I added a kayak to my tackle collection 5 years ago and here's a few fish fighting tips I've picked up since I started.

I have always used 8' rods on my kayak and I doubt I would ever go shorter then 7.5 the only thing is if you have to re-thread your guides on the water it can be difficult with the long sticks.

Regardless if you fish a short or long rod when a fish takes quick unexpected turn on you and goes under your kayak some times you wont' be in a position to follow the fish around the bow or stern but if you put your rod tip down in the water following the fishes direction of travel (bow or stern) your kayak will spin around and put you right back in to a good position for fighting the fish.

Also if your fishing a rod with a lot of backbone especially so with longer sticks it's a good idea to back off the drag a little bit because if you get a BIG fish that's still hot up to the kayak that fish just might decide to take one last ripper run and if it does there's a chance that it will roll you. If your rods are tethered which they should be then hang on because you don't want that fish to pull your yak away from you. It sounds crazy but it happend to a friend. He had to hand off the fish so he could right his kayak and pull his rods and paddle back up on to the rig. Then he paddled back over took the rod back and finished fighting the fish which was pretty much done at that point. It was a Black Sea Bass safely released. Lessons learned.

JerryG