Anchoring question

You need 3 times the depth of water. Sometimes that is not enough. You can use 400 pound mono with a re-bar style anchor if you want to anchor in 200 feet. I used to anchor up at Southern using the mono and cheap re-bar anchor. My boat weights about 6000 pounds and I was OK as long as the seas were less than 4 feet. I tie it off on the ring on the bow. (One you attach your trailer crank hook).

600 feet of 3/8" rope takes up a lot of room. Best thing about the re-bar anchors is that they are cheap. If you get hung up, it's cheap to replace.
If you like to tie up to a rig, a big bent piece of aluminum pipe works well.
Bent it in a half circle leaving at least 12" in the throat. Make it as long as you can and tie about 50 feet of 3/8" rope to the end. Mine is about eight feet overall length including the "J".

It's quick and safe. Get someone on the bow with the "J" pipe and he can hook it on any horizontal member of the rig. Trying to tie up to a rig without it can cause major damage to the boat. The boat for some reason, tends to get sucked into rig. I lost a couple of bow pulpits as a lesson. You can store the "J" pipe under one of your side gunnel's.

Also, watch out if you trade at shrimp boats. Pulling up to the transom of a shrimp boat can also cause major damage. When you get about four feet from it, you will get sucked in. Carry a 5 gallon plastic bucket with some rope attached to it. Just throw them the rope and let them pull in the bucket. Hope this helps save you from major fiberglass repairs.

 

All above is good info. Just want to add that the chain weight and length is also an important part of the deal. To light of chain and the anchor will have problems hooking into a soft or sandy bottom.

My first rig hook I made was out of 3/4" EMT conduit. It was a little weak but
extermely cheap. Consider putting a shock asorber in line with the rig hook.
ie. 10 ft. of rope then attach 2 doubled bycicle inner tubes or several bungee
cords then 100' or so of line.

Pro made rig hooks made from 1" Alum. are about $75. @ FTU.

I came across my first pro made rig hook about 40 miles out of Freeport in the winter of 86.
I found it attached to a rig with 20 foot of line on it cut at the end. It had no shock leader. I made quick reference to my notes on Marine salvage rights and Bottom feeding protocal. Flat seas allowed me to collect my new found treasure.

 

600 feet 1/2" 3 stand with at least 20' of chain, just make sure you get your self a good anchor retreiver ball set up and a heavy duty plasic bin to put it all in.

 

we found one of them fancy hooks on a rig and almost lost one trying to get the other one.