just wanted to add...if you need to use rebar in those soft-bottom creeks, either cross stake (as was suggested earlier) or use one tremendously long stake, something like 4 foot or so.
I know that sounds silly, but think about how a short legged coon could pull out something 4 foot long, especially on a short-chained trap? The only way they can do it is if they can get up on a vertical bank to exert leverage upward, or if you are using universal or single stake chain attachments their can be a "ratcheting" effect of the coon pulling upward, then when it relaxes the attachment slips down on the stake a little, then the coon pulls upward again, relaxes, and the attachment works its way down a little farther. If the coon kept that up long enough he could ratchet the long stake out of the ground.
I tried grapples and drags on year on coons in a "dry" year, but that was not much fun tracking down catches either. unless the banks are very brushy to tangle up in, they can sometimes go pretty far with a drag or grapple. I had to shoot one out of a cottonwood, and he was about 20 feet up it sitting in the crotch of a large limb. he had the chain/grapple wrapped up pretty good around the little limbs, too. spent better part of a day trying to get it down because it was out there for the whole world to see, too.
