[PerryC]

Welcome to the forums. Like Incredible said, kayaks are a personal choice. If at all possible, you should try as many makes and models as you can to see which style of kayak feels comfortable to you. By style I mean that some anglers like the longer and narrower kayak like a touring kayak or Wilderness Systems Tarpon, while others like one shorter and wider like a Cobra Fish-N-Dive or Ocean Kayak Big Game. Some are in the middle sorta speak like the Cobra Marauder I paddle.

For fishing, I would recommend you think about getting a kayak with a good sized bow hatch, plus maybe a hatch directly in front of the paddlers seat bucket, and my favorite a large tankwell in back you can put a full size milk crate in. If you use a milk crate for carrying your extra rods and whatnot, you can keep alot of items above deck and behind you. If you're going to be using a stake pole and wade for redfish, you'll need to factor that in also. For redfish, you may want to kayak with a nice hull that doesn't have alot of hull slap when you paddle it. Or if you're going to use a kayak as a mothership and wade, it may not matter as much.

For the weight of the kayak, don't worry about a few pounds. Most of the advertised weights are an approximation anyways, and some manufacturers weight them with no hatches installed in them to shave some weight off the specifications. For weight capacity, thats a hard call. Some manufacturers say their kayak will carry 400lbs and it would carry alot more than that, others say it will carry 400lbs and it would probably be taking on water over the side at that weight. If it were me and my total loaded weight would be about 300 lbs, I would look at something advertised to carry a good 400lbs or a bit more to be on the safe side.

Lastly, coming from manufacturing I would find a few models I really liked, then call the factory and ask a few questions about them, or speak to their customer service. If you get a live person on the other end of the phone who can answer any questions, cool. If you can't manage to get a simple question answered, then you may run into the same thing if you have a problem with their kayak. It may be something to consider before a purchase. TC&TL,
Perry