Hobie Sport

Hi,
 New to the forum, and sport. Looking at getting my first fishing kayak and need some advice. I want to get a Hobie as I like "hands free" for fishing. I'm limited as to storage. An Outback would be my preferred rig but at 12'1 is pushing it. Anyone done any fishing from a Sport? I'm smallish, about 5'6", 150#. I don't want to use it offshore. I' d be using it mainly for Salmon in the spring/fall on the Columbia/Willamette.
 Any issues with mounting a fish finder as the kayak would be cramped and wondering if fin turbulence would be an issue. Not many places in front of the fins to place a FF.
   Thanks

You might be surprised at how small the Sport really is, I know I was.  Not many people do a lot of serious fishing with it as a result.  If you really want to see if it will work though, call Next Adventure and setup a demo.  Another small boat to look into is the Revo 11.  It's a little bigger but still is pretty small. 

One of our members from TX (upnorthtex) rocked his Hobie Sport to second place in the ORC last year.  That's a bottom fishing tournament out in Depoe Bay.  I'd say that yak worked well enough in the big blue.  He did get a demo set of turbo fins for it, and IIRC he said they made a huge difference for the better.

Anyway, I have no personal experience to offer.  Just that one anectodal piece of evidence.

Oh yeah, Welcome to the Cure!

Have you looked at the Revo 11? Its smaller than the Outback, but offers more storage in the boat. As many people will suggest demo, demo, demo before committing to a kayak. The Outback may be a better fit, especially if you have the garage/shed space to store it.

Have you looked at the Revo 11? Its smaller than the Outback, but offers more storage in the boat. As many people will suggest demo, demo, demo before committing to a kayak. The Outback may be a better fit, especially if you have the garage/shed space to store it.

+1. The Revo 13 even is a lot easier to handle than the outback. The outback is wide and hard to get a good grip on compared to the outback. You might be surprised how easy a revo 11 or 13 is to handle. You might want to hit the Ocean now, but most people get bit by the Salt bug before too long.

The Sport has worked well for me as it is lite and short , 9'6", I've fished it in salt bays, the Pacific, theGulf of Mexico, I've caught some respectable fish with it. It is more stable than a revo, tho it doesn't have the room. I would seriously try bigger boats before buying. No problem making any mods you'd want on a Sport. Living up there you will eventually wind up on the salt. Art

I was pretty convinced I was gonna get a Sport - I had a short 10 foot sit inside kayak when I first started kayaking that I hauled all the time, loved it - even carried it upstairs to my apartment.  However, I was also only on a very mild, never windy lake in Texas where it was never cold

Since then I've had a couple kayaks that were around the 12-13 foot range, and seldom took them out because they were a pain to get anywhere (too long, too heavy).

A couple weeks ago I went down to Next Adventure to pick up a Sport, but after sitting in it, it was really uncomfortable - I, uh, take up a little more room, but still, it seemed overly cramped.

I tried loading the Revo 11 in my SUV and was surprised - being a SOT it was about half the height of the kayak I was replacing, and weighed about 15 pounds less - and having the wheels that have holes built in made it to where I didn't really need to lift it anyway.  I've taken it out on Lake Washington a couple times now, and am *very* glad I didn't go with the Sport.

Not to say it's a bad boat, but like the others have said, at least try them both out  

Thanks for all the feedback. I haven't tried the revo 11 so that may be an option. I'll check with Next Adventure on a demo.