DIY Shallow Water Anchor

[JMichael]

Did you notice the second hinge at the top? The cable is running through the tube to a hook eye in the rod. When you release the cable that sends the rod loose and then the spring/tube shoves it in the ground. And to retrieve it you simply pull the cable up by hand or possibly a hand operated winch.

My point exactly. If the spring is pushing down on the grey arm, and the fiberglass pole is hinged at the top, as long as you are holding tension on the cable, that will hold the rod pulled up against the grey arm. If the spring has any tension at all, it will force the grey arm down faster than gravity can get the pole to swing to a vertical position, every time the cable is released.

 

[theyyounggun]

Aww yes yes. That is very good thinking. So thinking that now I will have the cable going to the aluminum. And the fiberglass will be hanging loose. But during transport it will be bungeed. How does that sound?

 

[tsaints1115]

It would take a pretty stout spring to have enough pressure to keep that in place in any kind of wave. That's a lot of tension, almost dangerously so.

 

[theyyounggun]

The trick with the spring is to just keep the stake on the ground with some force. I eill alway have the trolling motor to help me out some. If I can't figure anything out it is no prob just to use normal anchor.

 

[JMichael]

It would take a pretty stout spring to have enough pressure to keep that in place in any kind of wave. That's a lot of tension, almost dangerously so.

I agree, and it would take even more pressure to drive the pole in the bottom at times depending on the type of bottom. I would think you would have to look in to some sort of electric motor drive system or even small scale hydraulics. And I'm no mechanical engineer but I would think you would need a double hinged system to maintain the pole in a locked vertical position regardless of the angle the arms are at. Something similar to this.

 

[theyyounggun]

I agree

 

[RiverBottomOutdoors]

I'm imagining you using this in pretty calm conditions. You're just concerned with that little push of wind or momentum taking you on to the beds in the shallows. Is that accurate?

If so, you don't need the robust ideas that have been suggested. Something light duty will probably work. Like the one guy , I have some reservations about the physics of your diagram but I think it's definitely a good concept. Custom stuff is trial and error. Interested to see how this goes if you tackled it. I use bream for catfish bait and I could see something like this coming in handy.


Good luck.

 

[theyyounggun]

I am definitely going to finish the boat before tackleing it.

It would take a pretty stout spring to have enough pressure to keep that in place in any kind of wave. That's a lot of tension, almost dangerously so.

I agree, and it would take even more pressure to drive the pole in the bottom at times depending on the type of bottom. I would think you would have to look in to some sort of electric motor drive system or even small scale hydraulics. And I'm no mechanical engineer but I would think you would need a double hinged system to maintain the pole in a locked vertical position regardless of the angle the arms are at. Something similar to this.

I couldnt agree with you more. If you look at the actual SWA's they do have that dual arm design. Im not smart enough to do electric motors and all that. That stuff is pricey to!

 

[JMichael]

I've only seen demo videos of the SWA's in action on youtube, and all of those had the covers on so you couldn't see how they accomplished the mechanical portion of the system.

 

[theyyounggun]

Maybe if everyone on tinboats pitches in $2 we could buy a couple and then take them apart [-o< then put them back together and put them in a drawing to give them away! :LOL2: haha

 

[Trapper02]

What about simplifying the design, think about the Minn-Kota Talon, it just goes straight down. surely that would be easier to make some sort of "pole" that you could slide up and down the back of the boat and lock into place.

Instead of having those arms with joints etc.

Although you may be limited on your height, cause like the power pole and your design folds up to save space. Where the Talon design, you might have 8' pole sticking in the air when not in use. If you make it that tall.

 

[theyyounggun]

What about simplifying the design, think about the Minn-Kota Talon, it just goes straight down. surely that would be easier to make some sort of "pole" that you could slide up and down the back of the boat and lock into place.

Instead of having those arms with joints etc.

Although you may be limited on your height, cause like the power pole and your design folds up to save space. Where the Talon design, you might have 8' pole sticking in the air when not in use. If you make it that tall.

Thats a good idea. I wonder if we coud do it where it is telescopic. That way we dont have to worry about going under bridges and stuff.

 

[tsaints1115]

Mount a thick wall aluminum tube on the transom, a tube on a bow mounted bracket, and have manageable lengths (6' ? ) of aluminum rod threaded at one end with a female threaded end one the other. Slide a length through the tube into the lake bottom. 6' not enough for your water depth? Thread on another 6'. Four 6' sections should cover most depths before you'd switch to a regular anchor I'd think.

 

[theyyounggun]

Thats a good idea

 

[Jim]

Great thread fellas! :beer:

 

[JMichael]

Multiple sections might be necessary for bass fishing but I doubt you'd ever need over an 8' pole for the purposes of the original post. Bream bed in shallow water and I've never seen them bed in anything over 4-5' deep myself but maybe they do.

 

[tsaints1115]

Just for S&G I googled 6061 T6 aluminum bar and the first link I clicked on had as one of it's choices 3/4" bar, chose a length of 6', for $15.75. Four pieces plus some thick wall tube, say 3' should do for front and rear, some hardware to mount it, etc, and I could see having a working set of SWAs for under a $100.

That's all shooting from the hip of course.

If you're lucky like me you have a metal dealer in the area that sells used metal by the pound.

 

[Jim]

I would love a 6-8 foot one just for these shallow, shielded coves we have up here in Mass

 

[theyyounggun]

Multiple sections might be necessary for bass fishing but I doubt you'd ever need over an 8' pole for the purposes of the original post. Bream bed in shallow water and I've never seen them bed in anything over 4-5' deep myself but maybe they do.

agreed. I dont fish deeper than 15ft anyways. But shoreline for bream.

 

[theyyounggun]

Not sure about this but

Red=spring
orange=cable
grey=aluminum
black=fiberglass
green=boat transom

This would work by the spring being compressed when in the stowed position but to anchor you winch the cable and it pulls down the fiberglass rod. So when you release the cable it pulls the rod back up.