The difference between smooth and very rough here, is mostly, if the field is in grass or alfalfa.  

HERE, pocket gophers do not invade an alfalfa field, but they sure will a grass field, or waterway.  

For sure, if you have a wet farm, like I know you mention, growing alfalfa is nearly impossible.  Many, many differences, for sure.  

It just seems like mice and gophers love grass, and fox and coyotes love rodents..... so, one crop leads to the other issues.  

To the OP, as a kid we always tried to break out an old hay field, with about 6 tillage passes.  Fall or spring burndown completely changed that, and we have notilled these fields for a long time now.  If I was gonna use tillage to break up a hay field, I would use shallow tillage first, and then deep, heavy tillage.  Doing deep tillage first, like a chisel plow, only leaves large chunks that are tough to deal with.  Breaking up the top few inches first, makes it flow much better.  A field cultivator or shallow disking works well...HERE, and an inline ripper ran slow will leave the surface quite level.  

Good luck