Any Sure Fire Ways To Control Them???
Would kind of like to stay away from poisons

Thanx

All other options generally require death of some kind, which is the most effective, once you get them all. Some swear by cats. If you see it, you could shoot it. There are traps. I'm sorry to say, but we have had the best luck with poisoning. They even ate pine trees!

It really does work! I guess it makes the rodents think a predator is following them underground. All my gophers moved next door. (Never liked that guy, anyway!)

And NO, FRESH pet (dog or cat) waste doesn't pose a health hazard when buried. The soil microbes break it down. The only danger is when pet poop is contaminated with parasite eggs and it sits out in the air and the eggs 'ripen' (the outer membrane gets tough and practically impervious to heat or cold). This takes 15-30 days. Use FRESH waste.

Sue

The hardware cloth was the only thing that did work, even though only for the first few years.

A pair of traditional Macabee traps work well most of the time. You attach a wire already attached to a stick (preventing a gopher from pulling the trap back down the hole and reminding you of the trap location) to the coil end. Press the spring loaded sharp pronged jaws open, set the trap and insert one going each way in the main tunnel which is usually less than a foot away sideways and down from the hole with the pile of dirt. You cover the exposed area with boards and dirt and wait a few hours for a gopher to return to repair the damage. When its nose hits the trigger it gets gruesomely jabbed and squashed. You then have to open the trap up with all the gore so you need to be prepared for that. Of course if half your produce just got chomped off at the roots then some exploding guts might be just the ticket.

To be clear: look for a fairly new pile of dirt. The main tunnel is a short distance down and perpindicular to the soil disposal hole. You MUST put a trap in the main hole in both directions at once. A reasonable approach would be to have at least two sets of traps set in different areas to speed things up. You Will kill gophers. It will be messy and unpleasant. And after looking for new dirt piles and repeating a few times, your gopher problem will be gone; for awhile.

I tried the gas thingies once and found that smoke was just leaking out around the edges of rocks and foundations etc. and it wouldn't have gone all that far anyway. With the macabee traps, the gophers come to you. Very considerate of them.

Good luck getting your gophers under control!