Anchoring in Pt Lowly Rip

[wishing2Bfishing 0]

i do a fair bit of snapper fishing in the rip at Pt Lowly and can never seem to get my anchor to hold. i try to fish it around tide changes so the current is at its least forceful but can never seem to get my anchor to hold. my boat is a 17ft haines hunter and the anchor i have been using is one of those sand anchors, not sure of the correct name for it. i have about 15-20ft of chain and i have tried letting out heaps of rope, bugger all rope and all lengths inbetween. i know that other boats hold anchor in there coz we go drifting past them, slower than i would if i hadnt dropped the anchor but still, i dont want to drift i want to hold position, especially if i have sounded up fish. i have a rock (grapnel) anchor, should i be using that? what do those who have fished it find works?

[Ranger 48]

Geez, you be lucky to get an anchor to hold there, and from memory it's around 130 feet deep so you'd also need a bl**dy long anchor rope!The water races through that area, so the best way to fish it is on the drift.Set the tracking feature on your gps, let the tide carry you on the drift, then start up, retrace your route, switch off, fish, repeat the process over and over.

[jagger 24]

That's exactly what we do at Cape Jervis Ranger. Even mark where we got the fish and focus on getting the baits back around those points if the wind changes etc. No point drifting to far off the mark if there aren't any fish 600m off the spot!Another tip is measure your anchor rope out and thread coloured rope through every 20ft or so. Blue for 20, green for 40, red for 60 and so on (have a visual chart handy to!) If you know you only have an approx the same amount of line out as the water deapth you are in, the chain wont have the oportunity to hold on the bottom let alone the anchor which is probably skimming the surface the bottom.Hope this makes sense?

[Wadey 4]

Thats a good question, I have not fished it for a while but yes you can anchor up in the RIP well just at the very start of it pretty much level with the light house. Be awhere if you do get it to hold it not that easy to get it back up . The last time I did it i didnt have the anchor winch and it took the three of us with the boat in reverse to lift it from the mud not fun . I have witnessed lots of boats having this trouble but in general yes you can anchor in the RIP like you said at the bottom of the run of in the dodge tides as there is still water movment there . Oh and i reckon its only around the 90 foot mark .

[wishing2Bfishing 0]

yea we normally try to fish roughly just out from the lighthouse, i try to fish the edge or just in the rip rather than smack bang in the middle so it varies from around 50ft thru to about 90ft. i reckon that i might try a grapnel anchor next time and see how that goes, i have pulled up all sorts of coral looking stuff on both my snapper lines and also my anchor so maybe that will hold better...i shall try and post how i go. i like that idea about marking distance on the anchor rope, i think i am going to try that.

[ScaleyTom 19]

I very rarely catch fish in the rip on the drift. I find they feed on tide changes much more aggressively. I've caught a hell of a lot of snapper there, 99% at anchor, on tide change or dodge tides.Get an anchor that works if you want to fish the rip with more success. I even burley the bottom.

[wishing2Bfishing 0]

cheers Scaley Tom, thats what i thought, all the snapper i have got in there have been on the tide change as well. what sort of anchor do u have?

[ScaleyTom 19]

I've got a 14 foot tinny so im lucky in that way, easy to hold. I use a grapnel or reef pick. I've used sand anchors and even the tinny pulls them through the bottom.A mate of mine has an 18 foot nureus and a large grapnel has no problems holding his boat.

[Squidly720 0]

Can you cast out far enough from the shore? the only time i went there it was blowing a gale right in my face.

[wishing2Bfishing 0]

i dont reckon u could cast out from shore to the rip but there are quite a few productive locations to try for snapper landbased around the area. if u go down cuttlefish drive just pick a spot that u think looks good and u will be in with a chance. the most well known spot is of course Black Point, that is where i generally try for Snapper landbased and have had some success there, if u want to catch a landbased snapper that is where i would go if i were u