I have about 4 dozen cable drownders that are ten feet long in a big wad in a 5 gallon bucket from trapping out of a boat last season. Dose anyone have any tricks on keeping cable drownders out of a big rats nest?

Coil them up and wrap the last few feet around the circle to keep it secure.

Same as with snares/cable restraints.

I don't use cable drowners, but I coil my CRs up and put a couple in one gallon zip lock bags ... store in a 5 gal bucket. Just grab what I need from the bucket and throw em into the pack and go.

^^^^^^^ zip locks

Get a 1 gallon bucket to coil them into,,,, remove and electrical tape them. Make sure you fold the tape back onto itself at the end,,,for easy removal.
Throw into 5 gallon bucket……

I coil them up and secure the coil with a twisty-tie or two then store them in a box.

I do the same. I store mine in milk crates.

Short piece of rebar tie wire.

This

This is what I use and like them a lot.

I’m cheap. I use the left over ties from loafs of bread.

^^^Yep

If you want to keep the rat nest from happening, coil them up soon as you pull your set and keep it coiled. All above techniques mentioned work well, however, the way I make my drowner rigs I don't need the extra wire or zip ties or whatever.

Drowner cable coiled up. S-hooks join together and keep it together. Yes, old school S-hooks. Love 'em.



3/8" rerod stake easily slides through closed S-hook to anchor the bank end. Variety of lengths of stakes to insure bank end stays put depending on substrate.



Terminal end has two S-hooks. The one with the closed end accepts a 3/8" vertical rerod that is hammer piped into the bottom unless the bottom is loon doo. Then the other S-hook is used, with the open end, to secure to a weight or filled feed sack.



Milk crates work real well for holding piles of drowner cables coiled up as mentioned above I've got five of 'em in the boat, marked 6', 10', 15', 20' and X. The X crate has varying lengths up to 50' for bringing that 'coon across a sandbar into the deep water.

Most sets are doubles, meaning two traps, two drowner cables, two bank ends apart from each other, and one terminal rod for both drowner cables. Upstream cable is normally five feet longer than the downstream cable. Slip the vertical 3/8" rerod into boh S-hook loops and bring them out from shore 'til both are taut and hammer pipe into the bottom.

This is what works for me.

Typical river shoreline. Upstream set near the end of the muddy stretch and just down a ways is the downstream set.



'Coon slid down to the submerged terminal rod. Other trap is still working.



I prefer the V-bow for trapping rivers. Carries a bigger payload in the bow and gets up on plane quickly with the thirty-five horse longtail.



Probably overkill in answering your question about the coiled drowner cables. But might be some other tidbits here you can use someday. Milk crates rule.

Great info and pics Muskrat!

Muskrat ain’t foolin around! You can tell it ain’t his first rodeo.

I do miss the hard core 'coon pounding on the river . . .