Anchoring in the Mississippi River requires more planning than just dropping anchor and landing where you want. The aforementioned current, so important to catching catfish, plays havoc on boat positioning. Once settled, it can also be difficult to unhook due to the force of the current on the boat.
Bob Crosby has some anchoring tips that readers need to take to heart.
“I keep 200 feet of anchor rope on my anchor and the reason for that is not that I’m actually anchoring in 200 feet of water,” he said. “Upriver of these scour holes is the shallowest area so I drop the anchor there, say in 15 feet of water and let out 60, 80, 100 feet of rope to get back into my hole where I marked fish.
“To unhook the anchor, have your buddy run the motor. You can’t pull your boat against the current, so back off slowly, taking the rope in as you go. You don’t want your rope to get in your prop and flip your boat. That’s the most dangerous part of fishing in the river. I know of two people who had their boats flipped because their anchor rope got tangled in the prop.”
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