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[Spawn Sack]

Yawn! Sorry to resurrect this discussion from last year. I was getting the boat geared up today hoping to use soon. Realized I still was pondering a few things about anchoring. If anyone has some feedback that would be awesome.

So after we got our bow roller set up done last fall I'd say we got out fishing 6 or so times. Being 100% new to river boating we (wife and I) were a bit too chicken to explore around the Fraser and fished mostly in the Vedder canal and near the mouth of the Vedder, and a bit in the Fraser around Island 22. This year we are planning to do more exploring, fish for sturgeon, explore more river!

So far we have not run into any major issues dropping and retrieving anchor. Our system is I am generally driving the boat, and when we get to a spot where want to drop anchor the wife takes over on the wheel and I get up in the bow. She spins the boat around nose into the current, and when it looks like a good spot I give the anchor a shove off the roller and down she goes! I try to drop anchor a bit above where I want to fish as depending on the speed of the current sometimes we'll drift back a bit before the anchor bites and holds.

We don't have a cam or clam cleat on the bow, just a regular cleat. I can see how a cam or clam cleat would be handy, but so far I have not had any issues tying off to the standard cleat. A couple times when we anchored up in faster water I had the wife give the boat a bit of gas as we drifted in reverse, so when I went to tie off on the cleat there wasn't a sudden tightening of the rope, and instead was more gradual, and easier to quickly do a couple figure 8 knots.

When time to go we start up the boat, give it a minute to warm up, then the wife will slowly drive over the anchor, and I'll pull up all the rope and chain and lastly the anchor back into the roller. We have not had to deal with a stuck anchor yet. I'm wondering...if your anchor is stuck, and you need to use the motor to free it, what's the best way to do it?

I imagine I would just tie off to the bow cleat, leave the rope going though/out of the roller, and slowly power forward. Or would you take the rope out of the roller and have it go over the side of the boat? I'm just thinking this as I would be a bit worried that if the anchor was really stuck, and you gave the throttle a good punch, it could possibly bend/damage the bow roller and the checker plate it is affixed to. And, if the anchor didn't free its self couldn't the boat suddenly whip/turn to one side??? It just seems that is the rope is not fed through the roller there is less chance of the bow being spun around and/or the roller being damaged by excessive torque.

Lastly, we have an anchor buoy which we have not yet used. Well, I tied to let it out once as an "indicator" and found it to be a bit of a pain when pulling the last bit of chain in, as the carabineer rides right to the last bit of chain where it meets the anchor, and now the anchor wont fall into the recess in the roller as the damn carabineer/buoy is in the way! So I have to dick around with unclipping the carabineer while trying to get the anchor into the roller. After this I decided I'd just use the buoy if we needed to chase down a fish or whatever. Plan is start up the boat, power ahead a bit to take tension of the rope. While wife is doing this I would tie a quick overhand loop knot in the rope, clip the buoy to it, and toss the buoy and all my extra rope in the water and take off. I reason it's not the best idea to just clip the carabineer to the rope as it will ride down to the very end, hit my stopper, and then be floating haphazardly 100feet or so down river, possibly bumping into other boats, other people's gear, and so on. I'd rather it float right over my anchor which is why tying off to a loop makes sense to me.

I should also mention that in an emergency I'm just going to cut the rope and lose the anchor. I have a good fixed blade serrated knife at the bow for this purpose.

Also, since I obviously have a lot to learn about river boating I am taking STS' river boating course on April 2nd. Looking forward to it!   

[Tenz85]

Look up anchor puller by ironwood pacific. They work great for chasing large sturgeon or tossing anchor in a hurry. You can put all the excess line into a mesh laundry bag so it doesnt float down river.

[Spawn Sack]

Thanks Tenz85, I checked out these pullers on their website and youtube.

Maybe I'd have to see one work in person to appreciate how awesome it is but...I honestly can't see myself liking one that much.

At least when we were out last fall, often there were several other boats around. Seems like one needs to get their anchor up more or less where they are anchored, rather than having the luxury of powering off, letting the buoy bring the anchor to the surface, then stopping to pulling in all the rope + chain.

We were generally anchored up in 5-30 feet of water and I didn't find pulling up the rope/chain/anchor to be that big of a deal. However if I had several times this length of rope out in a deep sturgeon hole I might be singing a different tune!

Eventually would love to get a windlass but for now hand-bombing will have to do