What do I used these for?

Brush hook type drags...use them only where there is enough brush that critters cant get too far after being caught...where you cant get a stake in..

You use those to hang coyotes from to skin them. Other than that take them to the scrap yard and buy or make some real drags. JC Connors sells good drags. Get the 4 pound ones, add about 10 foot of good chain, then you can call them drags and use them.

possum has given the traditional Hvy drag-long chain set up and use in relatively open brush country of the West.

I use 1-2 lb drags but PRE-HOOK them to a sapling or log, so the critter gets no further than the 5-6' length of chain on my set ups.
This works for me since I trap woods/logging roads/field edges mostly.
I have no time or energy for driving stakes, especially cross staking, then pulling at seasons end.

Plus, with a long chain, if a coon or bobcat decides to climb 8-10' up a tree, that makes dispatch a lil "tricky". (not many trees in sage brush)

I like the animal held near a set to leave smells to attract others, too.

Some folks NEED the critter to go 20-50 yds from set to prevent theft or get away from a road.

I wish I could use them to avoid messy catch circles and solve the whole staking troubles in our red clay. I trap metro Atlanta though and any one of my sets might be just feet away from a property line or busy road way.

To hide them, drags save a lot of fur. Also saves the set.

I use them on my DP’s with 5 or 6 feet of chain.

In Arizona the sand near the mountains had rock underneath so stakes were out, here in SD our cat season starts the day after Christmas and cats like thick cover so drags are a better choice and save the locations from getting ripped up. i'd bend the points a bit to make them more aggressive!

That drag is to light for coyotes. It could work for fox if the area is brushy and you use a long chain. It could work for coon and mink. I saw a post where a guy welded a clip on a drag like that and he was setting a body trap on the clip and the drag acted like a shoe to hold the trap.
The below picture is a coyote that got caught way in the back of this picture. It went for the tall grass but instead of getting caught and tangling in it this coyote went back out of the tall grass and ran in the sod field over 1/4 mile to a railroad bed and got hitched on some trees. I would not have found this if there had not been a tiny bit of frost that reflected off the grass showing it bent over slightly in the direction the coyote went. The drag caught a big clump of grass and the grass popped out of the ground and it never got hooked until it hit a tree. This is one of the O'Gorman heavy drags with 10' of chain and a big coilspring trap. The lower picture is the grass wad. I also caught a fox this season in a bean field that jumped over the pile of bean stubble i was setting against. the whole pile of stubble somehow got wrapped around the drag and that fox went about 100 yards before he went into some brush. You just never know what will happen so you have to do your best to prepare for the worst.

I use drags to hide my catch. They allow me to set close to cover and coyotes will typically hide themselves.
I also like the fact that my set is not destroyed after a catch.
I dig a big hole under the trap and bury the drag and chain then set the trap on top of the drag. Most coon won't move the drag. Most fox do.

I have never used drags. I prefer to have animals I trapped at the place I trapped them. Using drags seems like you are combining hunting and tracking with trapping, for in most cases, no real good reason. I understand it keeps you from having to remake the set, thus saving time, but it seems like you would lose time looking for your catch. I understand that it allows the animal to move out of sight, but you could just set out of sight and use lure to pull the animal in. I know some areas have ground that is hard to stake in, but it seems like you could find something to tie off to. It also seems you could just use swivels and springs to limit pullouts.

What percentage of trappers use drags? What good reasons for drags am I missing.

Keith

Speeds up set making and pull out
No tracking needed when ALWAYS pre-hooked to nearby log or sapling
Pulling stakes can hurt your back

Kind of hard to make an educated answer to something you just said you have never done. Steel stakes, disposable stakes, drags, slide wires all have a place and all have been used by very experienced trappers all across the country for a reason.
Your commit sounds like folks who use anything other than a staked down set is wasting their time.
There is a huge advantage to drags in certain soil and vegetation areas, Trail set,and very sandy land, if you plan to catch more than one critter at the set.

I would sell them, if you can use drags where you are, get Armageddon drags from ogormans

A good drag, the JC Connor, sabertooth, ugly drag and similar the animal would be lucky to get outside 40 yards from the set unless your setting up on froze hard ground or rock with no brush.

I find a good heavy drag a must in the frozen rocky ground of NE North Dakota and I can set where the traget is traveling small tractor roads are my favorite set I like the fact they will be waiting in the nearest shelterbelt for me not the middle of the road where my prey travels....

I use all drags in snow, I do a lot of blind trail sets and would not do well having them staked because of the catch circle. I have no luck catching coyotes in them and with a drag I can set a new trap at the same location.

Most of my cat drags get pre-hooked to avoid the time it take to search for them especially if they are the lighter style of drags that can flip around and get caught in the chains. Always set the grapple away from the chain never toss into a pile that will bite you when it tangles and does not hook up!

I see absolutely no purpose of the welding on that drag. 3/8" 2-prong drags with 8' chain are a big time saver in light sagebrush. No need to conceal drag. Just toss it aside. A coyote doesn't know what it is.

It's too light without a heavy shank type bar, body