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This is all just my opinion on the subject. We don't line fish a lot but we do spear fish, (where you can select from the menu ,(lol).
And we are mostly in salt water in swfl and the keys where the distances are huge, and good launch areas are often far and few between. Almost all land is surrounded by bare sand and very shallow water without much to see or catch. Plus in south florida all the shallows get up to 90 plus degrees during the day. We are mostly divers and snorklers and mostly use our TI to get us to interesting destinations where we can see the fish and wildlife (ie... coral reefs, etc). But to each their own.
We have an automatic anchor system on our boat that suspends the anchor above the back of the boat when not in use, the anchor is never removed from the boat. We also have a spool system for the anchor line that keeps the anchor line nice and tidy, (150 ft of 3/8 anchor line when just laid in the boat completely fills the entire boat and becomes a tangled mess quickly). In our case when spear fishing we have about 30 minutes from first kill to when we are surrounded by sharks and have to leave the area. So we have to pull up anchor and move on sometimes 5-10 times a day. Having an easy to deploy automatic anchor systems make it very easy. Keeping the anchor on the forward hatch and the anchor line in a bag is too much work to get out, and when out in open water it's a royal pain to get into any hatches, so if we had an anchor in there we wouldn't use it much. All just my opinion.
Around here we have to contend with tides, the tide is either going in or out, not much in between, we find it pretty difficult to pedal against the tide (exhausting). And with a stock TI in the typical very light winds your sail doesn't help, (it just flops around doing nothing).
Also condition change often with wind shifts where you go out in great wind, then it dies then you have to peddle 5 miles against the current or wind, yea it works but 5 hrs of hard peddling a 1-2 mph can be very exhausting for me anyway. Using the trolling motor for two out of those 5 hrs is great, but once the battery dies your kind of screwed. At one time we had a trolling motor and a pair of 50lb+ batteries, I alway had to have help carrying the batteries from the trunk to the boat. The trolling motor was around 15 lbs and the batteries were over 100 lbs. Sure if you go 2mph the batteris last up to 8 hrs, I can peddle faster than that...
We ended up with small lightweight gas outboards. They get us out to where we want to go (usually 5-10 miles from launch). Once at the destination we tilt them up and peddle/ sail and forget about them. We go thru mangroves, skinny water, and sometimes very shallow water (what kayaks do best), then when it's time to go home we fire the motors and hhead back to launch. The only time the motors are loud and obnoxious is when they are at near wide open throttle. We never run ours like that, 90% of the time the motors are running just above idle and with their underwater exhaust they make no more noise than a torqeedo (pwm squeel). We always have that reserve power available if we need it in an emergency, what we call get out of dodge mode, when a sudden storm comes in (occurs almost daily down here in the summer, almost every afternoon, like clockwork).
Many days we go out and never tilt the outboards down at all, but they remain at the ready in the event of an emergency. Each tank holds 1 liter of fuel which for us is always 2-3 hrs of run time, I can't remember the last time I had to refuel while out on the water (it's been years). Yea I always carry a couple hundred miles worth of fuel on board just in case (2.5 gallons), but have never needed it , we seldom go over 40 miles, and once in a while will do a hundred, but that ends up being a really long and boring day, (sure I like to sail, but not that much, (lol)).
Keep in mind all small outboards are designed to propel a 1500 to 2000 fishing boat to 6 mph for 1 hr run time (the industry standard). Our kayaks are much lighter (mine weighs 230 lbs), and the hulls are very efficient (ours has an 8/1 length/width ratio which makes it very efficient in the water). So we simply don't need all that horsepower to propel the boat. You can easily calculate your horsepower requirements manually or by trial and error. As a perfect example, an evolve or torqeedo 403 puts out 1 hp, and a wot propels the boat to typically 6 mph, (that would be your horsepower requirement (1hp)), actually mine is around 3/4hp for 6 mph). Now you simply lock the throttle at that hp output (which ends up being just above idle), and re- pitch the prop till the boat goes 6mph on flat water with no wind or sails. Unfortunately Honda only makes a 4.5" pitch prop (to propel the stupid standard boat again, which none of us own), so your kind of on your own to design and maky your own props, which really sucks and is totally stupid for us kayakers).
Keep in mind our hulls are displacement hulls and once you get up to displacement speed (in my case around 8mph) your horsepower requirements go up exponentially. In my case it takes 3/4hp to get to 6mph, 5hp to get to 10mph, 8hp to get to 12 mph and over 40hp and massive sailsets to get over 20mph. The hp output from the motors is fixed so all that extra hp has to come from the wings, sails, and pedal drives. Needless to say I don't do 20mph very often becaus it requires in excess of 20mph winds and is no picnic to be out in, especially in such a small and low boat.
All in my twin Hondas weigh 55lbs, that's about half the weight of my previous minkota setup which gave me around 2hrs run time at 6mph. Sure you can get a toqeedo but be prepared to pay 4x the cost, (I simply don't have that kind of money).
The latest 4stroke engines are very quiet, and reliable and if setup properly are very fuel efficient, (we get around 80mpg with ours) where the whole trick to using them is to avoid the trap the manufacturers try to pull you into with one size fits all. Our kayaks are different animals. Maybe in 10-15 yrs or so the electrics will catch up, in the mean time I don't mind spending $.60 cents to a dollar in fuel to go out and do what I want on the weekends.
That's all, just tryin to halp here.
FE
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