But when you’re fishing, is anchoring always the right thing to do? I think the answer could be either yes or no – depending on a lot of circumstances.
Inshore Creeks and Rivers
I was fishing a creek that winds off the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) along the Atlantic coast on an outgoing tide. Tidal current vary up and down the Atlantic, but where I was on the Georgia coast, the tide was literally ripping as it made its way out. I had a trolling motor, but I had to have it almost on high to keep my boat stationary in the creek.As I used the trolling motor to keep me in the middle of the creek, I allowed the boat to head out with, although much slower than the tide. On one deep bend, I found some spotted sea trout. They were holding in the current on the deep outside bend, and for me to be able to cast to them, I had to run the trolling motor on high to stay put and cast. All the backwash and noise from the trolling motor was not going to help the fish bite, and could actually spook them into moving. So I gently slipped an anchor over a bit up current and to the inside of the bend. As soon as thing settled down – about five minutes, - the fish began to eat, and I caught over 20 good sized trout from that one hole. Anchoring in this situation was the right decision.
Inshore Flats and Open Water
On another trip, I was drifting a big grass flat in about five feet of water. We were catching seatrout again, this time on live shrimp under a popping float. As soon as we caught one or two trout, my partner wanted to anchor the boat. What he did not realize was that the trout were not concentrated. They were scattered all across that flat, and anchoring would have prevented us from reaching more fish with our bait. We simply drifted along with the current and caught fish. When the bite stopped, we cranked up, ran back up current to our starting point, and began drifting again.These are two examples of fishing inshore and changing anchoring tactics. What about offshore?
