So I'm In the shop working with ways to attach my Hagz brackets to my stakes.
Sure I can screw them on or I can wire them on to my 1x2s. Buying 4' fiberglass fence poles would have a man go broke at $1.49 each.
Then I figured I could use 5' of 1x2s then drill a hole In the top and drive In 12" or so of fence post. That seems to work well. But It's not adjustable so I went and got some copper pipe straps. with two of them holding the piece of fence post In place I can slid It up and down according to the depth of the water. Then I can also use the bait brackets. With a little squeeze with a pliers I can crush down one of the pipe straps so the post stays In place.
I'm getting ready there are more rat huts In the marsh today and they are getting bigger.
And I found the leak In my boat so that Is taken care of.

I'm getting ready and plan on pre staking at the end of the month.

i'm embarrassed to say i bid up a bunch of hagz brackets on one of the auctions to try and haven't even opened the box yet.was back when they first come out.

Every rat you catch buys 3 more poles.

Love the Hagz brackets. I have one fastened to every 1.5 coil and 110 coni that I own.

But the BE set is a gadget? lol

I don't have the Hagz bracket but did talk to him at NY when he broke them out. Genius I thought. I should get a few to play with. Go Go Mr Gadget.

LOl not on 4' poles. You need to add at least 2' to each one and that adds about .75 cents to each set up. Go home or adapt.

beav have you priced 3/8 hot roll steel last I checked it was a tad cheaper than fiberglass rods and comes in 21' sections only down side is added weight! I bought it for 2.35 a stick last summer! But imho fiberglass rods work better! The hagz brackets grip them better. my steel rods wave action made the traps fall until they rusted up good.

Why not just set the trap on the hut?

Here's the situation.

After a few frosts kill off all the emergent vegetation It sinks but stays suspended. And It's just about impossible to wade thought the stuff. When I was 30 no problem but know that I'm approaching the big 80 It's not happing. Sure I could set out of the boat but trying to set and check sets on a hut on windy days Is way to aggravating for me.
I figured I could just row along and shove In my poles as I made my row buys along the huts. I could place the traps close to the take out spots on the huts.
By using stools and the Hagz brackets on poles I should be able to put up some rat numbers.


I scraped the idea of using 1x1s I just went out and bought a bundle of lath. Know I can either just wire a Hagz bracket on to the lath In shallow water Or add a section of glass pole to the lath for deep water.

I know you guys In NY can't set huts Is this the way you guys work It?
Another question. Since these Hagz brackets only allow the rat to cross over the jaws are you guys that are using them have many sprung and empty traps?

those old victor #2 fox traps fit the hagz brackets like they was made for them! I cant for see missing anything using them. I just remove one spring and lever lol they are to weak for anything else so I made them rat traps but I still prefer my #1 longs for rats I moded them to fit as well

Looks good, Tony.

What did you use on the #1's to extend them?

Way to go Tony. Great Idea.
Now I'm going to have to put a tab on the spring end of my 1 1/2s so I can get the rat swimming between the jaws and not over them.

I was so motivated I went out and attached a piece of metal the base of one of my 1 1/2 coils. Works like a charm know I can have the rats swimming between the jaws. You have to give the bracket a bit of a tweak to get the trap to set flat but It's no big deal. But maybe that's not a big deal either having the trap sitting up at a slight angle.

Thanks Tony your a genius.

no like you I wanted a flatter approach in my mind a rat reaching for the attractor might pull the trap off the bracket.Jeff informed me you want very little metal poking thru the slot. To insure a clean pull away, thus resulting in a drown rat.Instead of a ring out! when it comes to water trapping the hagz brackets are as handy as waders. soon as I find my niche I think a guy could pile up mink too! I compiled a bunch of other proven mink methods together and come up with this
haven't caught a mink in one yet but it works on rats

by the way I use fiberglass electric fence posts I buy them at my local orschelns farm store 20$ for a bundle of 25 3/8x 36" tall

I have a couple dz of the brackets and a dz of the coni-clips. Bought some of the 4' fiberglass elect fence post and put a 1/2" piece of rubber hose about a foot from the bottom of the post. This keeps the bracket from sliding all the way off the post when pulling it up. I have ideas of how I can use the brackets on the post, but haven't yet had the right conditions. The brackets wired to rocks, stumps, even a cinder block carried in and set up in a shallow creek are all uses that I've found the most opportunity for. It's a neat idea, with a lot of potential, so I'm hoping I can find ways to make it work.

4 footers are way to short for our water depths.
So what I did today was to buy some 4' lath. Then I took 2 romex staples and placed them over a 2' section of fiber glass fence post. Then I drove the staples In place. know I can slide the glass post up and down to get the height I want. The bracket can't slid off since It will bottom out on the lath. And a couple of wraps with some colored duct tape on top won't let It come off. Know I can zip tie my sections of popular to the post for bait. Or use the Hagz bait holders.
Know all I have to do Is catch some rats.

If your trying to combine poles take a 6" of metal pipe that will fit snug over the pole slide half of it on the top of the pole. Smack it with a hammer the same way you would hammering in a snare stop. Take another rod ,put it in the other side of the pipe and do the same

I don't want to be paying another $1.49 for an other pole. I can buy 50 4 foot laths for around $20.00 Then use 1 foot of the pole and use my romex staples to attach It to the lath.

And I did the sleeve thing before. I used some brass sleeving material. Then I took a nail set and put In 2 dents To hold every thing In place. It worked just fine but then I had $2.00 invested In one set up.

What really burns my butt Is I have 400 stools out In ND + about 100 colony traps. Well most of them wouldn't be legal here In WI.

I have been wondering what the best rod to buy and after reading this thread and digging around a bit I found this.
5' fiberglass 3/8 rod
20 for 48$ so 2.40 a piece
Not bad. I need 24 and the local shops only seem to have 4'.

At the FTA this year, Hagz was selling the fiberglass rod...A really nice long one.

When you say long??? You meant 5 or 6 or 8ft

some place out there sales 6' fiberglass electric fence posts. ive seen them on elk farms

I don't have it in the garage right now, or I'd go measure it. It's at a nuisance set right now. I know it's longer than any other fiberglass rods I've seen at the hardware stores. Maybe Hagz will chime in. I haven't seen him on here lately. It's gray. If he's at the Wi show next September, I'll buy more.

Hagz had the 6' at Escanaba and Marshfield.

They are 6 footers. Geotek has long fiberglass poles too.

I bought 50 4' laths for $14.00 I'm just going to add 16" of fence post to the lath. That will give me enough adjustment with the post to use a bracket and also bait It.
The romex staples work to perfection.

Kencove farm fence supplies has 6 foot 3/8 poles for about $2.50 each shipped out here to Idaho. You fellas back east could probably get them shipped to you a little cheaper than That. Bob

beav if I had to deal with those kind of depth issues I believe id cut me some 1x1 then drill a 3/8" hole and epoxy a fiberglass pole to it

I did that too. But the romex staples are a lot simpler. And then the rod Is adjustable.

I like ur idea, Beav. I have been trying to figure out a way to set one bridge in particular on my line with a bracket, and using your method just might work. My 6’ poles aren’t long enough, and I didn’t want to order longer poles just to set one bridge. I might rip a 2x4 and use your staple idea for adjustability.

It will work. Just wrap some tape around the top end of the pole so the Bracket can't come off.

Why not gust buy some 1x2 the length you need then screw or wire the Hags bracket on? Or make some #9 brackets like the marsh trappers use to hold your trap? If you don't want to buy the fiberglass poles why cut up 4 footers and go to the trouble to attach them to a wooden stake when you could get buy a stake long enough in the first place?--- KISS

Why not gust buy some 1x2 the length you need then screw or wire the Hags bracket on.

Because then It's not adjustable. I want some way to fine tune my depth. And I don't want to be hauling around wire and cordless tools to attach my brackets. Or busting my butt trying to push or drive In the stake to make the adjustment.

.

Push down or pull up whats so hard about that?
I would rather spend minutes on the line with a pair of pliers and a little wire than spend hours in the shed making a contraption. You could pre-wire the bracket to the pole just don't tighten it up until you have the depth set. Then slide your bracket to where you like it and with one twist of the wire you are done. KISS principle at work. Adapt or go home.

Here’s how I mount all my 110’s, using 1” x 2”
Instead of mounting a coni-clip, I’m wondering if you could secure a short (ie; 4”) section of 3/8 rod to the PVC and then adjust water depth with the eye screw? You could cut multiple pieces for one rod.

Not sure why the pic is sideways? Sorry

Good Idea I like It.
So you could mount a Hagz bracket to It.
The thing that Mr. hagz should do Is make 90 deg angle on the tapered end of the bracket opposite of the slotted end. It would be a lot easier to put In a screw. Now It's a bit tough to get that done.
Mr. 316 sometimes the bottom wont let you do that. Adjustment Is where It's at. In a day I can build 100 set ups and be ready to go for any situation. Oh and I hate wire It eats gloves.

Mr. hagz seems like quite an innovator. I bet he's always trying to think of other creative, easy, effective gadgets for the trapline.

Jeff is top notch, if his product can be improved upon he will make it happen.
If you folks are on face book he is doing some pretty awesome giveaways.

A few days back he gave away a dozen Duke #1.5s with 18 inches of added chain and brackets on the whole dozen.

He's talking about giving away entire setups traps, brackets and rods.

That guy is a class act.
Watching him give that stuff away made me want to buy a load of stuff from him.

I've been following this thread because I had planned on getting a small rat line setup this year. I got a couple months before the rats are real nice here.
I think I'll set up 2 dozen with rods and see how it goes.

Beav I like your idea. However the river here is less than 4' in most places. The sloughs are not too deep either. Won't need more than 5-6 foot in a rod.

Seem a 6' might be over kill.im some places.
Anyways thanks for the post folks I'll take it into consideration

Jeff has to be a class act he's a Marine.

Hope you have a life jacket that you WILL wear.
Stack em up.

Because I used to use sticks, and the gray fiberglass rods are far less visible by Johnny Sneakum. I got cleaned out one year, and every trap they got was staked with a stick. Not a single fiberglass rod, or h-stand got touched, but every single trap that had a stick visible was gone. I don’t use sticks anymore. All fiberglass rods, h stands, and t-stakes. With Beav’s Idea, I can have the stick entirely submerged and only the fiberglass rod visible.

Also, can’t say enough good things about Jeff. I don’t have Facebook so I don’t see him on there, but I’ve been using his brackets since the beginning. If there is a way to improve them, he is interested.

Like I said If one angle was opposite of the other one It would be a lot easier to put a screw In It. And I don't see where that would make any difference.

I’m sure he will see this eventually, but he told me he does the Facebook thing now more than the forums. It seems like a lot of things are going the way of Facebook. I’m still sticking to my guns, and staying invisible on social media. Sometimes I make my wife look things up on hers if I need to see something.

There's a LOT of uses beyond the fiberglass poles though. I've got some 4'ers, but I see much more potential in being able to wire the bracket off on all kinds of things. And, like Beav is saying, I see where one side needs to be flat to attach to a flat surface, BUT I can bend it myself. Nothing against what Beav is saying. I'd just rather bend a couple myself, because I see more possibility in being able to attach to almost anything, most of which isn't flat.

Hi ALL! Sorry I haven't seen this until now, I do cruise this forumn from time to time to look for any questions that may need answered, but sorry I missed this (and looks like a few others too).

First and foremost, for those that are using our products, thank you VERY much, we sincerely appreciate the patronage and the support. Also the kind words are over the top, nice way to end out the year on a high note ;), thank you. You guys are awesome

By all means, I am interested in continuous improvements. Obviously, with the price of tooling and re-inventorying it has to be a demanding change, but I am all ears! ... Beav, sounds as if you want a 90 degree bend on the slide lock side (side without the slot) ? I am curious as to the purpose, I guess I couldn't comprehend what was in your head (maybe that's a good thing - HAha), would it affect the lock?

Trust me, this is not to sound like a know it all, I am far from it - But as far as the over the jaw, between the jaw positioning, I haven't found it EVER to be an issue - YET. ... Camera footage has shown rats to come from all sides, so I am not sure your actually doing anything by rotating the trap as rats have come in from the front (over the jaw) and/or from the sides (between the jaws)... IMO rotating it is just more of the same ... BUT... ... ... Everyone has their personal preference and I respect that.

Ah, and yes, I have 6' rods that we will continue to carry to conventions. We can ship, but it's not generally cost effective, pick up at a convention however and it can save you between $20 - $30 a dozen.