| OCTOBER 2008 -- Fly Fishing for False Albacore from the Osceola | |
| We at Native Watercraft have designed a stand up paddle board for fishing. As with most of our designs, we started out to create a board thinking that if it provided a successful platform for fly fishing, it would also provide a successful platform for other types of fishing. We also wanted to follow the Native American technique of designing or building watercraft that can be paddled or poled efficiently and effectively. I hear people talking about the sport of kayak fishing like it was really something new. I recently read a statement in a nationally published saltwater magazine by an experienced fishing writer that "kayaks were not designed to fish off shore waters." I guess nobody has informed the Eskimos about this: fishing from kayaks has been a way of life since people started depending on various watercrafts to survive. When you are sight fishing, you have to see the fish before you can cast to them. When you are sitting down paddling in shallow water you literally miss an entire world. Standing up to pole or paddle creates a tremendous advantages in shallow water fishing because you can see fish and fish holding structures much more efficiently. Native American boats evolved by trial and error to cope with the water and weather conditions of particular users' geographical regions. The best features survived over the years and were used more broadly. Paddling a standard stand up paddle board showed us that it was not suited for fly fishing (or for that matter, most other kinds of shallow water fishing) because the bow entry makes them very noisy in any kind of chop or wave action. We therefore moved toward a design with a sharper entry that would be very quiet. We wanted it to be very stable as a fishing platform but it also had to perform well as a recreational stand up paddle board. While conducting our research about traditional boats used by Native Americans we discovered that the Seminoles in the Florida Everglades generally stood up to pole or paddle their dugout canoes. Some of the versions were very shallow, with sides not much thicker than a surfboard. We decided to design our stand up paddle board with a concave deck similar to the shallow Seminole dugout. |
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| The resulting design offered some unanticipated benefits. The concave deck 1) lowered your center of gravity and provided a lateral surface on which to brace your feet, adding a surprising amount of stability and maneuverability; and 2) provided a |  |
| stripping basket for your fly line to keep it from washing or blowing overboard. We left an opening in the stern to allow water to exit from the deck's surface. After addressing the hull, the major part of the design, we customized the board for specific types of fisheries and making it more angler-friendly by adding rod holders, bungee systems, lash points and other accessories, all of which can be removed to go paddling. |  |
| The Osceola Stand up Paddle Board is extremely versatile. I have found that I can fish sitting side saddle on the board with my legs hanging over the side, and if I am fly fishing I can strip my fly line right on deck beside me. In shallow water, I can sit side saddle or |  |
| even straddle the board with my feet on the bottom and maneuver myself into position, or hold myself into position very easily. I can fish from a kneeling position if conditions are particularly windy or rough. I have been both using the Osceola for shallow water inshore fishing and paddling it for pleasure and exercise. My English Field Cocker Dixie loves to ride on the bow doing her own kind of sight fishing: the only problem with this is that she sometimes gets carried away and laterally projects her whole body after a fish she sees. Recently, I decided to test the versatility of the Osceola and went offshore in search of False Albacore with a fly rod. The conditions that day were somewhat less than ideal with extremely rough and confused seas, caused by strong southeasterly winds and an opposing strong tide. The board handled the conditions better than I expected, and I managed to catch some False Albacore, a testament to the versatility of the Osceola. In reflection, I believe that the Seminoles would have better sense than to be out in those conditions, but the Hawaiians from the same period would probably have been right at home. |
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JIMBO'S WATERLOG
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