How to anchor a trailer boat without dropping the anchor

As well as being handy for holding the boat in position, an anchor is also a default safety device – if the engine ever unexpectedly stops, you can drop the pick and wait for help to arrive.

But dropping an anchor isn’t always a solution for anyone who wants to stop in certain places, say, a river full of fallen trees. Losing an anchor that’s hung up on a snag can pretty much ruin your day, not to mention cost you money.

Not only that, but in some instances, you will need to match the anchor to the type of ground below the boat, meaning you will need to carry multiple anchors. There’s no point in using a reef anchor with its easily bent prongs to anchor in sand and expect it to hold in a strong breeze.

Likewise, losing a sand anchor to a rocky reef where a reef anchor would have been the smarter choice is not the smartest way to manage anchoring.

But there are a number of solutions out there that let you hang up the anchor, so to speak, and reach for a better option. Let’s run through them and see where they work best.

A relatively cheap and effective way to pull the boat up is to upgrade to a modern-day electric trolling motor that uses a GPS system to keep itself within a metre of where you want the boat to sit – at the push of a button.

Modern trolling motors come with station-holding functions that will act as a virtual anchor, locking in your position as it automatically rotates and adjusts its thrust to keep you on the spot.

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As well as anchoring, trolling motors have other uses. Set up right, you can use them to slowly patrol a bank or beach as you cast for fish, move spots silently and efficiently, and if it has a remote control even steer it off the trailer when you launch the boat.

Using them is usually just a matter of releasing a safety strap, and either mechanically or electrically flipping them upright and dropping them in the water.

The trolling motor also doesn’t need to worry about depth, working equally as well around shallow lakes and estuaries as it does in the open ocean on a calm day.

There are disadvantages, however. The biggest is that if you plan on relying heavily on your trolling motor, the battery used to power it will need to become larger and heavier. 

It’s best to use a bespoke trolling motor battery so that if you do tap it too heavily, you have a separate second battery dedicated to the boat’s engine to ensure you have enough cranking power to charge it.

That means a good dual-battery set-up is essential. Note, too, that the longer you want to use the trolling motor, the more expensive the battery is likely to be.

To ensure the battery is always in top condition, use a two-year replacement program. This way you can sell your old battery, using the money you get to subsidise the cost of the new one. The best time to sell it? Right before the fishing season kicks off in earnest, and owners who have had their boats laid up discover their poorly maintained batteries are shot.

Another problem is that if you happen to be somewhere remote without the benefit of mains electricity, recharging a battery so that it is ready for another day of action out on the water may prove difficult.

Trolling motors are also bow-mounted, meaning the direction your boat is pointed in will always be at the mercy of the prevailing wind, waves and current.

Even if you can’t afford a modern trolling motor with all the bells and whistles, a pedal-controlled trolling motor makes for a decent substitute.

Your ability to anchor on the spot won’t be as controlled as an automated system, but once you get the hang of using the foot-operated pedal to control speed and direction, it’s almost second nature to balance the boat’s position.

Note that some trolling motors made for the North American market are only rated for freshwater applications. Use them in saltwater and your warranty will be void.

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A recent trend, particularly around anglers who focus on shallow water fishing, is the move towards pole anchors.

What’s a pole anchor? If you’ve never seen one before, it’s a tall, slender, rectangular looking thing that is fitted to the transom of a boat. However, at the press – and hold – of a button, the pole anchor deploys much like a praying mantis’ front claw, tripling its length as it extends and drops into the water. 

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Once extended, the lower third of the arm, usually a flexible and easily replaced fibreglass rod known as a spike, pokes into the ground below the boat, holding it steady.

Once on the bottom, the pole is a pretty robust way of keeping the boat on station. If there’s a single pole mounted on the back of the boat near the outboard engine, it can still rotate around where the pole is anchored. 

However, boaters with more budget will fit two pole anchors pushed as far apart as possible on the transom, meaning that once both poles are deployed the boat is firmly fixed in position.

Some sacrifices will need to be made if you’re going down the power pole route. The biggest is that your boat can’t have anything protruding from the transom that will likely interfere with the pole anchor’s deployment – things like swim platforms and transom-mounted burley buckets are a no-no.

They’re also very slow to deploy; push the button, and it can be minutes later by the time the pole has grounded. If you’re in a river with a fast-lowing current, that snag you were targeting can be a long way off before you’ve halted the boat’s momentum.

Equally, they can be slow to retract. If you’re on a lake and a ski boat suddenly decides it needs to cut loops within 50 metres of where you have the pole anchor stuck in the bottom, you’ll need to be patient before moving on somewhere quieter.

Something else to consider is that if you happen to run out of electricity, a good pole anchor will have a manual back-up system so you can at least retract it fully before limping home.

Unlike trolling motors that stretch their energy demand over a long period, pole anchors draw a huge amount of power over a short time as they extend and retract. 

That means you’ll need a beefy dual battery system for it to work. Given the energy it consumes, it’s also important to maintain the battery that powers the pole anchor in tip-top condition and flip it every couple of years to ensure it is always in peak condition.

Pole anchors are really only made for calm conditions, so they’re really only useable in protected waters where waves are minimal.

They also only reach a couple of metres below the boat, so trying to use one midstream in a river could be out of the question.

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Outboard engines are fast becoming much smarter. Propulsion technology that was once the domain of only boaters with deep pockets is slowly trickling down to add a host of user-friendly functions to even smaller engines and at affordable prices.

The big development in outboard engines in recent years has been the introduction of electronic steering, throttle and gearshift controls. These new systems have opened the door for outboard engine makers to use computers, not humans, to build a new range of electronic guardian angels that make boating so much easier.

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A big development are fly-by-wire joystick control systems for outboard engines. Both Mercury and Yamaha now offer these, allowing skippers to make small, precise boat movements by simply pushing and twisting a small joystick mounted beside the steering wheel.

Mercury’s joystick control only works with two or more engines, but Yamaha has released a cut-down version for single-engine applications that offers most of the functionality, with a few limitations.

But these systems also have virtual anchors built into them. The systems are so good that at the press of a single button, the boat will automatically hold its station.

This system will even work for single outboard engines, with the boat automatically adjusting the steering, gearshift and throttle to keep the boat standing still, even if there’s strong wind and current pushing it.

The only things a single-engine application struggles with compared with a multiple-engine system is the ability to keep the boat pointed in the one direction, and the ability to crab sideways. It means the single-engine boat’s ability to hold station is reduced.

Single-engine applications can’t sit on the one spot very well, but boats with multiple outboard engines can easily lock in position, with the engines steering, shifting and accelerating independently of each other. They can even keep the boat pointed in one direction.

This allows you to fish sites with as much precision as a well-set anchor, but without the need to account for constant changes in wind and current.

If you’re out fishing a long, narrow reef in tens of metres of water, a smart engine is a huge advantage, particularly if you need to move around to find the fish.

Of course, all this comes at a cost, with “digital” versions of outboard engines compatible with joystick controls carrying a steep pricing premium over versions of the same engine using analogue hydraulic or cable controls.

But you do get so much more than a digital anchor. The ability to manoeuvre the boat safely and precisely at low-speed will help at the dock, and a range of automated fishing-friendly digital controls – smarter systems can even drive the boat slowly over a virtual grid to help you find the right fishing hotspot – will return dividends in the kill tank.

The systems are also upgradeable, meaning that if an outboard engine manufacturer discovers a clever function that uses the same hardware, it can roll out to every boat using it. 

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