Anyone have much experience with using earth anchors on the deep end of a drowning wire/cable/chain for beaver?

Was thinking about trying it as a fairly lightweight solution. I’ve never been real trusting of them though when it comes to soft muddy creek and pond bottoms.

It’d be pretty slick to carry in cables set up with an earth anchor on each end and just punch’em in, if it’d work.

I know it’s been done, just wondering what your experiences are. Thanks

It would require pulling up the deep anchor after each catch. I have used fence post T stakes on the deep end where the bottom was smooth sand and I was worried my weights wouldn't stay in place. Each time I did it, ir was a struggle to pull the stake after a catch.

It can work okay, but you’ll need to have a driver long enough and either pull it up each time you have a catch or get creative with some sort of retrieval rig that doesn’t tangle.


If you want to maximize your submersion sets while minimizing the amount of gear you haul in and not fill weight bags onsite, the way to go in my opinion is to use adjustable submersion cables or wire with deep end stakes. Rebar KPs work wonderfully for this if you’re able to drive them solid. You could make do with a wooden stake or strong beaver stick. I prefer rebar because it’s strong, dependable, and consistent to work with. They’re 5 or 6 feet long pieces of 1/2” rebar with a large washer or nut hammered or welded a foot from the bottom. You could make them whatever length you need. Your submersion rig ends loop onto it, it’s driven solid in suitable water depth, and your adjustable cables allow you to make sets wherever you need. They all slide towards that anchor point. Add some sort of cable stop 2-3 feet before the end of your cable so your catch doesn’t make it to the stake. Here, a good clay soil and reasonable water depths makes this nearly ideal.

I've thought a lot on this. If you make a really really long slider cable. Put a stop in the middle to catch the lock and use a separate cable for the anchor, you can basically make a trolly system. Run your slider through the anchor cable and stake both drowner ends on the bank. When you make a catch, clip the ends of the drowner together and pull up your trap. Remake the system and repeat.

When rebar is used for the deep stake, a crosspiece welded to it serves as a handle for twisting the rebar for removal, and a washer/nut on the bottom keeps the loop or wire in place. That’s just using it for what this thread is about. Pulling rebar poles like this is a breeze with a handle. Rebar is great. Cheap too.



Using them for snares is an entirely different deal.


If a washer welded is too large and interferes with spinning it, then slide a large nut onto the rebar and weld or mash it.

Thanks Aix, I will get some of those.

I was referring to the cable stake idea.

You have to pull the catch in. This is why i stick to weights only for drowning.
Plastic sand bags filled on sight with rocks or gravel is the way to go. The bags are cheap & light.
I get my sand bags in bulk through a friend at ULINE

You can just carry wire rather than cable and an axe. Cut you a long stake (or use a beaver stick) on site and wrap your wire around the bottom of it and drive it in. You cut the wire to whatever length you need, so no need to either use adjustable cable or carry different lengths for different situations. Still need to pull the drowning stake each time you make a catch, but this isn't a big deal, pull the bank stake that the upper end of the wire is attached to and use it as a T handle to pull on the drowning wire to pull your drowning stake. Once you have it on the bank you can slide the trap back up the drowning wire, redrive the drowning stake and reset everything, fast and easy. Not quite as fast and easy as just pulling up weights and tossing them back, but a lot lighter and easier to pack, unless you are filling bags on site, and many areas don't have handy rocks or gravel. Also if you are in marginal depths a drowning stake with the wire tied at or below the level of the bottom gives you a few more inches of water over one tied to a bag.

Obviously hard rock bottoms aren't conducive to driving stakes, but this would be true with earth anchors also.

^^^^
This.
Cut your deepwater stake long and its easy to pull each catch.
Check wire after each catch.trim off any kinks at the bottom,and leave a foot or so of extra wire wrapped on the dryland stake for when you trim a kink.
11 ga wire is ideal for this.

Yes, I use 11, I've seen guys use 9 wire, which will work but it is heavier and a lot harder to work with.

We’ve caught a number of beaver in 1 1/2 coils set for coon on disposable stakes drowners in deep water. Since the catches were all front foot, the water wasn’t over waste deep. It does become necessary to pull the disposable stake end out but it’s easy to drive back in.

On a back foot catch, it’s a different story! Those beavers were alive and really ticked off.

Now for beavers we only use 330s and snares. The snares are generally on drowning poles. About 50% of the time, the snared beavers have pulled the lower end of the 9 ft pole and we have 9 ft of pole with 42-inches of cabled beaver swimming around out there.

Almost all my (not we this time) snares are on 10 ft extensions. They’re very much alive but not stressed at all. They’re usually sitting on the bank, looking at you. As you approach, they’ll either amble off to the water or just sit there. But they’re not stressed by your presence or the cable holding them.

Non-drowning sets mean a daily check and I don’t mind that at all. Most of the time I can look over the bank to see if the snare is still in place. I don’t have to wear waders. My setting equipment consists of a hammer to put in a 24-inch rebar or disposable stake, support wire and a snare with a 10 ft extension. Plus a shovel to create the illusion of a run up the bank and some beaver lure. The snare is usually hung just above the water or half in, half out if the bank indent is deep enough.

I came up with a system using Pogos. Works fantastic. I only use it when I cant use rods or weights, but it works great if you have limited space. I use it when I'm using my four wheeler way back off the roads, but would work great when using a boat also.The system is explained at the end of the original post in this archived thread.
https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1707388/beaver-footholds-with-pics#Post1707388

Very nice post Goldy...great info!

I agree. Great info.

If you use my system above, make sure you get the small pogo driver, not the heavy duty one, makes a big difference in hard bottoms

Unless you have to carry stuff along way in my opinion can't beat 10 foot rebar slides and 750's