I saw a post awhile back about useing drags for mink, wondering how that works (chain setup, how many swivles, size of drag ect) Also how well would it work with an incidental coon catch?

thank you for the help and trap safley,

jeff

I don't know the situation but if possible drown your mink.

I think a drag could result in lost mink.

Drags or grapples work good for mink.

I still use them in areas where I can't anchor or rig up a drowner. But, I try to avoid them. Too much wasted time looking for incidental otter, beaver or coon.

i dont know much about drags or use them, but i would think you would need to use a drag that could stop the largest animal that could be in your trap, just like a stake...dont stake for just an m-rat if a coon could get in your trap

This has to be a territorial thing. Most of the areas I trap you are wasting time by suing a drag, just wack a stake in. I can see blind setting rocky streams and not being able to pound a stake in. I have used tie plates in the few areas I can't get a stake in w/ success.

michael

better drowning then taking out the shovel

I use bricks with holes in them to anchor my mink traps. Each trap has about 2 feet of chain and I tie off with another 2 feet of wire, that gives me enough to have the brick in deep water on my line. I use 2 sizes of bricks, the smaller bricks weigh about 5 pounds and the larger 10. Mink are usually where the brick is, once in a great while a large mink might move the smaller brick a couple of feet. Coon are just about always tangled up within 10 yards of where I set the trap. Most of the streams I trap have very hard and rocky bottoms. By using bricks I don't waste time looking for the perfect rock to wire the trap to. I wire my traps to the bricks before the season begins, saves one a heck of a lot of time. The only problem I ever encountered is by lugging the bricks around I developed 2 hernias.

Bud Hall used drags....but if you don't know anything about Bud, then this conversation is over!

It doesn't take very deep water to drown a mink. Where I live a drag for mink wouldn't work, if they can drag it they will either drag it into the waer and drown, then I have to find them or drag it 3 feet upstream and be in blackberry brambles. I'll continue to stake solid (usually stapled to a root or stump) or use a drowner. I prefer the drowner!

Agree LG, and his style of drag was much different than any others plus the drab was also a stake. Bud took over 7000 mink in his lifetime with many many years over 200 mink.

Draggin for mink is a very common practice by those that trap rock filled streams like parts of Maine have and I understand the Adriondacks have. On most of my line you could not drive a stake with out a lot of effort and then most times you still could not.
Not advisable for big water but lots of guys used to drag mink traps on the small water and rocky trout streams back when mink were actually worth trapping. Fast, efficient, and quite hard to beat if the circumstances are correct for dragging.
Not all of us have those picture perfect slow moving streams with nice soft muddy banks.

Mac

Coon here would pull just about any whimpy drag (or whimpy Stake at the bottom of a drowner) up on the bank for a play toy.

18" rebar at the end of a drowner gets pulled up, and I find them in the tall grass twisted up once in a while. This is in 2' or more water. I don't set unless I feel they will be there when I return.

Mink, of course, haven't done that, but beaver and coon can easily take a light drag to parts unknown.

ya i would always use more than enough

Jim Spencer has a great series of videos out about using drags when trapping mink.

ive found a coon on a grapple with 3-4 feet of chain, will usually go straight up the bank and tangle there, and ive never lost one this way. in a rocky mink stream, we used a 3/8 2 prong grapple, laid out to the full length of the chain, and set a fair sized rock on top of the grapple. never had a mink pull this loose, and the coon are always just up the bank from the set. we dont use many grapples for the entanglement factor in the back of the truck, as we usually carry 200-300 traps when setting hard, and that equals 800-1200 feet of chain bouncing around the truck, along with the grapples. guaranteed tangles. if you use a grapple at a mink set, always be sure theres decent entanglement cover very near the set. im not in otter country, so thats a consideration if you have them on your line.

"Mink, of course, haven't done that, but beaver and coon can easily take a light drag to parts unknown."

You may be correct about the beaver part. But one must remember that there are no absolutes in trapping.
What a proper drag and chain set up to one trapper may be unknown knowledge to another.

I have caught a number of raccoon on drags and they have never got far and never had one climb a tree. (Although I guess it is possible it just never happened no my line.) The only time I ever had a raccoon go far was when I got the bright idea to use a single heavy window weight as a drag on a big river. Actually it was far from a bright idea and I stopped the practice immediately after I located a raccoon about a hundred yards from the set proper. Now if I had used that set up with a longer chain on smaller water with thick brush and soft bottoms it might have been OK but where I used it was a sucky idea.

Drags are just a tool that can be used in certain instances for mink and raccoon work. Are they perfect for every place and every circumstance? Of course not. Fossil had a great post. It would be nuts not to mention messy to lug tons of chains set up with drags on a huge trapline. It is bad enough when running a hundred traps. I am not a huge long liner and really never was. Used to run quite long vacation lines in the day but even then seldom ran more than a hundred water sets that helped paid the gas for the fox line.

I picked up the idea of using drags for mink from Kermit Stearns writings and demos. (Boy I miss his down to earth style of writing and his question and answer column which was full of lure formulas and good old common sense. Great guy.) For speed setting when working around beaver I would simply wrap and or hook the drag or grappel around a tree root, alder etc. and go. No drowning rigs, no fancy set ups. (Also this was on a twenty four hour check thus the reason for no special effort for drowning sets). As mentioned I am no long liner.

Keep learning and enjoy each and every day that God has given you.


God Bless

Mac