I want to make a casting platform for my flats boat. In your experience, how high do you need to be in order to see the fish in the flats?

The higher the better ...... But then you have to take into account the height that will still keep the boat stable.

Look at the heights of poling platforms, that is where you see the best when sight fishing. BUT, you wouldn't want it that tall on the front deck.

I used a cooler to stand on, then made a platform a little higher than that so I could put my cooler underneath it.

If you take into account the height of your platform plus the height of the deck your platform rests on, would that put your feet around 4' above the surface of the water? Does that height make a significant difference or would you go a foot higher if you could?

I would probably closer to three, there are times I wish I had an extra foot, other times when it was rough, I wish I never installed the thing, then again mine was pretty small, about the size of a 50 qt cooler.

So if you are standing with your feet around 3' above the waterline, how much difference does that make as far as how well you can see the fish?

3' is better than a foot. I want to say 4-5 foot is best.

Thanks. It seems like with a lot of thing, more is better to a point and then there is a law of diminishing returns. I would expect the same to be true here as well. 1' is better than none, 2' is better than 1', etc, and then you get to a point that the extra foot isn't worth it. You might hit the point where stability is an issue before you get to the best height for vision, but I would want to know the best height for vision and then come down from there.

Somebody also told me that when you get up there the fish can see you before you see them and they spook. What is the general consensus about that?