Hey folks, looking to add an anchor to my 10.5ft paddle kayak. Mainly fish smaller rivers (2-15ft) with both sand and rocky bottoms. Occasionally the bigger, deeper river and realized an anchor would be a great option to optimize fishing instead of fighting paddling trying to keep in a spot.
I am looking at these 2 options. I’m curious to see your setups on how to mount and spool the rope. What anchors do you use? Any tips or advice would be amazing. I think anything over 10 pounds would be overkill. Trying to keep as light as possible.
Posted by fellas_decrow
5 Comments
Had one of these get stuck and almost capsize my kayak before I cut it loose. Now I use a 20lb dumbbell, no issues.
Those are great but you MUST set it up correctly so when u get hung up, you can break it free. Look up how to set up Claw Anchor properly. You tie the rope on the bottom, then connect with a light zip tie at the top. When it hangs up, you’ll yank it up, breaking the zip tie and you’ll pull it up from the bottom.
Anchoring can be tricky, especially with this type of anchor. If you tie your line at the top and pull it while it’s anchored, it might get stuck in whatever was anchoring you. On the other hand, if you tie it to the bottom of the anchor, it’ll come out much easier because you’re basically flipping it upside down, which dislodges it more easily. This also means it won’t stay secure when you want to anchor again.
My solution was to tie a good knot at the bottom of the anchor in the middle of my rope. Then, I ran both lines up the anchor, one line through the top hole and the other free. The line attached to my kayak is the one that’s secured to the top of the anchor, and the other line (which is just attached to the bottom) is knotted in a way where it won’t go through my anchor float, which I can grab and pull to easily dislodge my anchor if it gets stuck tight.
I might be overthinking it, especially if you mostly anchor on shallow sand, but where I fish it’s a lot of mud and weeds so it’s tricky to take the anchor out when it’s stuck, so this problem is worth trying to solve imo.
Edit: I’m seeing a lot of people say use a zip tie… I saw this trick when I was new to kayak fishing too but I felt guilty about leaving the zip tie as litter and you should too! Let’s take care of the resources we all enjoy and appreciate.
I’ve found this to be a great reference time and time again on kayaks and anchoring: [https://www.kayakfishing.blog/blog/a-guide-to-anchoring-a-fishing-kayak](https://www.kayakfishing.blog/blog/a-guide-to-anchoring-a-fishing-kayak)
I am mostly in a 12′ v-hull, so not the same type of boat, but not that much bigger…
I found even a 10 pound mushroom anchor to be overkill, and would have preferred 8 or even 5 pounds. I used an extension cord holder to wind the anchor line around. I would preset it to about 30′ and just throw that much anchor line all the time, whether I was in 5 feet or 20 feet of water, and then wind it back up when done. I usually did not anchor in deeper water, I just accepted the drift.
In general I found anchoring to be such a royal pain while fishing, that I just got a trolling motor with spot lock to be done with it. It just felt like a lot of commitment to throw the anchor over, and haul it back up, and no matter how gentle I was, I assume I freaked out all of the fish.