meh

ahem ahem

If you are in shallow water you can use a stakeout stick to solve this problem.

what a bunch of whiners..."gee, I can't cast sitting down"...bla bla bla...get over it. You CAN cast sitting down and your don't have stand up (and risk taking a swim in the best of Yaks). Float Tubes are great, inexpensive and easily carried...but use them only in the smaller lakes or slower rivers. I'm not sure I'd want to be out, too far, in Texoma in a float tube, but for the LBJ Grasslands lakes, PERFECT. Now, kayaks. SOT is the only way to go. SIS are for the river/fast water folks, not for fishing. SIS generally do not have the carrying capacity or amenities that a fly fisher would like to have while on the water. Pick your brand - Native is good. Hobie is also good (I know, I have one). There are several other great brands of SOTs that can be had for near $300 and up. Length (equals weight, generally) and the longer, the more expensive. The Native drives and the Hobie Mirage setup is great. Both work wonderfully and leave you free hands to fish. A useful addition to any Yak is a drift anchor to slow down the rate of drift from your target. Inexpensive ($20+). If all else fails, drop a small anchor or stake out stick (if the water is shallow enough)

heres another option:

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores...prodDescription
I dont know nuthin about 'em but I read some good reviews of these moderately priced kayaks

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores...015000_225-15-0

david cole and pastor joshua pretty much said most of what i would tell you. david saying basically: learn to cast and you don't need to stand up; learn to kayak and you don't have a lot of the problems mentioned in this thread. i especially love the "no good in the wind." that's all a matter of skill level, both with paddling and fly fishing. sorry...but true.

and unless you're doing rivers and saltwater some, i have to agree with pastor joshua about the boat choice for a fly fisherman in texas. i've used almost every type of boat known to man except noah's ark over the years due to my good fortune in the outdoor industry as a wingshooting outfitter and angler "from birth." my paternal grandfather built smallboats as a side job and was a commercial fisherman when laid off from the railroad. my maternal grandfather was an avid outdoorsman. so it began. i encountered my first boat of the type pj pointed you to at age 12 in east texas. it had a permanent trolling motor mounted under the stern, stick-steering, stick throttle, battery under the bow cowling to trim the boat out when you sat in it. you could easily stand on the gunwale of this thing without swamping it - let alone capsizing it. it drafted about 1-2" of water fully loaded and the trolling motor propeller cleared at about 5-6". a small paddle would tuck under the gunwale completely out of the way. at 12 years old and about 135 lbs, i could easily carry the thing on my shoulder for short distances. install a small bilge pump, and you could go just about anywhere anytime except across open water during wind advisories...which is stupid for any pwc and most jonboats. the deck is flat and there are no seams in the boat. nothing to catch a fly line that you didn't bring with you. all i ever needed to fish all day out of this boat was one of those stadium chairs with the folding back rest on it. and you take it out to duck hunt out of it so you can lay back and use it as a layout boat. frankly, i'd look for the ones as i described and not the ones show in this thread with the externally mounted trolling motor.

but if your heart is set on a kayak so that you can be part of the in crowd (i have one and love mine) and you're gonna use it mostly for texas lakes, you're gonna want something that paddles and tracks very well so that you don't have to work yourself to death getting there and back. that's the right kind of boat for lakes. guess what? a canoe is the best option for that! so in kayaks, you need to look at the hybrid boats like the native ultimate. look at their new 12.5 footer. and right now they're blowing out their inventory at heart of texas kayaks in grapevine. they're closing the store.

Something I definitely need to add to my equipment. I've learned to take an anchor no matter what, so that helps with position too.

Malibu stealth

[img:center][/img]

http://www.diablopaddlesports.com/ Fast and maneuverable. Hybrid boat meant to stand on.

Get some PVC pipe and cut one end at a 45 degree angle, Drill some holes in the other end, put a rope through the holes and you have yourself a stakeout stick.

Diablo boats are nice but pricey. Jonboat looks intriguing but I don't have storage space for one. I think I'll get a Native ... eventually.

Thanks to everyone,

J.

My scupper holes are really small, so I'll have to work on some options for that.


I guess I'll keep my opinions to myself so I don't get accused of being a whiner by people on the internet that whine about people whining.

Kayak is a good and cheap way to get off the bank to fish or to move from one unproductive bank to the next unproductive bank is my experience . Fishing from a 'yak is all good once you get how to move it and how to anchor it. I never had any issues with casting. I can decorate any tree with carefully hand tied flies whether standing on the ground of floating in a water craft!

I actually prefer a Wilderness Commander to the Natives, but since the title of the thread specifically mentioned what Type of craft, I'd just go with the 'hybrid kayak' design. You can stand, (helps with seeing those tails, trust me), you can pole them, you can paddle them, enter and exit easily, and generally put them to work under a wide range of circumstances. What you Don't want to do is take them into the surf. Word to the wise.

And if we can't laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?

Someone once wrote, "There is a fine line between fly fishing
and just standing in the water looking like an idiot."

I've crossed that line a few times.