I'm still working on outfitting my "new" boat. I bought a small grapple type anchor which looks pretty inadequate. My boat is a 17'5" Tracker with a 90hp motor. I have only used it at Utah Lake but intend to branch out to other area lakes. What type and size/weight anchor would be good? Any advice you could share would be appreciated.
SPOT LOCK is the best, if its cconected to a rope a 10lbs should hold good, if you start slipping its probaly time to go, depending on the bite.
I have a Danforth Fluke anchor on my boat that works well in soft or sandy bottoms and moderate currents, I also have a Columbia River anchor that works great in hard clay or large rocks/shale areas and heavy currents. Both anchors have a slip ring so you can go forward from where you dropped it and pull it out if it gets stuck, the key with anchors is to have 6-8' of chain between your rope and anchor so that the anchor bites into the bottom and then letting out enough rope so that wave action is not lifting the anchor up
(04-21-2020, 05:33 AM)catchinon Wrote: [ -> ]I'm still working on outfitting my "new" boat. I bought a small grapple type anchor which looks pretty inadequate. My boat is a 17'5" Tracker with a 90hp motor. I have only used it at Utah Lake but intend to branch out to other area lakes. What type and size/weight anchor would be good? Any advice you could share would be appreciated.
Craig, another adage my Navy uncles and Merchant Marine dad taught me, "there is no such thing as too much rope on a boat" For most of the waters here in Utah a standard length of 100 foot anchor rope works well, unless you plan to drop anchor in somewhere deeper like the water near the dam at East Canyon, then you better have 300 to 400 feet of rope and a winch to bring it back up 
. The boaters courses I have seen on line say you need rope 3 times in length of the water depth. Maybe that is for larger vessels or deeper water, but on waters like UL or WB in my 14 footer, I drop the anchor and play out enough rope till I feel the anchor "bite" into the bottom which is mostly sand or mud. My Danforth anchor has 6 feet of rubber coated chain attached to it, then 100 feet of 1/2 inch braided nylon rope. So far works quite well. I had a 20 lb river anchor I tried to use at the back of the boat to reduce the "boat swing" back and forth. But it was so darn 
heavy when it got full of mud, it sometimes took 2 of us to pull it back up. So I took it out of the boat.
I do have 3 spare 100 ft. hanks of rope on the boat to use for whatever. One I have wrapped around 2 cleats under the transom I keep, and have used several times to tow someone back to the dock, one is on the opposite side of the bow wrapped on 2 cleats to use when I need to tie off the boat somewhere there isn't a dock close by, like at bear River, and 3rd one is stowed in my dry box as a "just in case". keeping a small coil of smaller rope or cordage like paracord is a good idea too. Any number of possible uses.
Thanks, Forest, that is very helpful information.