Would just fish heads be enough for a fish stake set or Would more be needed i can get a lot of sucker heads a week gigging in the fall and winter

Fish head will be fine

That was one with very little bait.

And this was two nights after.

Im very interested in trying them as they seem like they could be the answer to having poor conditions to dig pockets. Can I run them with drowners or is it better not to?

I don't see why not as long as you have the room and water depth for a drowner.

Check out Dale Billingsley on you tube he has a lot of good info on fish stake set plus other things.As far as drowners I guess that will be dependent on whether or not if you need to hide a catch. If on public I would say yes if that’s the case.

All that works fine as long as you don't have an exposed bait law. Here In WI, we would have to cover that bait.

Ive watched his stuff its great he doesn't drown his catches as a rule so he doesn't really discuss drowning and I watch a video by Mike seller's I think and he didn't drown stuff either

We do not have that here in Missouri

I always set two traps with fish stakes. I will sometimes use drowners. You just have to have the room to run the drowners out in different directions to avoid entanglement.

Ive put a few out through the years. I just put a cheap paper plate on the stake over the fish.

A wad of grass from the bank and wired or zip-tied over and covering the bait works very well too. Helps hide the stake better too. It doesn’t stick out as much as a paper plate would if you want to keep the sets not too visible and more natural looking. If you run out of fish when making sets, you can still use the wad of grass and weeds but give it a shot of fish oil, or a good lure. They all work well.
Jim

In the Matt Jones and Lenn Williams coon video, they use a 2-inch diameter stick with chainsaw cuts to hold their bait. The bait is just smeared into the grooves. I’m not sure this would draw birds. But if it does, wrap a little grass over it.

The stick will have to be replaced with each catch as I’m sure the coon, or whatever will knock it over. It’s the same principle as the fish stake. As I recall, they ran drowning wires/cable out from the bank to deeper water.

O’Hern often stakes his trap so the coon is out away from his pocket. This could be used in your situation too. The coon will be alive but not destroying the set location.

I like Billingsley’s set up but I don’t have any 36-inch stakes. And for water sets, I get a 3-day check when I use drowning sets.

I thought the same thing LT.

That's what I made those stakes into lol

This.
There are several river corridors in Iowa where it's illegal to use exposed bait because of eagles and such. I use a wad of grass over the bait and wrap a little wire around it, then give the wad a shot of fish oil. I've had no problem with birds.

My wading birds are long south when trapping season opens

We used to fish the Mississippi River until the ice choked the bays. I’ve seen long beaked wading birds well into November, just before freeze up.

If you don’t mind losing the bait stick, you can wrap burlap on a 1-2 inch stick now and smear bait, lures and/or fishy type oils when on site. Or, do like Len Williams and Matt Jones do with chain sawed sticks jammed into the bottom and smeared with their ground fish bait. In either case, you can drown the critter or stake it so the coon can’t drown, like Billingsley does.

Stupid eagles are the main concern here.

As they certainly would be here especially on the bigger waterways.

Drowned coons make for faster checks.

and . . . . no screwed up set to remake.

Hang 'em for a day and skin 'em the next.

LT, I didn’t know there was a feud going on between LW and MJ! I just have an old vhs tape they did on river trapping which was pretty good stuff.

FYI, I just spoke with Neal Ziegman from Ztraps. He said Ztraps are designed to be put on top of a stake out in the water— an alternative to the exposed bait fish stake. I’ve used them this way and had very good results. And yes, we did them on drowners.

I use a much longer rebar stake so it's around 3-4 ft above the stream bed. This makes the coon work the set a lot longer, and you usually get a back foot catch.