Only drag issue…

First year using drags and so far so good. Only issue I see is as far as a critter can stretch that chain one way…he can stretch it back the other way.
Had a cat on camera and last pic sorta looked like maybe it was biting at a trap on its foot. Or that could’ve been just wishful thinking on my part, lol. No other pics afterwards.
Well this morning the first thing I noticed was just the tip of my flag was broke off, but the main part was still standing. Next thing I noticed was my trap was gone. I parked the truck and heard brush breaking. I followed the drag marks and where I saw movement and found a big ole bobcat. As I’m standing there watching this joker with a chain stretched tight trying to climb a tree he looks at me with T-total hate. It’s then I realized that I’m standing where the drag caught the tree and all that’s between us is a very straight tight swiveled 10ft chain, lol.
He was dispatched without incident after getting him to chase me around a tree to wrap him up a little more.

I have some photos from Georgia just like that from a few cats in the pine trees with no needles or branches nearby.

Nice job Wanna Be! Drags get more and more use as I get older. JC Conners drags are TOP NOTCH. I love his 4 lb. drags!

Good thing that hip was healed .He may have caught up to you.I like drags, but I live market and I am not going after one at 5 am with a headlight on.

Yeah, luckily it’s the weekend and I checked in daylight!! I was more impressed with trap function after 3-4” of rain last Monday.
Coyotes don’t bother me but bobkitty’s do!! That was that farthest anything has moved the drag, mainly because it was just thrown in briers. Normally I’ll pre hook it around something and they don’t go far…so far anyways.

Coyotes and bcats head into the brush or woods when caught. Fido goes down the road or field edge back home.....good luck.

That 10' chain is your friend.

Yeah Swamp, that’s been the case, but broomsedge and even pre-hooking has kept them close. Briers and small pines are different it seems. The chain is about 10ft but followed instructions when building them and broke it up in sections with swivels. They performed as advertised.

And thanks Hern!!

10 ft and a good drag is bout what I run as well. Some of my stuff has swivels. Some don’t Wish = I could run 2 swivels per chain and the 2 on trap. But. That gets expensive. We have a = Load of the LPC drags coming in Tuesday. LIKE the 1 peiece designs. Like that they’re forged and bent. Just don’t like paying for them!! LOL! J C Conner makes a fine drag. Saber Tooth is pretty good. Till it breaks

Swivels close to the drag usually aren't much use, because as soon as they wrap the chain they don't do any good, in my experience swivels in the first three or four feet from the trap are what do all the work. A lot of my drags have the big wolf swivels attaching the chain to the drag, not because they do much good there, but because I need to attach the chain somehow and I had a bunch of them laying around and I don't like them attached to a trap where they get in the way of bedding.

Only issue I have had with drags are one I caught a wolf in who got tangled up, tore the place up and got loose, then hit a road that was frozen ice as hard as concrete and traveled it for about four hundred yards before leaving out across the open and finally getting tangled up a couple hundred yards away in the trees. It warmed up and melted the marks in the road and then refroze before I got there. Took over an hour to find that one. Only other time I've had an issue with a drag is when a deer stepped in a trap, took trap and drag and then pulled out once it hooked the drag solid, leaving everything in the huckleberry brush and it took me awhile to find the trap. Otherwise I think practically every animal I have caught on a drag has been within sight of the set. Even ones where I would have rather they went farther and gotten out of sight of prying eyes.

My drags are set up on MB550’s. Swivel at base of trap and end of chain. I put a J hook and quick link with a swivel to a 1ft piece of #3 chain with another swivel at the end. There it’s swiveled to a 3ft piece of chain which is swiveled to a 6ft piece of chain which is swiveled to the drag itself. It appears to work that way.

And yeah, a deer will be fun if one steps in it, lol.

This one gave me some uneasiness this morning for the reason you mentioned. Caught him in a crawl under at a fence and pre wrapped it on a post. He ran to the other side when I pulled up, but I started pulling the chain through the fence to reel him in. Glad I pulled the chain through the fence instead of down through the crawl under because I got it halfway in and he decided he was gonna meet me half way and tried to come back through the crawl. Wouldn’t have been anything but air and opportunity between me and him if I had tried to pull the chain through the actual crawl under

I can’t bring myself to use drags that aren’t pre hooked. . I used one last year in the corner of an ag field next to a road. Was a thicket about 10 yards behind the set. Trap was gone one morning and I got to looking around. Thicket was tore up, but no sign of a critter. I tried looking for drag marks, but they were extremely limited. The ones I did find were heading to the middle of the field. He ended up taking it about 150 yards to a point of trees in the field. The drag had clogged with grass and debris and left nearly no marks. I decided then that I’d have to have a drag pre hooked if I wanted to use it somewhere not extremely thick

Blue Lacey dogs. Solve that problem for me! LOL!

Never used drags but I would think painting the in blaze orange/ pink would speed up finding them? Same with the chain?

Been playing with a few drags this year but haven't connected yet. Painted the drags and tied some orange surveys tape to them. Should be able to find them alright.

I run a lot of drags and a heavy drag on a long chain keeps them close, even in our low vegetation desert. I have some of my drags painted florescent orange, and the ones that I've been too lazy to paint I put orange survey tape on it. If its rocky gound that won't leave any drag marks, I'll wire a bush to the chain (closer to the trap so it doesn't inhibit the drag). This will leave a trail from pieces of the bush falling off. But the best thing (and most exciting thing) to have when using drags was mentioned by steeltraps, a dog. Before a lion killed my red tick, it was a lot of fun seeing missing trap on a drag, then watching the dog work it out and find it.