Many paddlers and anglers visit our blog on a regular basis, and view it as a source of information and entertainment.
From a broader perspective, this is just natural, and it’s part of a general process that’s redefining what the Media are. Arguably, this blog has become a media outlet for Wavewalk, which no longer depends on paddling and fishing magazines that will advertise its products, and opine on them.
The combination of Internet search engines, this blog, and online video (YouTube, in this case) works as an equalizer, in the sense that it offers a small company like ours the means to spread its message to targeted audiences, and extend its business in the US and overseas.
This wide process works to diminish the influence of the paddling and fishing media, which has become extremely decentralized. There are literally thousands of websites, ‘online magazines’, business blogs, online discussion forums, and personal blogs that offer information, as well as entertainment related to kayak fishing and paddling.
Practically, every kayak store, club, group, outfitter and fishing guide have their own website, and/or a blog, and sometimes even more than one website or blog. That is without even taking into account pages in social websites such as Facebook.
Online kayak fishing magazines are just bigger websites offering their visitors more features, but not necessarily better information. Kayak paddling and fishing magazines and websites depend almost completely on their advertisers for revenues, namely mainly the bigger players on the market, which are the big kayak manufacturers. This fact cripples the kayak fishing media’s impartiality, and prevents them from exposing and discussing the deep problems that plague this sport, or even mentioning the possibility that the products offered by their advertisers are in fact less than great, from the angler’s standpoint (or seated position in the wet cockpit, and with a sore back ).
The kayak fishing media does not enjoy the reputation that could give it the power to influence customers. This is because the customers no longer depend on a single, or a few media outlets, which was the typical situation a few decades ago.

In some way, this blog itself is an online kayak fishing magazine, with one advantage, which is its unique content.
We are not afraid to tackle the big issues in kayak fishing and paddling, because our kayaks in fact offer to solve them.

We hope you’ll keep contributing to this blog, enjoy visiting it, and spread the word

That’s almost 30% more paddlers and anglers, who either visited us for the first time, or came back to learn more about our touring and fishing kayaks, and about what our clients were doing with them – whether it’s kayak fishing, paddling, touring, rigging etc.

So far, the only time when more people had visited our website was in July 2009, but the difference is small, and one is bound to remember that July is the peak of the paddling and fishing season in North America – our main market.

Fun fact: About half of our website’s visitors in March visited one part or another of this blog, which is really nice to know, especially if you’re one of those who contribute to this blog regularly 

January and February were also marked by a similar, substantial growth in visits compared to the same period of last year.

Jeff is undoubtedly one of the most knowledgeable kayak anglers around, and he’s always been willing to share his insight and enthusiasm with other anglers, whether on Jaxkayakfishing – his local kayak fishing club’s online forum, or worldwide – on the Wavewalk Kayaks forum.

Over the years, Jeff has contributed great articles and reviews about fishing, rigging and fishing tackle to our website. He’s also contributed numerous, interesting kayak fishing and rigging movies , as well as countless comments to our blog.

During these turbulent economic times, Jeff had to change directions in his career, and from being a high flying executive in a big pest management company, he became a distributor for Emmrod – an innovative fishing rod company that offers a range of rods that are particularly suited for kayak fishing, which is Jeff’s passion.

Jeff usually fishes both saltwater and fresh water in the northeastern part of Florida, but once a year he goes on a fishing trip to Canada to fish with his father and brothers.

Photo: Jeff and Kate demonstrating fishing rods in a fishing tackle store in Jacksonville, Florida

We wish Jeff a big success in his new business, and we hope his new blog will become popular among kayak anglers, as well as other anglers worldwide.

Yoav

Our sales this year grew by 64% compared to 2008, which was our best year so far. This is encouraging in view of the continuing slump in the boat and kayak markets, caused by the economic recession.

Our new W500 kayak series turned to be a resounding success, with W500 kayaks taking the lead over the old war horse, the W300.

Most pleasing is the fact that so many W500 clients have taken the time to send us great reviews and stories.

The W500 seems to be a kayak that people simply LOVE, including those who’ve already owned or used a W300 before. As some of these clients have put it: -”Wavewalk took the world’s best kayak and improved on it!”.

Some W anglers go as far as saying the W500 is better than any small fishing boat, and not just fishing kayaks.

This year we expanded our exports, with shipment to clients in Norway and Australia, and increased our sales in New Zealand and Canada. We look at this geographic expansion with particular satisfaction.

In 2009, more clients have ordered a second, and sometimes even a third W kayak from us. This shows to us that once people get used to W kayaks for either paddling or fishing, they’re not likely to change, or go back to an old-fashion sit-in or SOT kayak. In other words, it means we’re on the right track.

Our website wavewalk.com attracted over 150,000 individual visitors this year, including tens of thousands of returning visitors. This is an annual increase of over a third compared to 2008. Our blog is vibrant with stories, pictures, movies, comments and discussions, and has a growing number of fans – some of which aren’t even Wavewalk customers (yet…)  In other words, although we’re still a small company, we’ve already established a significant web presence.

The more we listen to our customers the more we learn, and it helps us improve our products, as well as the service we provide. We would have not succeeded in making the W500 as good as it is without people commenting on their experience with the early models of the W300, and its latest version – the 2008. The blog we introduced in 2008 proved to be an increasingly useful means of communication between our customers and us, as well as between the customers and themselves. This blog is also fun, which is a bonus for everyone

And last but not least – our customers: You people proved to be courageous, patient, creative, supportive, productive and loyal beyond anything we had expected, or deserve . You people made this year great for Wavewalk, and we are very grateful to you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!

Yoav

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