Anchor weight??

[scall]

How do you determine how much weight is needed for an anchor? Seems like 30# is pretty typical.
How much weight do you use for a drift boat and how much for a rafts?

[Ron B]

I suspect you'll get a few different opinions on this. So, for what it's worth, in my drift boat I use a 40# pyramid and in my raft I use a 30# 4 sided green anchor with "cleats" on the bottom. Both are probably more anchor than I need, but when I drop the anchor, I want to stop now and not 20 or 30 feet downstream. Both these anchors accomplish that with there respective boats. By way of comparison, I used to use a 20# lead pyramid anchor on my raft and it was marginally OK. In very slow moving water it was fine. However, if I was in current faster than "slow", stopping almost always happened, but well downstream from where I wanted to be. My drift boat came with the 40# anchor so, I don't have a real life comparison to offer. It also goes without saying that you need to be very careful about where you choose to anchor in moving water. Bad things can happen if you're not on top of it.

[TaylerW]

I have been running the same 35lb anchor for years. At this point I’ll bet it’s closer to 30 and it does the job perfect. Dragging anchor is less of a factor of weight as it is bottom substrate, anchor rope and current speed