One more picture. Fully outfitted and on the water.
Enjoying fishing and shooting photos from the boat.
The extra storage space is nice. The Pelican 1500 case fits in the side for safe camera storage.
Comfortable standing up fishing, even at night.
Jay Petersen

Read Jay’s first comments on his new W500 kayak >>
Recently added: Jay Kayak Fishing With His Son, In Tandem >>

1. How to Prevent Water From Getting Inside the Kayak Cockpit

All W500 models except the R model feature a preparation for a cockpit cover system comprising a long bungee, 2 Nylon eyelets, and 12 lashing hooks attached around the spray deflector.

Attaching the cockpit cover to the cockpit’s spray deflector is quick and easy, and you do it by lifting the bungee, tucking the cover between the bungee and the spray deflector, and securing it between the bungee and the lashing hooks, this way:

Any plastic sheet, tarp, or waterproof fabric can serve you as a cockpit cover, and you don’t have to cut or sew it in any particular shape (unless you feel like it…)

You can use the cockpit to cover any part of the cockpit: Whether it’s just the front, or all the area between you and the hull tips,  or just one side of the cockpit, or the entire cockpit, including yourself. It all depends on the size of your cockpit cover, and what you need the cover to do for you. You can even use two, separate covers for covering different parts of the cockpit.

Here is an example how you can use a simple, low cost 3′ x 8′ tarp as a cover for your W500 cockpit:

Here’s a real life account of a large size cockpit cover used to protect a W kayak bass angler during a rainstorm in Connecticut:

Outside View of Weatherproof Fishing Kayak

Inside weatherproof fishing kayak during rainstorm

Read the entire report on Rox’ bass kayak fishing trip, in which she got caught in a rainstorm, and managed to keep perfectly dry in the cockpit of her W500 >>

And this is the initial design, by a W300 fly kayak angler  from Oregon, which inspired us to develop the universal preparation for cockpit cover:

A cockpit cover can add to your personal protection from the elements, even in cold weather, wind, snow, and hail.

This picture shows a car topped W500 in Ohio – Note how the owner covered its cockpit with a tarp:

2. What If a Little Water Gets In?

Like everything that has to do with the W500 kayak, it’s easy:

First, you don’t have to care too much about a little water getting inside, because unlike sit-in kayaks, all water that may get inside is automatically drained to the bottom of the hulls, where it doesn’t bother you. This is true for drops falling from your paddle, rain, spray, etc.  The 14 inch high W kayak saddle stays dry, and since this is where you sit,  so do you.

Keeping the bottom of the hulls perfectly dry is easy too, if you simply put a big sponge at the bottom of each hull. The sponge will absorb the water by itself, since the water will eventually reach it due to the kayak’s natural movement. By the end of the trip, or anytime during the trip,  you’d just have to  squeeze the water out of the sponges, and that’s it.

3. What If a Lot of Water Gets Inside Your W Kayak Cockpit?

Again, since the water is drained automatically to the bottom of the kayak hulls, and you sit on the 14 inch high saddle, or ride it, water in the bottom of the hulls doesn’t necessarily bother you, even if there’s several gallons of it down there.  This is true even in cold water and weather, if you’re wearing rubber booties.

In any case, getting rid of this water is simple: Just scoop it out with a hand bucket, also called a bilge bucket. Making one from a 1 gallon plastic bottle with a handle is cheap and easy, and such DIY bilge buckets are perfect for the job.

If you feel like being more sophisticated, just use an inexpensive, plastic, hand activated bilge pump,  the same as sea-kayakers, canoeists, and other small boat passengers use for the same purpose:

4. Getting Rid of Water on Land

You may want to get rid of water that’s in your W kayak’s cockpit when you’re on dry land. Again, nothing could be easier: You just overturn the boat, and the water will get drained out through the special drainage holes at the top of the spray deflector. Normally, this is the kayak’s highest point, but when it is upside down, the holes are at its lowest point, which makes the water come out in no time, and from all parts of the kayak hulls.

5. Safety – Why Are SOT Kayaks Hazardous?

Simply, because if your kayak hull is leaking, you want be able to detect the problem immediately, in real time, since any delay might be critical. Therefore, closed hulls, such as sit-on-top (SOT) kayaks feature, present a potential hazard, because water can leak inside them without you having any way to notice it, until it’s too late. This is one of the downsides of the so-called ‘self bailing’ (paddle board) SOT kayak hull. Worst of all – those SOT hulls are rarely fully watertight, because of various reasons – The first being the basic design flaw putting their parting line too low above the water, combined with the weakness in the scupper holes area. The second reason being the fact that once the SOT kayak is molded, it has numerous big and small holes drilled in its hull for hatches, rod holders, seat etc., and such holes are extremely difficult to waterproof in the long run, and can easily leak, since the  SOT kayak deck is too low above waterline, and is often washed by waves, or immersed in case the SOT kayak is overturned in the water.

SOT kayak anglers are required to drain their kayak hulls through special drain plugs installed in them, preferably after each trip, and sometimes even during the trip, if they can find a place to beach. Read more >>

In comparison to SOT kayaks, the W kayak’s parting line is 6 to 12 inches higher above the water surface, the kayak features neither scupper holes nor hatches, and its deck is much higher too, and the cockpit part of it is protected by a spray deflector. Since it sold its first W kayak, back in 2004, Wavewalk has received no complaints about water leaking into a W kayak hull.

Read Gary’s full review of his rigged W500 fishing kayak >>

Gary writes:

“I took the W500 out for her maiden voyage this afternoon on our 14 acre lake.  The W500 was easy to launch and my feet stayed completely dry.  The launching area we have is totally unimproved and is rather steep.  Neither the steepness, nor the unimproved nature caused any problem with launching.  Landing was another story – I learned how to sit in the very back of the kayak to lift the front pontoons up out of the water.  On the 5th attempt I was able to drive the W500 far enough up onto the bank for me to get out of it – again with totally dry feet.  The 5 attempts were not caused by the Kayak not performing rather my timidity on getting far enough back on the W500 to adequately lift the front end sufficiently.

I had initially thought I might want to add an electric motor for powered use – NOT ANYMORE!!  Paddling the W500 is so easy and even going into a 10mph breeze it was almost effortless.  For those who say the W500 won’t glide and won’t track straight I say you are FULL OF HOOEY!!  Paddling couldn’t have been easier – in fact too easy – I’d like a paddle with a blade twice the size of the one I purchased.  It almost felt like I was overpowering the paddle blade and not being efficient.  I got the 9 foot paddle and I wish I had gotten the longer one.

Getting used to being in the W500 took about 1 lap around the lake (approximately a mile).  I learned quickly that when you first are starting and the kayak seems “Tippy”, grabbing onto the sides of the kayak is NO HELP.  Raising my hands and bringing the paddle up to my chest stabilized the W500 quickly.  I also found that as I became accustomed to being in the W500 (its like learning to ride a bike again) that if I would concentrate looking where I wanted to go or even looking to see if I could see fish ahead of me made all the initial “Tippiness” go away quickly. Looking at the kayak is of no help whatsoever.   I can say I spent over a hour in the W500 and I never got wet – I also haven’t tried standing up, but I have gotten comfortable changing where I was sitting, sliding up and down the seat, etc.  Don’t worry – sliding up towards the bow or all the way back to the stern will not cause any problem whatsoever and the kayak will not flip.  Trust me, I am a BIG guy (6’2 1/2″ and about 280 lbs), and if it won’t flip for me, it won’t for you either. Someone as big as 325-350 lbs should be safe in the W500, and no you won’t sit so far down in the waterline as to take on water.  Its not going to happen.  The Specs say the max load is 360 lbs – I say hooey – it will handle much more than that.

Now comes the rigging of the W500 for fishing.  I purchased 2 flush mount pole holders on eBay – no not the slanted ones like come on the W500 if you desire, but 90 degree ones.  I plan on using one very far back on one of the “stern” pontoons as the holder for my fluorescent flag and 360 degree light mast (all in one).  I am getting one of TekTite’s lights and installing it inside a piece of 1 1/4″ PVC (actually 3 pieces about 18 inches long each that will connect together using 1 1/4″ PVC fittings.  The flag will mount on a piece of galvanized rod that goes through holes bored through the PVC.  My fishing pole holders will be above deck mounts that are removable so if I am  fly fishing I can remove the ones which would tangle my fly line.  I am still trying to figure out how and where to mount my hand held GPS and where to mount my Fishin Buddy II depth and fish finder.

My wife bought me one of the huge frozen food bags from Costco to use as my fish bag.  Last I have to figure out what I am going to do for anchoring and which kind of boxes to use for storing lures, etc.  Rods will store easily.  The W500 has a large amount of storage space, it just will be a search to find the boxes, etc that are the correct size to fit the storage.

Pictures will be coming soon and please wish me good luck on trying to stand up the first time.

I have also figured out that I am going to have to get one of those automatic inflatable life jackets.  My regular one is TOO WARM for the amount of exercise you can get paddling a kayak.  My shirt was wet when I was done.  Wet means COLD in the winter, and I plan to use the W500 all winter.

Gary Johnson”

Read Gary’s full review of his rigged W500 fishing kayak >>

I bought a Wavewalk kayak  in anticipation of using it for fishing the flooded grass because of the ease of standing in it and also because my lower back had been bothering me after long trips in my [15 ft long SOT fishing kayak]. Since then I’ve actually herniated a lumbar disk and was out of commission for 6 weeks, but although I’m functional now using the [15 ft long SOT fishing kayak] is out of the question in the near future.

I finally got to try out the W for what I bought it for.  We had flood tides over the weekend and I was anxious to pole the boat around the flooded spartina grass in search of tailing red fish.
I was not disappointed, it performed flawlessly.

It poles very easily in the grass, the view is great standing, and there is nearly no balancing effort for standing in it. I actually put a board across the top of the seat and poled standing on top of that. The view there is about 12″ above the water and the perspective that gives you hunting for tails is incredible.
I’ve also used the boat for some short trips fishing, and find that it’s a great little boat to fish out of because it allows you to be in so many positions while fishing and you never feel the need to get out and stretch or get the numbness out of your butt.

Standing is a great advantage since you have a much better vantage point to look for fish. I’ve always stood in my SOT kayak for this type of fishing but had to pay quite a bit of attention to balance while doing so.  With this boat, I can concentrate more on looking for fish rather than balance.

I pole the boat around using a long aluminum pool pole with a small paddle attached that I made  from a 2X4.  The handle on the end works very well since a lot of pressure must be applied at times to get through heavy grass, while also having a paddle function for the deeper creeks you cross. I store it under the seat suspended by bungees. I did most of the standing from the seat level by placing a board across the seat to give a larger more stable platform than the seat.  This proved to be much more stable than balancing on the seat alone, but does add to the skill level a bit.    The extra height provides a great distance to look for fish.  I was rewarded with sighting a number of reds and did manage to trick one with a fly.  The others seemed more interested in fiddler crabs and clams than my fly but provided a lot of excitement casting to them.

The Wavewalk is a keeper in my kayak herd now and for the near future will probably be the only boat I’ll be able to go out in. It’s nice and compact, stores a lot of stuff easily and keeps it dry, plus allows those of us with non cooperating bodies to fish more comfortably.

I’m also looking forward to staying nice and dry and warm fishing out of it this winter. This is a great boat to own even if my back wasn’t part of the reason I bought it.

Kevin