Drags or Stakes?

[Sorney]

I'm new to trapping and, i have been wondering why people use draging grapples instead of steaks?

[leechmann]

You may use drags if the ground is frozen and you can't get a stake in. Drags are an option, but you had better be in an area that the drag can catch onto something. Say your trapping an area where there is a plowed field and the critter pulls your drag 1/2 mile before it catches. I like to use drags when the ground is frozen and on the edge of the woods. The critters usually run off into the heavy cover and get tangled up. I like snow on the ground too, then it's easy to track them.

[walleyes12]

A good dog also helps alot when using drags.

[The Grebe]

When I used to trap, I banged alot of critters using drags....used to like to get them away from the set so they wouldn't tear it up real bad. I never had much luck taking repeats if I caught a coon, or a grey, if the trap site was all messed up. On reds it was a different story. I'd cut the third hook off the drag to make it lay nice in the trap bed.

I used the drags mostly on Coon and Grey Fox sets in woods openings etc., somewhere where I knew they would hang up One thing I didn't like about drags is that a coon would sometimes get in a set and crawl up a tree and a few times I found them dangling and a few times I found them up a tree with a broken leg. That troubled me. Never had that situation with a canine....not crawling up trees obviously, but the broken leg thing.