How many

Smily · 04-15-2002, 05:59 AM

ever lost there anchors?

Went on a drift last Friday afternoon with my Brother in-law. I knew the water was high and wanted to go anyway and show him the river. I anchored in one of my favorite holes and let my line out. When I went to go pull the anchor up, it got stuck. I tried for 20 minutes to yank, jerk, pull the anchor up to no avail. I nded up cutting the rope and went on my merry way. The water was going really fast and decided not to fish any more and just did a nice drift trip. It took no time at all to reach to Lewis and clark and we wanted to go further. Well we did, We ended up at Chinook Landing. It was nice to see the lower stretch and I have been on the Columbia at the mouth of the Sandy before. So that part was not scary. We did have to row a spell to get to Chinook landing even though it was going down river. There seemed to be dead spots in a couple of places or big eddies. It was a new adventure for us that day.

So how many lost anchors in the river before?

:smile: Smily :smile:

rags · 04-15-2002, 06:45 AM

Smily,
I've lost two db anchors over the years. One when I first started driftboating. My knot tied to the anchor came loose when I started to pull it up. The second one was lost on the Clackamas about 7 or 8 years ago. I was pulling plugs below Carver with a friend. My rod went down and I immediately dropped the anchor and set the rope in the cleat. I was fighting the fish and my friend had the net at the ready position. We were both really into getting this fish in the net not paying attention to anything else. I noticed the water was getting much faster and choppy from where I set the anchor. As I looked over the back of my driftboat I saw the end of my anchor rope going out the boat. Of course I had no knot on the end. My anchor and 50ft. of rope gone. Swirling around in the water above us I could see my rope. We beached the boat after netting the 15lb. chromer but we had no way to get back up river and snag the rope. Just then I noticed a sled coming slowly down river. They had been watching us fight the fish. This local guide had four clients in his boat. I asked him if he could grab my rope and my anchor for me. To my surprise he said "These four people are not paying me to get your anchor." He took off and I never did get that anchor and rope back. I'm sure he came back later and snagged it. This guy is still guiding, no not one of our Ifish guides. Even on a bad day I would have gone out of my way to help someone.

NEUTRON · 04-15-2002, 06:54 AM

I have a few anchor tales, like rags I fished for
my anchor rope once except I got it back. Never
anchor in water that you can't row back up. Make
sure you have enough line to get to the bank and
go back upstream to pull it. Be safe....Not sure
the knot thing is a good idea...

monoman · 04-15-2002, 06:57 AM

On the Sandy, a steelhead season long past(OK, maybe only ten years ago) I lost three fine anchors in three trips. Lost one at the mouth of the Sandy also! Must be something about that river. I have never lost an anchor on any other river!

Thumper · 04-15-2002, 07:19 AM

Neutron says --- "Never anchor in water that you can't row back up."

Excellent advice. And it never even occured to me. Thanks.

FishinMission · 04-15-2002, 07:36 AM

I have to agree with Nuetron on the knot thing too. Could lead to a potential disaster.

I've lost a few..but mainly by dropping them into and in between boulders on the Sandy...

Another one in the Willamette in the sled...felt the situation was too risky to continue my attempts at retrieval, so I used the knife.

Mark

Smily · 04-15-2002, 08:35 AM

I was able to row up a little bit and I thought it should have broke loose. But it didn't. I plan on diving for it when the water get's warmer. That is if someone doesn't snag it first. It is in a very popular hole. Funny thing was that I found a 23 lb pyramid anchor about 2 months ago. I think it is too light for the currents in the Sandy and gonna look into making a couple of them out of steel. Like the other ones they sell that are about 4" Dia. and about 10" long with about 5 or 6 spikes about 4-5" long. I'll check to see how much material is and then see if it's worth making or buying then.

Monoman and Fishinmission, Where did you lose your anchors?

:smile: Smily :smile:

04-15-2002, 12:16 PM

We hung an anchor in about 100 feet of water about 15 miles up Carol Inlet South of Ketchikan
on a Sunday. We tied a 24" float to it and then came back the following Friday with dive gear
to retrieve it. The float and anchor were gone!

As for rude guides,I had my brother-in-law up from the midwest and borrowed a friends skiff to do some fishing. Before we left I lifted the fuel tanks (two of them) to see how full they were. One was almost empty and the other full. We ran about two miles toward Guard Island, north of town, and the empty tank ran dry. I then hooked up the other tank only to find that it was full of water from condensation. The tide was going out and we were drifting north at about 5 knots. Several charter boats went past us within 50 yards and ignored us, we were waving life jackets! Finally a sport fisherman stooped and pulled us to a friends dock about one mile away.

On the other hand, last week I was on the Clackamas River fishing with David Johnson and he
stopped to help two canoeists that had dumped their canoe. He made sure they were warm and
took them back to the boat launch. We were heading back downstream to continue fishing
when Dave's wife spotted their submerged canoe. We pulled the canoe to shore and tied it to a tree, then Dave's wife tried to contact the owners on her cell phone. About 10 minutes after we got the canoe tied up the canoe owner showed up in a sled from the Carver boat launch and thanked us again for the help. After doing what was right, David proceeded to show me how good he is at producing fish for his clients. :grin: :grin:
:grin:

Ken Drifter · 04-15-2002, 12:44 PM

So far Ive lost two in my Drift Boat. The first one was a little scarry...I was at Fishers last fall, lots of wind and current. I anchored up all day with no problem. Until the one I will remeber
for a long time to come..I put in about 60 yards away from the rest of the hog line to keep plenty of space. When id decided to leave. As I began to pull up anchor it got snagged about half way in. Then the boat started to wander with the current, I headed for the back to start my 8 horse. But my boat was headed for another boat, as I tried to get free with one hand pulling in anchor rope the other holding off the other boat from bumping into each other. The guys in the other boat only gave a rats rear end about the fact I crossed over their lines, At this point I was about exhausted but didnt want to sink. Well nice guy I am I actually tried to get there lines off my prop, after listening to them screaming and bit*hin about getting free and not even notice the crap Ive been going through. I decided to break out the knife and cut my anchor.
Then as I floated away they yelled what about our lines ?. I responed with " OK Ill cut those too "
Back at the dock a couple people had said they saw what was happening and couldnt believe the other boat wouldnt help. Moral of this story..there are some real jerks out on the water !
Second time was at Detroit Lake, got it stuck in some tree stumps about 80ft deep.
So if you see some body with real anchor trouble and your close enough to help, or involved in one way or another. My God man help em out !!!
You never know when you yourself will need help.

Paddlefish · 04-15-2002, 04:38 PM

I dropped mine -- literally -- in dead still water!

I was bassin' in a Willamette River slough, trying to keep from drifting in the wind while I thoroughly fished the area. My anti-wind anchor was just a mushroom-type on a short 25-foot rope. I was in about 15 feet of water so I lowered the anchor over the side and let the rope start sliding through my hand. It went quickly and oh-so-smoothly. "There's no knot on the loose end of this line," I thought. "I'm gonna have to grab the rope just about NOW!"

Of course, as you've already guessed, "now" was just about one "ohnosecond" too late. And the water right there turned out to be more like 30 feet deep. :shocked: :depressed:

ANDYCOHO · 04-15-2002, 04:59 PM

I haven't lost an anchor yet, but I had an amusing story about anchoring. Last year fishing at Bouy 10 I lost power in my main motor and started to drift south towards the jetty. So I dropped anchor about 300 yards east of Bouy 10 until I could get my motor going. Needless to say I was very, very unpopular.

As I was huddled in my engine compartment trying to fix my motor, my friends were trying to keep people from trolling into my anchor line. It didn't work too good and there were many, many curses thown my way, but not one offer of help of the 200+ boats out there that day. But I have to admitt fishing was mighty fine anchored up, and it was most amusing to watch as people trolled accross the anchor line to see them react thinking they had doubles or triple take downs.

HOGTIDE · 04-15-2002, 05:09 PM

Day 1*Drifted the East Fork Lewis at high water and dropped the pyramid mid-stream. Oh ya ...it hung good. Almost swamped the boat trying to bring it in against the current. Cut the rope and set us free.
Day 2* Tied on a brand new 'animal', made the same drift as day 1. Heard a funny "ker-plunk" sound as we were backtrolling. Found out what that sound meant, when we tried to anchor for lunchtime. [img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img]

???Did you know that anchors are expensive???

Oh Ya...It was tied on with one of those fancy firefighter knots by my EMT friend. Firedog, you might wanna ask Jimmy T. about this story!

Rocky · 04-15-2002, 05:34 PM

I havent lost one yet :smile: but my brother in law down in So. Cal. used to dive for lost anchors among other things so he could sell them at the swap meet, he said at one time he had about 600 or so...$5.00 a pop

Wog · 04-15-2002, 07:46 PM

I am glad to here that I am not the only one who has lost an anchor or two

in the Sandy. Not only does this river eat up your drift fishing gear, it eats anchors too!

[img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img]

[ 04-15-2002, 08:47 PM: Message edited by: Wog ]

Bait O' Eggs · 04-15-2002, 08:02 PM

I have never lost a drift boat anchor, but have had to cut off about a dozen river anchors below the Willamette falls. A rocking chair anchor is about all I can get to hold me up there, and I get about 9 out of 10 of them back. :depressed: One of these days I will have them stacked so high I will be able to get the top ones back.

Corkie Monster · 04-15-2002, 08:15 PM

I'm just waiting to loose one with my pontoon. I always have my knive in hand when I anchor in some current. Don't wanna flip over backwards. I had one time where it started to pull the rear end down and was able to give it a pull to dis-lodge it, and pulled it all the way up and found a slower spot. Pucker factor: 10 :shocked:

[img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img]

STGRule · 04-15-2002, 08:32 PM

Bait O' Eggs: Have you tried a snow chain anchor up there yet? We made one up of semi-rig chains that we scrounged up. It works great for the drift boat for sturgeon fishing up there. The first try was not heavy enough and we added another tire chain to the wad and it has worked ever since. No more lost anchors in the rocks. And even if we did we'd just have to pick up more tire chains off the highway. You can also check with any local trucking company. They might get them to you cheap or for free. Broken ones work great.

Bait O' Eggs · 04-15-2002, 09:37 PM

I have tried, wads of chain, head off a V-8 engine :shocked: :shocked: big chunk of steel, nothing seems to want to hold my boat unless it has a pointy hook on it :depressed: of course that pointy hooks seems to like the rocks up there.

I have lost all of them within 20 feet of each other. My favorite place to set up and fish in the area :depressed:

Fishful Thinkin' · 04-15-2002, 10:54 PM

BOE. Sounds like it's just part of your cost of fishin'. An everyday thing, huh?

husker · 04-15-2002, 11:15 PM

i have lost 3 anchors mostly to my lack of expirence.....which i think i have taken care of...mostly through trial and error....2 i lost in the wmt......1 i lost when i had my anchor tied to a rope and the anchor cut the rope.....2nd my snap came unhooked....then i went drifting through other lines....not a good plan........the 3rd anchor i lost in tide water....the anchor must have caught a pilon ......anyways...the knife ended that misfortune......

Salmonator · 04-15-2002, 11:32 PM

I've lost 5 DB anchors and two river anchors. The only hints I have would be to double check the anchor knot for wear, know how deep the water is under your driftboat before you drop it [img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img]
and what they said about dropping in too fast of water. I did hang a river anchor at the fishery one day. While pulling it out the rope broke about 150ft up the line. Used the fishfinder to locate and snag it. Got that one back!

Dangerous_Dave · 04-16-2002, 07:23 AM

Lots of good replies here...I lost an anchor years ago on the San Jouquin River..Had been bass fishing all and day with the family and decided to head to some shallow water and anchor up for a while so we could eat lunch. I had just bought a new mushroom anchor and apparantly tied a #*&%*y knot. Well, as soon as I tossed it in the knot failed and I watched my $30 anchor disappear in the murky depths...I dove in after it, and sunk my arm in the mud up to my elbow.... [img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img] . I Tie good knots now