I've never posted in this forum before, so bear with me. I wanted to share a hair raising experience that occured yesterday 4/23/03 in the afternoon at Meldrum Bar. With my son and a friend, I anchored in a hog line at the lower end of Meldrum Bar in about 13' depth curren 2.5 mph. Saw one fish hooked only. A boat anchored about 150' above us directly over where our anchor lay. When I went to pull anchor, I decided that the best course of action would be to pull with the float at an angle to the other boat and try to pull it out from under that boat. The anchor was apparently stuck hard (which hasn't happen to me bofore this time) and when the line came taught, it stopped my boat while under power and swung the bow around hard just when we were about 75' upsteam and alongside the offending boat. We were then sideways in a position directly above them and in danger of tangling with them. I quickly decided to rid the boat of all the anchor line and was only able to do so after we had already drifted alongside and on the far side of the other boat, so I just pitched all my line and let it wrap the other boat. We were able with some difficulty to retrieve the anchor (which had tripped under the strain, and was loose) and all the line. Whew! In hindsight, I think I should have tried to pull anchor by hand from under them, and had them move if necessary, although, if it was stuck that hard, I might not have been able to do it. It seems to me that we shouldn't anchor so close upstream of other anchored boats. Tell me what you think.
