> Am just beginning to look at kayaks for salt water fly fishing
> in the intra coastal waterway areas along the central Florida coast.
> Have no prior experience with kayaks. Any suggestions on what to look
> for in length, hull design, etc. Any help would be most appreciated.
>

Go for something conservative in design. Think width and depth rather then length.

A design that offers a large cockpit will give you ample space to store your gear, and you'll have access without having to go through hatches. On the other hand, a small cockpit means you are going to drop an angry fish in your lap when you haul it aboard. I hear there are barracuda in those waters.

a large cockpit makes rolling more of a challenge, but you are not likely to want to do eskimo rolls. The first one you do will give your catch ample opportunity to swim home.

A design for racing will be long and pointy. They have a small entrance angle and are narrow. This is the opposite of what you want. Look at boats that widen close to the front and stay wide well past the middle of the boat and then rather abruptly come to a point at the stern. This will give you a lot of useable area in the middle of the boat. Boats like this are frequently used with two paddlers, so maybe you should look at a short double.

By all theories I've read, a round-bottom hull should be too ``tippy'' for your use. Those theories suggest a boat with a flatter bottom. You may want to try out some commercial boats of different hull crosssection to see if you are comfortable with a round hull. My experience with round hulls has been very pleasant. There was a learning curve, though. Once I got used to the idea that it would constantly find a good balance and I developed a trust in the hull design, everything was all right. My final conversion came while crossing a large lake, with big waves, on a windy day. The boat was loaded to it's maximum load, and still bobbed like a cork.

If you think you will sometime have to stand while casting, or to retrieve a line caught in an overhead branch, you may feel more comfortable with a hull that has a flatter bottom.

Take a look at the hull of a Klepper. It has a flat bottom, the sides come up in a wide `V` and the air-filled sponsons can make it a bit wider. These things have a long-standing reputation for stability. While you are looking at the Klepper, check out the size and shape of the cockpit on their doubles. Because of the manner in which the hull skin is attached to the frame their cockpits have long straight sides. Seated in the middle of a cockpit like this you would ghave an uncluttered area on both sides of the boat to cast over, and if a hooked fish swam behind you, you would be able to turn to play it.

While a Klepper has a `hard chine' look due to the fabric being stretched over the skin, if you were looking to match some of those qualities in a home-built stripper, I'd suggest going with a more rounded cross-section by the ends, merging into an almost flat bottomed center.

I'd avoid boats with a sharp `v' shaped hull. I'd worry about them having a deeper draft and limiting my ability to get into shallow areas. Most stitch-and-glues have a v shape hull, but some are wide `v`s and nearly flat while others are sharply pitched `v`s. I'd favor the wide `v`s.

I'd look at a boat with a flat deck. Steeply pitched decks don't have any flat places to set things. If you have a large cockpit then you won't have much of a deck anyway.

Just my opinions. You have to suit yourself and I won't be offended if anyone disagrees, but I hope I've presented some areas for you to think about.

Paul Jacobson

Here's a couple of Kleppers. You can see how the large cockpit of the double would give more room to land a fish.