Peter,

I run a 16' Lund. I have two anchors. My "everyday" anchor is a 25# pyramid drift boat anchor. The other is a Columbia River style anchor that's also about 25#, but has steel claws to dig into sandy silt river bottoms. I mounted an anchor roller on the bow and lower either anchor from it, and then tie off on a cleat.

I had an anchor winch (Cabella's) on my previous boat. It holds about 50' of 3/8" line maximum. The convenient thing about the winch alternative is that I had it mounted just below the port side gunwhale and could drop anchor from my position near the outboard motor, and crank it up from there as well, instead of stepping over the mid-ship seats to do it all from the bow. It needs a couple pulleys mounted along the gunwhale to keep the anchor line out of the way. Maybe I should get another one of those, for the pyramid anchor anyway.

Sg