Professional Gopher Removal That Saves Your Yard - Guaranteed
You invest time and money into your lawn and landscaping – but gophers can destroy it from beneath before you even realize what’s happening.
These burrowing pests tunnel through your yard, eat plant roots, and create soft, uneven ground that damages grass, irrigation, and walkways.
At Smith’s Pest Management, we help homeowners and businesses across the Bay Area and Central Coast, from Marin to Monterey, get rid of gophers quickly and prevent them from coming back.
Don’t wait – call now to schedule an inspection: (408) 871-6988
Signs You’ve Got Gophers on Your Property
Fresh Dirt Mounds
Gophers push soil to the surface as they dig, creating fan-shaped or crescent-shaped mounds.
These mounds often appear overnight and usually form in clusters across your lawn or garden.
Unlike moles, gopher mounds are offset to one side and made of fine, powdery soil.
Plants Dying or Disappearing
Gophers feed on roots underground, causing plants to wilt, collapse, or disappear.
They don’t always leave visible dirt mounds. Sometimes they pack soil back into their tunnels instead of pushing it to the surface.
If you see dead patches or unexplained plant loss on your lawn, a gopher is likely active below the surface.
Soft, Uneven, or Sinking Soil
As gophers tunnel, they weaken the soil structure beneath your lawn.
Over time, tunnels collapse and create soft spots, dips, or uneven ground.
This doesn’t just look unsightly – it’s also a dangerous tripping hazard.
We’ve seen yards and fields become unsafe as tunnels collapse over time.
Smith’s Gopher Control & Removal Process
1
Inspect Your Yard for Tunnels
Gophers create shallow feeding tunnels near mounds, but those aren’t always the best place to trap.
We focus on finding the main tunnel system, not just surface activity.
Our licensed technicians:
- Probe the soil to locate deeper, active tunnels
- Avoid shallow “false” tunnels that lead nowhere
- Track patterns across the entire property
2
Set Professional-Grade Gopher Traps
When a trap is set incorrectly, the gopher can survive the encounter and learn to stay away from that tunnel.
We avoid this by placing traps correctly the first time.
Once we locate an active tunnel, we:
- Open the tunnel carefully without collapsing it
- Place commercial-grade stainless steel traps inside
- Position traps in both directions of travel
3
Monitor Traps & Remove Gophers
We track gopher activity on your property and adjust our approach until we’ve removed all gophers.
We return to your home or business to:
- Check traps
- Remove captured gophers
- Reset traps in active tunnels
- Adjust placement based on new activity
How We Keep Gophers From Coming Back
Ongoing Control Program
If your property has had a gopher infestation before, it’s likely the gophers will return at some point.
In the Bay Area, mild weather, year-round irrigation, and soft soil create ideal conditions for gophers to stay active and keep expanding their tunnel systems.
Gophers can also move into your yard from nearby parks, open spaces, and hillsides, so new gophers will continue entering the property even if you remove those that are currently active.
Our ongoing service:
- Monitors your property regularly
- Targets new activity early
- Stops small problems before they spread
This is the most effective way to protect your yard – and your landscaping investment – long-term.
Exclusion
In high-value areas like garden beds or new lawns, we may recommend installing gopher fencing to physically block the burrowing pests out.
We use heavy-duty metal mesh designed specifically for gophers. The openings are small enough to stop them from squeezing through, and the material is durable so that it holds up underground.
We exclude gophers by:
- Burying the fencing at least 24 inches deep so gophers can’t dig under it
- Extending above ground so they can’t climb over it
- Installing the fencing around or beneath the area you want to protect
This won’t remove active gophers, but it helps protect specific areas when paired with trapping.
Success Story: How We Helped a San Jose Homeowner Get Rid of Gophers
A homeowner in Willow Glen recently called us after seeing new dirt mounds show up on their lawn almost every morning. Some plants were suddenly dying, and others looked like they had been pulled straight into the ground.
When we inspected the property, we found multiple shallow tunnels near the mounds, but those weren’t the main runs. After probing deeper, we located the active two-way tunnels the gophers were actually using to travel across the yard.
We set traps in the main tunnels. Within the first few visits, we started catching gophers. As activity shifted, we adjusted trap placement and continued targeting the active tunnels.
Like in most properties we treated, there was more than one gopher active on the property. New ones were moving in from nearby yards, so we kept monitoring and trapping consistently.
After a few weeks, the activity stopped. No new mounds, no plant loss, and the lawn started to recover once the tunnels were no longer active.
The homeowner chose ongoing service so we can catch new gophers early before the damage starts again.
What Our Customers Say
FAQ
Gophers create fan-shaped dirt mounds and eat plant roots.
Moles create raised ridges and feed on insects, not plants.
If plants are disappearing or dying from below, it’s almost always gophers.
No.
Gophers establish tunnel systems and stay there.
Even if one leaves, another will move in, often from a nearby property.
Yes.
They stay active in all seasons.
You’ll usually see more surface activity in spring and fall, but they continue tunneling and feeding all year.
You can trap gophers yourself, but you need to find the right tunnel.
Most people set traps in shallow or inactive tunnels and never catch anything.
We use probing techniques and experience to locate the main runs where gophers actually travel.
In the Bay Area, gophers are drawn to well-watered lawns, landscaped yards, and garden beds.
Irrigation keeps the soil soft and easy to dig, while plant roots give them a steady food source year-round.
If you have healthy grass, regular watering, and active landscaping, your yard naturally becomes a prime spot for gophers to move in.
Many homeowners turn to repellents, noise devices, or store-bought bait, but these methods don’t solve the problem.
Repellents and sound devices don’t work, and gophers ignore low-grade bait because they have better food to eat.
You need to find the right tunnels, place traps correctly, and follow up consistently. That’s why many homeowners rely on a team that specializes in gopher control, like Smith’s.