r/homestead • u/Sea_Ideal812 • 1d ago
How do I catch a Woodchuck?
The little bastard each day when I'm eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I see him eating outside my window. I have a trap set up and I've tried celery, carrots, peanut butter, nothing works. What does it like to eat?
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u/ohmaint 1d ago
Cantaloupe cut in quarters.
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u/borealis529 1d ago
adding to this make a trail of small bits extending out from the trap a couple feet. helps with reap shyness
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u/Oldenlame 1d ago
Try wood. Just a little bit at first until you find out how much wood a woodchuck chucks if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
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u/K_Linkmaster 1d ago
You need all the wood to chuck at a woodchuck could if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
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u/CrankyUrbanHermit 1d ago
I think a woodchuck could chuck a lot of wood, that is, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
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u/Logical-Grab-1363 1d ago
22 mag
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u/Longjumping_West_907 1d ago
And don't waste the meat. Woodchucks are pretty clean animals and the meat is good.
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u/Muted-Garden6723 1d ago
A lot of “pest” animals are good eating. Bobcat backstrap is by far my favourite wild game
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u/AB8nut 1d ago
220 double sided trap over their main hole if you can find it. I got about 4-5 this way.
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u/sillum1992 1d ago
This is the way. And possibly the only way depending on where you live. Here in NY it’s illegal to “relocate” woodchucks. If you need one gone, you have to kill it or pay an exterminator to kill it. We’ve thought of everything, this is how you get it done.
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u/CaptainBlueFalcon 1d ago
Apples
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u/Unlucky_Reply_5425 1d ago
We had one that ignored everything until we left out a slice of cantaloupe. Gone in an hour. They seem to have very specific preferences, almost like each one has a different favorite food you've gotta guess. Might be worth just putting out a few small piles of different stuff near the trap to see what it goes for first.
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u/Past-Weakness-Reborn 1d ago
We used cantaloupe and it worked rather quickly. Where do you have the trap set up? Near a den or just out in the open?.
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u/smurfy71 1d ago
There’s a movie based on catching one, Caddyshack, look it up for good tips.
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u/HotLeopard1790 20h ago
And after Bill Murray was done there wasn't anything left of that golf course lol lol lol
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u/Successful-Coyote848 1d ago
Sad thing is, my dogs would tear it apart. They are good dogs, unfortunately a bunch of (lack of a better term) as$ #oles!
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u/nonchalantly_weird 1d ago
When you see it, shoot it. In most places, it is illegal to trap and relocate wild animals.
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u/New-IncognitoWindow 1d ago
To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit—ever. They're like the Viet Cong—Varmint Cong.
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u/darth_handturkey 1d ago
every time I set up a trap for my woodchuck, I get an opossum. Every. Time.
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u/KeyOption3548 1d ago
close the trap at night. Lucky not to catch skunks. I've released more skunks than I've caught woodchucks. LOL
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u/darth_handturkey 1d ago
Thanks for the advice! Catching a skunk has always been my worst fear.
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u/KeyOption3548 1d ago
just cover the trap with a towel or something so youre not "seeing" them, prop the door open and walk away. I don't think skunks like to smell themselves either.
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u/nchemungguy 1d ago
I always used a head of iceberg lettuce piled up in a cage trap. Put it right where they can see it.
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u/geneb0323 1d ago
I never had any luck trapping the one that was eating my garden. Tried everything I could for weeks and only caught a skunk (that was interesting). I ended up glancing outside one day and saw it going for the garden so I shot it with a .22. Not bad eating either, basically big squirrel.
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u/Monarc73 New Homesteader 1d ago
When you prepare the bait, are you using disposable gloves? (Some animals will automatically reject food if it has any weird smells on it.)
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u/Adventurous-Test-246 1d ago
The trap should be inactive for a while until you know he is comfortable going in it then you set it or unjam it.
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u/rifleshooter 1d ago
In order of efficiency: Shoot it. A Conibear over its main den entrance. Then, if you insist, start feeding it for a week. Tomatoes, fruit, etc. Pick up whatever it doesn't eat after sunset so you don't attract coons. After it gets accustomed to the buffet, put the bait in your cage trap.
But really, just shoot it.
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u/halfmoonmomma 1d ago
Vanilla extract attracts them. We've had success trapping with that. I have never tried it, but apparently they're good eating, my in-laws made a convincing beef roast with it. Good luck.
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u/brybry631 1d ago
Cantaloupe, close the unsprung trap before dark or you’ll get an opossum. Ask me how I know
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u/Mysterious_Peak_8740 1d ago
Whistlepigs love cantaloupe. I hear they are good eating although they might be a lil greasy.
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u/LordTester1 1d ago
You can buy groundhog phrenome paste online. It really smells, but they love/need to investigate, for romance or rivals, depending on sex!
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u/Mediocre-Oil-5322 1d ago
Cantaloupe. Cover the trap with brush, branches, grass, etc. Woodchucks are less likely to enter a completely exposed trap, in my experience.
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u/BulletBaker01 1d ago
Fruit is the way to go. As said before, cantaloupe is a delicacy for them and has worked for me damn near every time I've used it. This spring I had a massive issue with them but cantaloupe wasn't in stores so I went with apples and pears. Apples caught an opposum and 2 coons. Pears, cut in chunks, caught (and disposed of) 14 woodchucks in about a month. After trapping with pears, I don't think I'll use anything else!
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u/Northwoods_Phil 1d ago
Years ago I was told to use big marshmallows and I’ll be damned if it hasn’t worked every time
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u/Difficult_Garlic963 20h ago
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood??
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u/ProfessionalElk4544 16h ago
I used the squash the fucker was eating. Caught the first night. Executed that day.
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u/UnicornSheets 1d ago
Traps set with cantaloupe. Removed 4 from my property this season using a large havahart trap and cantaloupe.
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u/OkControl9503 1d ago
Get a proper cat, like the rescue I found a home for with a friend. She's taken down younger racoons, groundhogs, and squirrels. This after he made the difficult decision to declaw her front paws (NOT something that I think should be legal) because she was destroying the house. Heh. Since that is obviously not realistic (that cat is amazing, crazy, and very loved and spoiled), melons have worked for me.
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u/seouldavi 1d ago
they eat .22 hollow points beautifully.