Need river anchor

First day out fishing today with my “new” 1968 Alumacraft on the Wolf. Anchored on a corner to cast for bass. Had to cut the anchor rope after trying for 15 minutes from all angles to get the anchor back in. What a pain. Any suggestions on a good river anchor?  I plan to spend most of my time on the Wolf as it is just down the road from me. Thanks in advance. 

That being the Wolf River, I assume you were stuck on rocks, so an old-fashioned window weight that "drops straight into the mud" is probably not quite the right approach.  Any anchor that's designed to dig-in will have some chance of getting "hooked" on a large boulder and never coming up again. 

One good and highly recoverable anchor I've seen is home-built.  It's a cylinder of concrete, roughly one foot tall and half a foot in diameter (you could use PVC pipe for the mold).  Install four or six spikes, embedded in the concrete, that stick out sideways from the TOP of the cylinder, and install an eye for your rope in the center of the top.

This weighs about 18 pounds (similar to a typical Navy anchor), and it grips well on a hard bottom once it's tipped on its side by a slight sideways pull on the line, but when you go to pull it in, it tips back rightside-up, simply withdrawing the spikes straight out of the bottom, and so it won't end up snagged.  You might need just a little more angle on your rope than with an anchor that's designed to bury itself if you have a very big boat and the wind is strong, but for most conditions it works as well as you'll need.

Of course, any anchor can still get stuck if it gets dragged into a tight space between boulders or between the branches of a submerged tree.  Heavier anchors are less likely to drag and end up in such places.

One of the best anchors you can use if you can find one is a window weight used in early homes. Fishing a river they sink straight down into the mud and easy to clean off when pulled out. You might find some at flea markets or junk yards.

navy anchor with 3ft of vinyl coated chain, or richter anchor,  I prefer the navy anchor, I fish the WI River and it's sometimes heavy current

I fish the Wi river and it’s flowages a lot and have found this to work the best.  I haven’t lost it with many years of use. Richter anchor. 

Minnkota Terrova.  Spot Lock is awesome!!

roloff anchor

this is probably what most people use and yes youll lose one occasionally
I often use 2 anchors. face the boat into the current and drop one from each side of the front end