Deep Water Anchor Reel

I have a small dive reel that holds approximately 90m of 2mm cord which I use as my anchor reel. The photo below shows my current setup.

Due to the fairly strong tides that are experienced in the area that I tend to frequent, that tends to limit my maximum fishing depth to around 20-25m. That’s working on the theory that I let out three times the depth in anchor warp once the anchor has touched bottom. I.e, if I’m anchoring in 20m of water, I’ll let out an additional 60m to ensure I hold bottom in a strong tide. That’s 80m of warp for anchoring in 20m of water.

Most of my fishing takes place in 5-20m of water so my current setup has always proved more than adequate. However, in the summer I had an opportunity to fish the deep water lochs of Scotland in an attempt to catch a common skate. That trip didn’t materialise in the end, though I did prepare fully, which resulted in me producing an anchor reel suitable for deep water anchoring.

I’ve seen several setups over the past few months to cater for deep water anchoring, none of which seemed totally ideal, though they did what the owner required.

There was an article on a forum in which someone had purchased an electric fence reel for this very purpose. On the face of it, it seemed just about perfect, my only reservations being the all plastic construction of the item shown. Sure, it’s great for corrosion resistance, though I felt what with aging over time, and being under stress, it would eventually fail. However, the idea was still pretty sound, so I did a little more research and came up with a similar reel, albeit constructed a little heavier.

The spool is plastic and 8” in diameter and holds almost 300m of 2mm cord, suitable for all situations I intend to put myself in. There’s a locking brakes on the side, chunky enough to use with gloves and the reel locks solid. The bracket is steel, though plated to resist against corrosion. I stripped the reel and coated all the spindle and associated parts in a copper grease to give some lubrication whilst preventing corrosion in the long term.

One area of concern was the spool itself, or to be more precise, the lack of a line guide of some description. I felt that with the reel in the water, there was potential for line to spool off over the side and that would be far from ideal.

I visited the local supermarket and purchased a cheap stainless steel potato masher. After drilling out a couple of spot welds, removing the mashing head and then welding on a stainless ring from the local chandlers… I had a line guide. This was bolted onto the reel using the existing fittings.

I added some padding to the bracket in the form of a few layers of string, over the top of that I added some heavy duty heat shrink tubing. This had the result of producing a reasonably comfortable handgrip. Time will tell how this fares.

To the hand grip I added 4m of floating rope (removing the existing knurled knob left a perfect attachment point). This can be threaded through the ring on the anchor trolley and tied with a slip knot to the kayak lifting handle adjacent to the seat. A quick pull and the kayak is released from the anchor, leaving the whole setup in the water, though supported by the buoy to allow easy recovery to the anchor as required.

Adding up the coast of the reel, warp, rope, anchor, buoy, etc, the whole setup cost around £40, which I consider pretty good value!. Ok, it’s something that’s rarely going to be used, though it’s there ready to go should the need arise.

Bristol Channel - Best day fishing ever ?

Well after yesterdays bonanza, I met up with Jim and headed off to fish a new mark east of Watchet in the Bristol Channel. Unlike the glorious weather of yesterday, today was very overcast, though the wind was light and the fishing conditions were as good as you could hope for.

Watchet

We dropped anchor a couple of hours before high water, the tide was still running, though not particularly strong. I fished two rods, both with pennel rigs on a running ledger, 6/0 hooks to 80lb mono. One baited with double squid, the other with a full side of mackerel.

Unlike yesterday where the flood failed to produce, I only had to wait five minutes today before the rod tip bent over, a decent thornback ray being the result.

It was then only a matter of minutes before the conger eel started to make an appearance. I found I’d finish re-baiting and cast, out only for the other rod to start nodding. By high water I’d had five conger to about 20lb and two rays to 8lb 2oz (those I’m happy to weigh!)

Now normally I’d expect slack water to be absolutely dead, however, the fish just kept coming. For a short period of time I was fishing a wind over tide situation which resulted in the baits being below the yak, not a way I like to fish unless the water is deep.

The mackerel rod produced a couple of firm taps so I tightened up, striking into the next firm pull. The rod went heavy and the fish took line steadily, there was little I could do. Several times it came 3-4m off the bottom only to plunge down again. Eventually it came under the yak, and I saw my first glimpse, it was huge!. I’ve never seen a head so large, a real brute. It was only just lip hooked, hanging on by a thread. I didn’t know what to do, though I wanted a decent photo so I gloved up and tried to bring it out from under the yak (the 6lb outfit didn’t offer and assistance!). Just when I thought I had a chance of getting it out for a decent photo it made a plunge. I couldn’t let go quickly enough and the hook pulled free…. GUTTED!, obscenities filled the air!

The fishing never stopped, again I was fishing two rods, though despite keeping them spread and fishing the baits at different distances, I still managed a couple of bad tangles. Large conger being the culprit on both occasions. Braid was cut as the eels had wrapped themselves up good and proper Despite the loss of tackle it was the only way to release the fish quickly, unharmed. The photo below is actually one of the 'smaller' fish, a decent double all the same.

As the sun set the weather started to deteriorate, though it was still fishable, and we were still catching. The wind lifted to 15knots, gusting 20knots from the south west and the swell grew considerably.. oh, and it started to rain steadily. Despite all of this, it was still great being out there.

I hooked into something decent, I was hoping it was another big eel. I could do absolutely nothing with it, it kept taking line and then just hung in the tide. The tide as this point was pulling hard on the ebb, around 3 knots. After 15 minutes of being unable to get any line back onto the reel I decided to unclip the anchor and get myself on top of the fish. This changed the game totally and I soon had to fish to the surface. It turned out to be a cracking thornback of 11lb which had clearly being ‘kiting’ in the tide to great effect.

 

Apologies for the lousy photos, I’m still using the camera phone until I can retrieve mine from home this weekend, plus the sea state was getting rather heavy.

I’d drifted a few hundred yards during this time. It was dark, raining, and the swell was as bad as anything I’ve yet paddled in. I headed back towards Jim and made for my anchor point using the GPS. At one stage I was thrown of balance by a large wave coming up behind the yak at a 45 degree angle to the stern. A bit un-nerving, though I stayed on just fine.

I just couldn’t find the yellow anchor buoy. The heavy rain being swept by the wind made my powerful headlamp rather ineffective. After 5-10 minutes of looking I’d resigned myself to the fact the tide must have pulled the whole lot under. At the point of giving up I spotted it so I made a bee line for it. Retrieving it in the heavy swell and tide was a bit tricky, it really didn’t help when it wrapped around the rudder!!. Not wanting to hang about I left the loop around the rudder, dragged the rest on board and paddled towards the launch point.

Bar a few waves coming over the side, the front hatch going under water on a few occasions, the return was uneventful!

So what was the final tally?. About a dozen conger, a couple around 20lb and the biggie that I reckon was around 40lb. Five thornback ray ranging between 5-11lb. In total I reckon I must of had around 150lb of fish in a four hour session, no complaints!