I'm not sure what kind of kayak it was, like I said, it was my first time and I'm not real knowledgeable about them, but no, there is no steering while fishing. The kayak the guy that hooked the sturgeon was in had a steering keel, but he wasn't using it, and I'm not sure it would have helped much. About that knot, they were going for a boland knot, but it ended up being a (sort of) boland with a couple half hitches I think. There was a fair amount of coaching going on on that one, ha.