So tell me what is better or the benefits of using rebar drowners or cable with weight on the end. Interested to see all the opinions.

Not a water trapper, but I thought the rebar was better and assuring a dispatch due to it wedged in the bottom.
I’d think they could swim up unless some serious weight was used to hold it down. Then you have the issue of pulling that weight plus the beavers weight all back up.

I use cable drowners. In the areas I trap the bottom is usually silt mud. I have been using cement blocks at the bottom but been having problems with big beaver making it to the bottom and pulling the block up to high ground. Plus they are not desirable to carry in a long way.

Neither.

Fiberglass tree stakes.

Dont think Ill ever go back to a weighted drowner unless I just dont have an option. When I did use them, I did the feed sack thing and i filled those bags till I could barely lift them myself. I rarely had a bag drug back up the bank unless I got lazy and didnt fill it enough and it was a shallower creek.

I dont use a lot of rebar drowners, unless I am right beside the truck which doesnt happen a lot for me, which is why mose of mine are fiberglass. Rod drowners are just such a speed tool that you really cant beat them unless you gotta get into some gnarly stuff to access the beaver. when I stake the rods, I try to but a bit of flex in the rods which helps keep pushing the rod into the bottom end making them harder to pull out of the bottom.

One thing ill mention with any slider system you use...if your top stake isnt holding well you might want to cable that top end off to something. I have had beaver refuse to go down the rod/cable and did have a beaver once that jacked the top stake and by some miracle it just stayed put. Course when i got there i didnt have my gun handy and it bolted. luckily the stake was nearby and i grabbed the rod , then the stake, restaked the trap and ran back to the truck for my gun.

I use them all depending on the situation. Rods and chain mostly, but for certain setups cable. Aix sponsa has some posts with a good long cable setup.
I use brake rotors for weight on chain and cable.

I use weight if I can't drive a stake in the bottom, and if I'm along a main road where I'm worried about Johnny Sneakum. I use 11 wire instead of cable though, I can cut it to whatever length is handy on the spot instead of trying to make a premade length of cable work. I use wood stakes cut on the spot also, beats packing rebar unless you do all your trapping right next to truck.

There is no way a brake rotor would work here. I have had 2 different beaver that made it to the cement block and got that block up to dry ground. But these beaver were 40 plus pounds.

Muck bottoms for the most part around here. Had better luck with rods than wire or cable but can drive close to my sets too.

10 foot rebar rod the only way to go

BR archer, just like any anchoring of a deice it depends on the bottom material you are setting your anchor on/in. Guessing in west central MN its a lot of sand and gravel with a few stones for your water bottoms. Rebar or fiberglass rods may not have enough friction at your angle of penetration to hold in that type of substrate but that would be in your court to try it. In silty clay bottoms, the staked rod will hold a lot better than in sand (in fact everything does) due to the soil compaction being much greater (i.e. sandy road vs. clay road). Tried both and they work with everyone's obvious above comments but it really comes down to the soil structure of the bottom that you have. From this side of the creek. ..............the mike

Speaking of bottom, I once had a job with no bottom. Or a bottom I couldn't reach.

A borrow pit in clay with near vertical sides. Skint that cat by staking the top of rod higher up the bank then staking the rod lower down, about a foot or so, on each side so it couldn't swing left or right. The bottom of the rod was hanging free.

There is nothing blasphemous, immoral or illegal about having a live beaver at your sets. On my line, I use 8-10 ft cable extensions on a 40-inch snare. The beavers don’t appear to be stressed at all. Dispatch is quick when I get there.

On a partnered line, we use 8-10 ft, half or 5/8-inch rebar jammed into the bottom and staked on top. We use snares on these drowners, mostly, but do have a number of 330s thrown in for the underwater/under ice locations.

Other than the 24-hour check requirements, I really like not having to carry rebar.

Agreed with a few caveats.

Back foot and no entanglement if using footholds. I like long chains but rarely have a clear enough site to avoid entanglement.

Snares no issue if swiveling isn't compromised. Kinked and twisted cable is not good.

Are you using blocks like this?

What a pain it is to pull the buggers up after a catch! And when you toss the thing in, it’s nice to have enough cable attached to it. If not, and you’re hanging onto the tail end, the bricks momentum will pull you into the water and in my case chest waders were pointless. I coulda got away with wearing trunks & flipflops that day.
Bought a Hagz rod set up to try, looks like it should be easier.

Just bought a couple of those setups at the convention looking forward to trying them out got a few fiber glass an a few rebar I've always either long chained or used cable drowners weighted bag blocks rotors window weights always hated having to haul that weight back in the swamps

Never understood why trappers would haul around heavy weight when you can just stake the deep end of the drown wire.
Can easily make a pile of sets with a packsack of traps,pliers roll of wire and a boys axe.
Then just stand your poles up under a spruce to use as drowning stakes next time,or for under ice snares or tee pee sets in winter.

There is not a sapling that straight in any of these southern swamps.

Plus I've yet to figure out how to stake the deep end in water over my head....and a hard-packed sandy bottom.

Swamp, glad you posted that. Staking the deep end of a drowner most of the time would be a float your hat situation for sure. I have set drowning rods where the bottom of the 10' rod is just hanging. Double staked at the top with an extension cable just in case the critter worked the stakes loose. Same deal sometimes with a rocky bottom that you can not get the bottom end set.

Cutting trees of any type is a major no no across the south. Only the landowner can make that call as trees are the cash crop.

I doubt Boco would be doing much wading down here after getting introduced to our long nosed bullfrogs or their smiling cousins showing their pearly whites.