Lutra Flyfisher Plans

Flyfisher was designed, as her name suggests, as a fly fishing boat. She is the result of years of experience fly fishing in small boats from Key West, Florida to the Canadian border. She can move easily across big shallow salt water bays and deep cold northern lakes.

Flyfisher, just like her small sisters in the Lutra family, is very stable. Her stability curve exceeds 70 degrees and her large flat bottom allows two people to stand and fish. The person in the front casts while the aft person poles or paddles and holds the boat in position.

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Water tight compartments provide seats for casting and paddling when the water is too rough to stand. When going from location to location she is paddled seated on the bottom using double paddles. Two people in moderately good condition can move Flyfisher at a steady 4 ½ to 5 knots all day. This is a very easy, relaxed pace and has been verified with a GPS many times.

Being able to sit on the compartments is very important as any fly fisherman will tell you. Trying to cast while seated flat on the bottom is not only more difficult it’s more tiring. However, standing is even more important because in many cases the angler needs to see the fish to cast to it.

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At 4 ½ inches of draft Flyfisher displaces 480 pounds. This gives the two anglers the ability to move across shallow mud flats that would present great difficultly wading across. Struggling through knee deep mud is pure misery yet Flyfisher poles over mud with ease.

Add another half inch and she displaces 550 pounds. This gives two 200 pound anglers 90 pounds of gear and food. This is plenty for those voyaging trips in waters where Northern Pike and Walleye are the game fish.

On the Texas coast more than one Flyfisher sees double duty as a duck hunting platform. Those same shallow bays that hold Redfish in the spring and summer are at the end of the Central Flyway in the winter. Add fiberglass poles and some camo netting and you have a movable blind that can be anchored anywhere. With her relatively low sides it’s not only easier for the dog to get back in the boat but there is less windage as well.

Flyfisher is built with glued lap strake construction. She’ll go together easily and be a boat you’ll be proud of because she is as beautiful as she is user friendly.

The Lutra family of canoes all share the same lines with slight variations and all are stable to at least 70 degrees of heel.
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