diff --git a/lib/searchkick/query.rb b/lib/searchkick/query.rb
index 7226312..71364f0 100644
--- a/lib/searchkick/query.rb
+++ b/lib/searchkick/query.rb
@@ -995,8 +995,20 @@ module Searchkick
           warn "[searchkick] Regular expressions are always anchored in Elasticsearch"
         end
 
-        # remove \A and \z
-        source = source.sub(/\\A/, "").sub(/\\z\z/, "")
+        # TODO handle other anchor characters, like ^, $, \Z
+        if source.start_with?("\\A")
+          source = source[2..-1]
+        else
+          # TODO uncomment in future release
+          # source = ".*#{source}"
+        end
+
+        if source.end_with?("\\z")
+          source = source[0..-3]
+        else
+          # TODO uncomment in future release
+          # source = "#{source}.*"
+        end
 
         {regexp: {field => {value: source, flags: "NONE"}}}
       else
diff --git a/test/where_test.rb b/test/where_test.rb
index ef196e1..15c0cbc 100644
--- a/test/where_test.rb
+++ b/test/where_test.rb
@@ -91,12 +91,21 @@ class WhereTest < Minitest::Test
     assert_search "*", ["Product <A>"], where: {name: /\APro.+<.+\z/}
   end
 
-  # regular expressions are always anchored in ES
   def test_regexp_not_anchored
     store_names ["abcde"]
+    # regular expressions are always anchored right now
+    # TODO change in future release
     assert_search "*", [], where: {name: /abcd/}
+    assert_search "*", [], where: {name: /bcde/}
     assert_search "*", ["abcde"], where: {name: /abcde/}
+    assert_search "*", ["abcde"], where: {name: /.*bcd.*/}
+  end
+
+  def test_regexp_anchored
+    store_names ["abcde"]
     assert_search "*", ["abcde"], where: {name: /\Aabcde\z/}
+    assert_search "*", [], where: {name: /\Abcd/}
+    assert_search "*", [], where: {name: /bcd\z/}
   end
 
   def test_regexp_case
--
libgit2 0.21.0