I made them for a particuler dam that was mostly mud, grass, and small branchs. But i have used them alot lately on about every thing and really like em. I am about to make alot more. I tyr to use snares most of the time but if i can drive up to it i use footholds and cable drowns with weight. I will have to try the drowning rod though on the sets i can drive to. To get those stakes out of dams i just pull up till it hangs push back down and twist a little. Not really hard to get out. They come out of mud and sand pretty easy but on solid ground i use regular stakes. I am a little paranoid when it comes to anchors and i want em solid as i can get. Never had an anchor pulled in 25 years or so.
shane

For what it's worth, here are the rods I use for drowning 'coon, 'rats and mink. This is a 10' length of 3/8" rerod:


I commented to Don on the other post that I thought 3/8" rebar didn't have enough backbone for beaver. Well, maybe I should try it on beaver before I make a statement like that. I have held beaver under 40 lbs in these, but have occasionally found my rerod bent up in a big pretzel due either to an otter or large beaver. So . . . I've been looking for a substitute, sturdier rod than the 3/8" rerod for beaver.

Anyway, here's the terminal end of the rerod. A nut simply welded onto it:


Now here's the business end of this rod. The nut welded onto the side of this rod accepts a 3/8" stake. I have stakes of different lengths, all the way to 4' when dealing with soft muck. To the left of the stake is simply 18" of rod. This part of the rod is jammed into the bank, with the nut flush with the bank:


The drowner lock is a bent washer with a hole drilled for the S-link. S-link your trap on, and the critter only slides one way.

With water say three to four feet deep, the terminal end is stuck into the bottom, then the rod is bent over and pushed into the bank 18". Stake is run through nut and it's set to go.

In situations where I've got immediate drop off, say 8 feet deep plus, I've simply allowed the rod to dangle out there in deep water. A 'coon, 'rat or mink will get out there, and with the weight of the trap and rod it sinks and drowns. In this situation you'd have a difficult time keeping that beaver from bending the rod.

Kudos to the Beav for pointing me in the direction of these rods, and with the help of a former student, Nathan here in Booland, I've got about a hundred of these I use during the season.

In a standard 14' V-bow, two dozen of these can lay on either side of the boat. Along with 4 dozen traps, one can knock out a pocket, S-link a trap, ram the rod down and in, set the stake and be on to the next set within minutes.

Don, I'd like to have something similar for Beaver.

Muskrat....Try 1/2" or 5/8" rebar? Still be cheaper than cold roll steel i imagine. Reckon either would hold a beaver? I like that idea myself as some of my places have bed rock bottoms or straight off banks to DEEP water (quarrys).
shane

Thanks Muskrat for the photo's. Already got alot of ideas on how to make/modify some of these for my own use, probably try a few different ideas and see which works best. Once I get some made and run a bunch of beaver down them i'll post sometime in the future what I come up with.