I am planning on putting 3-4 ft. on all of my water trapping equipment for coon, muskrat and mink. The reason I am doing this is much of the water that I trap is not deep enought to drown a coon, and for mink and 'rats I just hate using wire because it is a pain. Just a good way to poke holes in gauntlets. I was just wondering what size chain you guys would use for a setup like this and how many swivels in a chain of that length? I was thinking about #2 strait link chain with a swivel at the trap, one at the stake end and 1-2 mid chain swivels. Is this overkill?

If you got the swivels and chain its not over kill to me. I have 12" of chain on some of my water traps and I rig them with an additional 2 feet of cable with an adjustable end. One swivel at trap, one swivel 2 links down then one at end of chain. Never had any problems with this set up on a 1 1/2 size trap staked in deep water.
good luck don
PS I don't like all the wire either.

I agree I have a lot of my 11's with at least 6 feet of chain most have more. I use #2 twist link. only because it is cheap and in the water I don't worry about coyotes biting and opening up the twist. The only thing other that I add is one solid link about two feet from the end so I can wrap the chain around something and hook the drag through this link. I like to pretangle if I can .Mink don't go anywhere with just a drag but a coon can and I don't have the time to look for critters before work in the morning. A good place to get these extra links is at the hardware store where they cut chain. I take home a pile every time I go by I also use these cut links to bottom swivel my traps I am lucky enough to have a welder that really healps. good luck.

I have several 1000 ft. of chain, most of it is in 5 ft. pieces with a swivel in the middle and 1 on ea. end. Set up like this I can put a piece of chain on any trap I need to and if I dont need it its not in my way. I use 1/8 quick links to connect my chain. The 1/8 will fit in the hole on the end of the swivel, makes a solid connection. I have 7 330's in a run with 13 pieces of chain on ea. one to get it to solid ground. Have to use a boat to set because of the soft bottom. I start with 10 traps, when I make a catch I drag him in, when I get down to 3 traps I'll unload the boat and reset the 10.

Dated for search.