Kayak Fishing Trends – October 2009
Early this we published a blog asking whether the sport of kayak was actually growing as fast as interested parties were saying it was.
Since there are no official data to analyze, we keep tracking the search activity on Google, through Google Trends. Here is their latest report on USA searches for ‘kayak fishing’: USA Kayak Fishing Report 2004-2009
With kayak fishing continuously being referred to as the fastest growing paddle sport, one can only wonder why such strong growth isn’t reflected in Internet searches on the most popular search engine, although Internet search itself is an activity that’s grown very rapidly in recent years.
The simplest answer we can think of is that kayak fishing has become more institutionalized in recent years with more websites and tournaments dedicated to kayak fishing, and a couple of kayak fishing magazines, but the real increase in the volume of kayak anglers has been more moderate than what fishing kayak vendors and kayak fishing media would like the public to believe.
Like every social phenomenon, kayak fishing has had its period of initial, fast growth, followed by a period of moderate growth, and now possibly a very moderate growth – if any.
It’s likely to assume that the main reason for the decrease in growth rate is the fact that many anglers who try kayak fishing end up quitting this sport because they find kayaks to be inadequate for fishing, obviously because fishing kayaks offer neither sufficient stability nor elementary comfort.
One would have assumed that in times of economic crisis, millions of motorized anglers would flock to kayak fishing as a cheap substitute, but it seems like such shift hasn’t occurred in reality.
As for Wavewalk, we’ve experienced a major growth in sales of fishing kayak models this year, and nearly all our clients have been using traditional sit-in and SOT fishing kayaks before they decided to switch to ours.
Tags: fishing kayaks, kayak fishing, market, sale, statistics, USA
October 15th, 2009 at
Some fishing magazines didn’t make it although they covered kayak fishing intensively, or were dedicated entirely to kayak fishing.
Marco
October 15th, 2009 at
With the price of kayaks being so much lower than the cost of buying and owning fishing boats, I expected kayak fishing to become bigger than fishing from boats.
It didn’t happen, not even in the southern states, where kayak fishing has many more fans than in the north.
Maybe w kayaks can lift kayak fishing above its current levels, and turn it into a very popular sport?
Blue
October 15th, 2009 at
in a period of strong growth you seldom see major vendors failing, but it happened a number of times in recent years in the kayak market, and with companies that focused on fishing.
smaller kayak manufacturers failed too.
also, it’s possible to see that in the past two years resellers of fishing kayaks have narrowed their product offering, and that’s not a sign of expansion…
October 15th, 2009 at
The world is waiting for WaveWalk!
FW
October 16th, 2009 at
I see lots of folks kayak fishing but for the most part they are no longer kayak buyers. They have their boats and except for a limited number of them no more boats are required. Wavewalk is getting the folks who found that the sit on top and fancy pedal drive models just don’t have what they want. I was talking yesterday with another yak fisherman at a tackle store event. He too is not happy with his current ride, it just sort of does it for now. The first thing he asked me was how I liked the W500, he reads my posts I guess on our local site. His eyes lit up when I talked about how there were no more micro adjustments on my part while fishing. That the boat was just rock solid comfort and there were no back issues, he loved that too. The next time we see each other on the water he wants a ride. Just an example of how the W gives folks that missing factor. The piece of comfort or fishability their boats were lacking but they had a hard time describing it. The kayak market for sales of most boats is a joke right now. Piles of them at dealers but kayak fishermen still wandering the piles with the hope another little hatch or depression in the hull will be the answer. Sadly for them it will not be. Those of us that are members of the W Navy have the answer, we just need to pass on the good word and increase our ranks.
October 16th, 2009 at
Thank you, admiral Jeff
I think the key word is indeed Fishability:
Traditional Sit-In and SOT fishing kayaks simply don’t offer enough fishability to keep the kayak fishing bubble growing as it did before.
I’d call it ‘a moment of truth’.
Yoav