This is a odd one...

Recently I've been reading "In pursuit of giant bass" by Bill Murphy and he goes into great detail with system anchoring vs the run and gun trolling motor approach for stalking trophy bass. Seeing as how I'll try just about anything to stalk a 10+lber, I thought I'd give this a try over the next couple of months outside of tournaments and concentrate on deep water structure (10 feet and deeper). The book goes into detail as to a home made anchor design by welding scrap together (which is exactly the design that I would like to use) however I don't know how to weld. I guess it's the only time where I wish I had taken shop class in high school instead of computers.

So here's the question.

a. The home made approach: Where exactly would someone like myself (located in Sunnyvale -- near San Jose) find a place to make a custom anchor for my boat. What type of shop would I look for to make this custom anchor? Or does anyone local on this board want to do a side job and make some extra money?

b. The go out and buy something approach: If I choose not to do the custom anchor approach, what type of anchor would everyone recommend. I went to West Marine and felt as though the guy behind the counter has never personally seen the pro's/con's of a mushroom vs river vs grapling anchor as I'm looking for something to cover multiple situations.

Basically I'm going to try system anchoring with two anchors (front and back) in deeper water at Coyote, Anderson, Calero, Del Valle, etc. These are not river situations and tend to have a bottom composition similar to Clearlake (a mix of mud, rock, weeds, etc).

What type of anchor should I purchase, how much rope is needed, etc. Does anyone else use an anchor system on this board in a similar way?

I would prefer to go the custom anchor approach as the design in this book will definately hold in number situations, however I may not have that option.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Vince
vince@theblankslate.com