Manual Power Pole

Old Jabbo and I purchased a 14' jon boat late last year. In the "fix r up" process, I've thought about how cool it would be to anchor the boat in shallow areas with a Power Pole. As most of you know, however, Power Poles run $1,500+. The next best thing seemed to be a manual pole anchor stick. I looked at Stick It Anchor Pins, Cajun Shallow Water Anchors and 2-3 more... All systems run $180 - $300.

After doing some research, I ran across a website showing how to build your own for about $50. Have any of you guys ever thought about this or bulit one of these? If you're interested, see the following... [url]http://www.learntocatchcatfish.com/diy-shallow-water-anchors[/url]

This design looks like it would work really well.

Made my own for my kayak & love it.
River Basser
Terry Adolph:cool:

Thats really cool and a neat and different idea, but i mean if you have to go through all that trouble to make it and make a loop for it to go through in your boat hull and everything doesnt that kinda defeat the purpose of a "power pole" type anchor? Because those are more or less for quick "hit a button" and let it do its job type anchors. So if you have to get up and slide it through the hole and stick it in the ground and tie it, wouldnt it just be as easy to use like a grabber anchor? But none the less its a very cool idea and i might still me making one haha :D

I built my own. I used solid Al. .5 tube and .5 PVC. Sand the tube into an point, then inserted into the PVC with JB Weld all through and mainly on the point and butt end. Then added a PVC elbow for the handle.

I use two tube style rod holders to put the tubes through.

Hey Duayne, how long did you make it? Did you JB Weld the alum pc just to the bottom? How long was the alum pc?... I like your thought process on that build.

I've done something similar on a duck boat - comes in handy in shallow water and stabilizes the boat. We just made some sleeves out of pipe, one or two sizes bigger than the pipe we used for our spike pole, and bolted them to the sides. We made our spike poles a little longer as we tend to have to anchor in really soft silty mud that takes a good bit of pole to hit something hard.

I used an 8 ft Al rod. I started with an 8 ft pvc but cut part of it away to allow for the point. I focused most of the JB weld on the ends. On the point end, I used it to make up the difference between the inner and outer diameter of the PVC, so the end wasn't exposed. Think of the JB Weld making the point continue to the width of the PVC. Just let me know if I'm not explaining myself well and I'll try again.

I went 8 ft due to the deep banks of Cumberland. If I were going to make it for a more shallow lake, I might would go 6 ft.

I got the properties I wanted from this combination. The rod can't bend far enough to crimp and the rod gives the PVC internal strength not to break. They don't look like much but I didn't build them to look good.

Rods are 15 before shipping here.

[url]http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?pid=7684&step=4&showunits=inches&id=288&top_cat=60[/url]

PVC=cheap. JB Weld, laying around. Already had the removable rod holders and just mounted two bases where I wanted them so the holders could be verticle.

I wouldn't use them in good winds but that's the case with most (all?) of them.

Let me know if I can provide more info for ya.

On my little john boat that we used to put on the Salt River we had one called "tie us off to that tree limb!" It wasn't perfect, but it worked and was cheap too! :)

Thanks, Duayne! I fully understand what you described. Sounds like a great build!

Do you put this through a tube rod holder? Metal or pvc? I've seen this done a couple of different ways... Thanks!

Looks like these things are getting more popular with bass fishermen. Tackle Warehouse just added these to their website for sale... [url]http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Dig_In_Shallow_Water_Anchors/catpage-DIGIN.html[/url]

I put mine through Scotty PVC tube holders. It isn't something I would use alone on a windy day, but My boat weighs in at 2500 #s wet. The smaller the boat, the more I would use them on windy days.