How do I tell a live run from an old one?
Press it flat and come back tomorrow. That single test matters more in Georgia than almost anywhere, because red clay holds the shape of a tunnel for weeks after it has been abandoned. A yard in Athens or Rome can look overrun while only two or three runs are still in use. Use the side of your shoe and step down a foot-long stretch in three or four places across the lawn, in the evening. In the morning, look for the sections where the turf has lifted again. Those are the runs to trap. The rest are history. The timing works because moles patrol feeding tunnels repeatedly through the day and night. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife measures shallow tunneling at about a foot a minute, so reopening a crushed section takes an animal almost no time. On sandy coastal ground near Savannah the same test works, but read it differently: those tunnels collapse on their own, so a ridge still standing the next day is more likely to be current.
A Georgia mole calendar, month by month
October through December is the reopening. The first sustained fall rains rewet soil that summer dried out, earthworms rise, and feeding runs come back to the top few inches. Ridges show up quickly in yards from Columbus to Augusta. January and February stay workable. A median winter low of 33F means overnight frost, not frozen ground, so activity slows without stopping. Traps set on mild afternoons still produce. March through May is the busiest and the most important. Virginia Cooperative Extension notes litters of two to five young arrive in this window, so removing the adult in March saves you from dealing with dispersing juveniles in June. June through September is the quiet stretch, and it is quiet for a reason. Highs near 89F dry the upper soil, worms drop, and the mole works deeper tunnels between the mounds. Fresh ridges appear mainly after a heavy thunderstorm, then fade. If you can only deal with this once, deal with it in March.
What happens on a trapper's first visit
Expect walking, not spraying. The visit starts with a lap of the yard to sort ridges from mounds and to find the straight, purposeful runs that connect them, since those are the permanent travel tunnels rather than the wandering feeding lines a mole abandons after one pass. Next comes the flattening step, and a good provider either does it and returns the following day or asks you to check overnight. Setting traps on the first pass without that check is guesswork. Ask for numbers in writing: how many traps, where, how many return visits are included, and what happens if nothing is caught in the first week. On a typical suburban Georgia lot holding one animal, three to six sets in verified runs is a reasonable plan. Ask about the wet corner too. A trapper who notices that a downspout is soaking one side of the lawn is thinking about the mole that shows up next spring.
Mole, vole, or something else in the tunnel?
Sort it by the damage, not by the animal, because you will probably never see either one. moles push soil up: raised ridges and round mounds of loose crumbs with no visible opening. They eat earthworms and grubs, so nothing green gets chewed. Voles eat plants. If bulbs are hollowed out, hosta crowns vanish, or bark at the base of a young shrub is gnawed, that is a vole, and it is often using the mole's tunnel as a covered highway. Penn State Extension makes this point directly: plant damage in a run generally traces back to voles rather than the mole that dug it. The practical result is that killing the mole does not automatically save your plants, and treating for voles does not stop the ridges. Two problems, two plans. Tell a provider exactly which you are seeing when you call, and ask why a quote covers only one of them.
What should you compare between two quotes?
Compare the visit count first, because that is where mole quotes actually differ. Trapping is a labor job: sets go in, someone comes back and checks them, moves them, and checks again. A cheap quote with one visit and no follow-up usually costs more once you add the trip that finishes the job. Then compare how each provider identified the runs. Someone who flattened ridges and returned the next day knows which tunnels are live. Someone who set traps in the first ten minutes was guessing, and in Georgia clay, where abandoned runs stay visible for weeks, guessing wastes sets. Ask what happens in the heat. A quote written in July should say whether it covers deep-run probing or dawn timing, since surface sets go cold at 89F. Finally, ask about bait. If bromethalin is part of the plan, it should be listed as a licensed application with placement notes, not folded silently into a lump sum.