Mprdoc66

I have an STS10 and if I was missing an arm it wouldn’t take me an hour to set up and that’s with a trolling motor and a fish finder. It’s takes me maybe 20 minutes and that’s if I’m not trying hard. I had a kayak to fish with before I got the STS10 and the 10 is just better then a ‘yak. A yak is not easy to store. Its a giant 10-15 foot long chunk of plastic so unless you have a significant amount of room in a garage then it’s a pain. Not to mention if you want to do anything before or after fishing you have a nice expensive mass produced and easy to sell object strapped to your roof. I’m also a shorter dude, so putting one on and off the roof of a car is huge PIA and if you throw one in the bed of a truck you have several feet sticking out the back. The trick with any inflatable is to get a good electric pump with it. The two stage one sea eagle sells let’s me fully inflate the STS 10 in less then 10 minutes, probably more like five. If you’re standing there with a foot or hand pump it’s obviously going to take forever to set up which I assume is what the people saying it takes an hour or two are doing. The floor can be a ***** to get settled but it gets easier each time you use it as it breaks in. I put both my daughters in mine - 7 and 4 - and take them out fishing and haven’t had any significant issues (other then the standard fishing with kids issues) with space. It could be a bit cramped with two adults and says a medium size cooler and tackle boxes but it wouldn’t be unworkable. I also fly fish, and having that stability to cast is miles ahead of any kayak that isn’t a full on dedicated fishing kayak which are more expensive then an STS ten and heavy. Not to mention that fly casting sitting in a kayak sucks also. the only thing I’d say is that launching it is a bit more of a hassle then a SOT kayak, and the oars that come with it are not awesome if you plan on doing any rowing. I do miss my kayak in some situations though, but I don’t think I’d ever go back to a kayak aside from very specific situations like saltwater flats where you really want that skinny water access.