an anchoring system for a perforating gun is disclosed which supports the gun from above . the anchor can be run in with conventional tools and is settable in the wellbore by pressurizing the wellbore . upon increasing pressure in the wellbore , the anchor sets the position of the gun by extending slips into the casing or wellbore . a running tool is disclosed which , upon further increase in pressure , disengages the running tool from the anchor . in the preferred embodiment , a detonating mechanism is lowered into the anchor by a slick line and the slick line is removed . thereafter , further increase in the wellbore pressure sets off the detonator which shoots the gun . the pressure developed from setting off the detonator is the force that releases the slips from the casing or wellbore allowing the entire assembly to drop to the bottom of the wellbore after the gun is fired . the invention also discloses a method and apparatus for manually releasing the anchor and allowing the gun and anchor assembly to drop to the bottom of the wellbore if , for some reason , the gun and anchor assembly have not earlier dropped during the firing of the gun , or if the gun has misfired . in an alternative embodiment , the gun is held to the anchor so that subsequent to firing it does not drop . in this embodiment , a retrieval tool is used to release the slips allowing retrieval of the anchor and gun assembly .