Rick]

Ground squirrels! Man, those things are dummer than dirt. You can catch them without any sort of bait at all. I've caught them in a Havahart Squirrel, Chipmunk, & Rat Trap, Two Doors trap.

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Just set it up and they will run right through it and trap themselves. I haul off 8 -10 of them every summer.

[Beo]

Rick I use one of those for opposum and coon sometimes, even cats they are great. Peanut butter bait is shoved to the back and viola... caught. Mines got one door and a solid back though.

[Ryleyboy]

do you know were you can order those online.. can you post the link please.

[Beo]

Those are LIVE ANIMAL cage traps, for trapping not for catching and hurting, just to be clear.
http://www.rpoutdoors.com/cagetraps.html
They also have mole and gopher traps. This is where I get alot of my traps from. Check out their baits, callers, and snares,
and the books and mags on trapping.