bright colored fishing kayaks...spooky?

[ducktrooper]

I'm seriously considering getting an Ocean Malibu Tandem Kayak for flyfishing mostly tailwaters in Arkansas. My concern is they only come in orange or yellow....will that spook trout in shallow water when casting 15-30 ft away.

Thanks.

[xjguy07]

i dont think it will, but i'm no expert on the fish. i mean hell ppl fish in bright colored shirts and do fine.

[Frank Whiton]

Hi ducktrooper,

I don't know the answer but here is a little information.

The Chestnut Canoe company was the leader in wood/canvas canoes in Canada and probably in the world. In their prime they had the best square stern freighter canoes ever made. They did a study on colors of canoes and determined that their flat, light green was the best color to not scare fish. You could always paint the bottom. I was lucky and got one of their canoes right after they went out of business in 1979. It was the greatest fishing boat I ever owned for Alaska.

A little more history. The forms used to build the Chestnut's were split up between an Indian tribe and someone else. A couple was later able to obtain the forms and are making canoes on the original Chestnut forms. The square stern freighter canoes were more of a boat than a canoe. I had a 35hp jet on the back of my 20 footer. The army had a training camp on a river and they used 24 footers to take the troops to the camp. They use 45hp prop motors.

I have a picture of my boat around here someplace and will try to post it.

Frank

[BigCliff]

Fish see color differently than we do, but both of those will be fairly visible to them. I would say to go with the orange over the yellow, given that it should be slightly darker, and is closer to the first color that disappears underwater. (red, though I'm not exactly sure that applies on a 8' deep fish looking up to the surface)

On a separate note, I'd recommend getting 2 regular kayaks instead of a tandem. Tandem kayaks build relationships about as well as wallpapering, and generally aren't much use if only one person wants to put it to use. The only exception to the latter would be one that has a third seat in the middle designed to be used when there's only one person in the boat. And even then, it'll still be a heavy item to manhandle by yourself.