Your boat moves off the spot a lot at anchor

[Tony_N]

I had no idea how much the boat moves at anchor over an extended period of time with current and wind variations
Last outing we tried to anchor up on a reliable mark that had a small show of baitfish on it. We only had a reef pick on board and it was a difficult to get a grab and so after a couple of tries the pick finally grabbed but I was past the mark. Decided to let some more rope out until we finally found a bait school over some nice structure. By this time we were almost 100 metres from the anchor in 30 metres of water. I didn't mark the spot but came back to the gps yesterday to have a look at roughly where we had been because we had stumbled on a hot jewfish bite.

The track marks still on the GPSwere a mass. I plotted the extremities of the two overlapping boomerang shapes they made. I was reallysurprised to see that the distance between the two furthermost edges was over 200 metres.

We were anchored for a bout 5 hours and from the track marks it was obvious that the wind had varied from a SW to a SE and the change of tide had impacted on our pattern of movement as well. It was quite impossible to retrospectively find the exact point where we got the hot bite.

This is so obvious in retrospect (I could point to where the anchor would have been because of the arc of tracks) but it had not dawned on me before that I'd be moving around that much over time and thought others might be interested in that little observation.

So much to learn, so little time.

Tony

[Lone_Wolf]

Tony,

Remember the old style compasses used in Tech Drawing(one end is a sharp point, the other is a lead pencil) I guess the swing would be similar to that, subject to tide and wind variation. That's a whole lot of ground on a couple of hundred metres of rope.

Regards

Scott

[finga64]

Who was the poor bugger pulling in the anchor rope afterwards??
We usually anchor a couple of times to get us just in the right spot. There's some small reefs of Evans eh Tony
The best fishing we've ever had was from drifting slowly around the ocean and seeing what happens and what's around.
Tony, mate. Keep hitting that mark button and send the points to me. I'll soon tell you if they're worth saving or not.
Did you try to zoom right in to see if you could guess-a-mate a spot??
You can set alarms on the GPS if you move too much of the mark as well.
Cheers then
Scott

[Tony_N]

Scott _ lone Wolf - prezackly like the compass. The trail left a perfect arc - actually 2 arcs where I think we must have slipped a bit on our grab. I first though this might have been the tide change we went through - but i cant see now how this could take us off the arc if we were still centred in the same point.

Scott - Finga - First, I'm old, so i don't have to pull anchors. If its the pick we just drive over it and bend the tynes with the boat and then drive back to it. As I say, I don't do anchors, so its no strain at all!

Yeah it usually takes me a few time to get it right as well. But when there is a blow and a current and trying to get at the show from the sandy side with a reef pick......you've gotta take what you can get. As I said I'm not the anchor puller , but we gotta take a sand anchor with us. Jeff doesn't like them because he thinks it might tie him to the bottom if he hits reef with it. I told him about reefmaster and otherws using a plough on reef. He wasn't convinced.


Drifting is what we normally do - find a spot, do a short drift through it and then go back and do it all over again. I've just made a drogue so that we can do that even if the wind is a bit fresh.

Yeah the marks - I'm saving them for you mate.

Yeah zoomed in but 200 metres is still 200 metres. I reckon the jews weren't local anyway - I believe we brought a school of them in on the burley trail

I know about the alarms - but never use them. If I had used them frequently I s'pose i wouldn't have been so surprised at the distance travelled.

Did you know that one point at the end of a S or E cordinate in this latitude/longitude is very roughly 30 metres?

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/distance

[finga64]

Ta in advance for the spots matey.

Have you ever seen a sand anchor with the safety pull alteration done to it just in case it gets stuck on a reef.

You just tie the anchor rope to the front of the sand anchor and fix the rope to the rear (the normal tie on point) with a cable tie.
If the anchor gets stuck you give it a good heev hoo and the cable tie breaks and your pulling from the front of the anchor. And out it comes.
Works with the reef pick as well
Saved our anchor a couple of times #

The cook and I are trying for a long weekend down there soon. I'll let you know so we can try those marks
Cheers Scott

[rick_k]

put your GPS on a table where it can see satellites, and leave it for 5 hours. You might be surprised where it thinks it has been from the track.

It will be even worse if you tell it (like I did to mine) that it is 1 metre above sea level (seemed fair for fishing offshore in a centre console) and then take it up to 1000 metres. Got some really wild tracks, 250m+ over an hour or so while sitting on the bonnet of a parked ute.

That said, if you had a nice arc, swinging on the anchor would cover it.

Rick K

[Mr__Bean]

Before the days of GPS accuracy we used to regularly fish over a wreck at Port Stephens.

We knew where it was but still had to sound around a lot to locate exactly where it was, once found we would toss over a concrete block with a 2 litre milk container on the line as a float.

We would then just anchor up wind of the float and let out enough rope to be in perfect casting distance to the wreck.

Not until you put out a fixed marker do you realise how much of a pendulem effect you get on an anchor rope. Whilst you think you are sitting firm you actually swing left and right all over the place.

- Darren