I must have been around 15 when I caught my first mole. It was on a smallholding near my house, and I had a deal with the landowner if I could catch his moles, I could shoot some rabbits on his land with my air rifle.
I’d always been fascinated by trapping, from snaring rabbits and foxes to live-catching rats and squirrels. But mole trapping? That was a different ballgame. It was a bit of a secret art back then, with old-school mole catchers keeping their methods close to their chests.
Determined to give it a go, I picked up a few traps from the local farm shop both tunnel (Duffus) and scissor traps. After spending an hour figuring out how they worked, I jumped on my bike and headed up the field, full of excitement. Armed with four traps, a garden trowel, and a long-handled screwdriver, I set about placing my first ever mole trap upside down. I couldn't quite figure out how to put the soil back over the trap without stopping it from going off, so in my teenage logic, I just flipped it over and hoped for the best.
For three days, every trap I set got jammed solid with soil. But on the fourth day, I finally caught my first mole in a scissor trap. Buzzing with excitement, I rushed to show the landowner, who barely looked up from his work and just said, “Theres a few more, you better get them too”
That was it I was hooked. I bought more traps, started setting them wherever I could, and slowly but surely, I started to get the hang of it. I even managed to catch my first mole in a tunnel trap, though not before a fair few failed attempts.
Matthew
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