Hi Capt Neil, long time no speak... sorry for the late response.
I had posted brief answer on Tom's Board and I hope the following gives you a little more insight to what I look for in a yak rod. Most of the time, I hook up with the fish relatively close to the yak. The one exception to this is when I troll one or two lures behind my yak while I move from spot to spot. The funny thing is that I have hook just as much, if not more fish while trolling as I do when I cast. The other times, I paddle and glide into a blitz and I don't spook any fish resulting in easy hook ups.
For me my primary early/mid season targets are stripers and blues. When the bass and blues slow down, I switch over to bottom fishing. Each type of fishing demands a different type of rod. I fish from a 15' Cobra Tourer and the rods I use vary from a 6 1/2' light power telescoping Cabela's travel spinning rod (a gift), 6' med-heavy bass rod (built on an old Bass Pro Graphite 96 blank, remember those?), and a Calstar Graphiter GF700L.
No need to go with heavy powered rods or large capacity reels cause you end up cranking yourself towards the fish as you fight it. Remember, you are not planted firmly on the deck of a boat with a lot of (resisting) inertia or on the shoreline with loads of dirt at your feet where it's a tug of war.
It's a common misconception to go with a short stout rod for yak fishing. If you happen to hook a large fish that start to run under you yak, you need a rod long enough to swing the line around your bow. A short rod won't allow you to do this and you will have a problem on your hands. Having a stout rod (long or short) presents a different of problems when a large fish is able to get some leverage on you in a tippy yak. Although there are different ways around this problem.
One thing is for sure, once you go for your first Nantucket Sleigh Ride, you will be hooked on this type of fishing!
