Hands down the finest fishing kayak I’ve ever used.
That is coming from someone who has used others, plus has them on the rack at the house and makes a serious choice for on the water time. My W500 is like a pickup truck on the water, the kind that has a high performance engine under the hood. It’s tough, sturdy, and made for the angler. Standing to fish is not a balancing act nor is it a stunt to show the stability of the design. It’s a boat where standing is as natural as sitting. Casting distances are far better sitting or standing since the angler can put their whole body into a cast not just flail an arm. With my little fishing rods from Emmrod I’m locked and loaded to catch fish not fool with equipment.
Of course there is a problem, the W500 really has spoiled me. Tough to even consider fishing out of anything else. My friend Yoav Rosen created quite a watercraft in the Wavewalk.
This short movie is my setup as of 12-31-11.

Jeff

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Here is a fishing trip my friend and I took to West Twin Lakes.
Lisa took my W500, and I was in my W300.
We had rain most of the time, but no thunder or lightening.

Lisa has become very comfortable in my W500, she now calls it hers, in fact when she came home from work, she asked… “Why is there a motor on my Yak?”

Many big Bass came to hand, here is a recap. Lisa was happy catching tons of sunnies.

I paddled around and scoped things out in the new waters, cast a little here and there, and was rewarded with many Largemouth bass, from 1# to 2#’s.
Not to shabby for just poking around.
I just followed my gut, if it looked fishy, I fished it.
Weeds were high just below the surface everywhere you looked, except for where some home owners did their own weed control and all you saw was a barren bottom.
But I have to say this, they were smart about it, they left large areas untreated and they all held fish.
Rain had tapered off to light showers, so it wasn’t to bad out at all.

More panfish then you can shake a stick at, Pickerel were pissing me off.

I went down to the dock and did a little more casting before night fall.

Where this dock is set, is perfect, lilly pads and weeds to the left, nice rocky point to the right with over hanging limbs, out in front of the dock, weeds, wonderful weeds, and my Lucky Papa George Rod in Hand,
How can I go wrong? I’m On Vacation.

I was throwing a 3/8oz title shot jig with a dark green power hog on it, and it produced some chunky Bass, and some insane perch, but not what i was looking for.

So I switched up to a yum dinger 4″, and started chucking it around the weeds.
Letting it sink to the bottom, and doing my drop and pop all the way back to me.

This brought a few more bass to hand, but not the picture worthy kind, until 6:22pm, why do I know what time it is you ask?
Because my tenant called me in a drunkin stooper asking if he should put the trash out…………………… he won’t even remember I hung up on him…………………

I chucked the dinger out past the rocky point and started my retrieve back, and on the second pop, pop, BAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
All Hell Breaks loose……….ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Up Comes a Monster, flips in the air and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
She’s just going to my left ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, then she’s going to my right ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I’m trying to keep her out of the brush under the trees she’s trying to get into, and she comes to the surface and is waking sideways at us, and Lisa say’s that the biggest Bass she’s ever seen.
Afraid of breaking my Pappa George pole, which is only a med glass pole, I grab the line and pulled, 40lb braid with a 17lb Vanish leader and turned her.
I get her dock side and she tail walking and doing her best to not let me get my thumb in her mouth…………then……………………………………………………………….
She’s mine.

I had to use two hands to hold her and lift her out of the water, She’s a Beast!!!!!!!!!!

We snapped a few shots, and I noticed, this big Girl has no Hook marks anywhere in her mouth or face.
She was just perfect, fat and healthy, 6.2 lbs

I placed her back in the water and rocked her gently, and she rewarded me with a big old tug and a splash that got me all wet when she turned and bolted away.

I switched to a title shot jig and power hog, casting as far as my little freaking arms would cast into the weeds in front of me.
These weeds were awesome, they had high spots, holes and a very nice channel between some of the the taller weeds to the shorter weed line.
It was here that the Bass were sitting.
I tell you this, these Title Shot jigs come through the weeds like butter, I only had to remove weeds off it once in a while, other then that, a good snap of the rod tip and she would pull right through that crap.
I pulled 8 Largemouth bass, and a bunch of rock bass and shorts.
Still not picture worthy.
Then it happens, a good solid thump, I set the hook and the fight is on, fish came to hand a little easier
with the med/hvy set up.
I was pumped now, rain had stopped, I jumped in my wavewalk yak and was off.
But as luck would have it, small Bass 1# and under was all I kept finding.
Switched to a drop shot and landed a few more bass, rock bass, and PICKEREL!!!!!
Got tired of retying my D/S due to the SLIME DARTS, just as I was changing lures, the skies opened up again.
Back up to the cottage for some more cards.

Rain stopped, I headed back out.
Casting a frog all over the place with nothing to show for it, not even a swirl??????
Switched to my yum dinger 5″ in my color of choice, watermelon pearl.
Cast the dinger into the lilly’s and walked it to the edge and let it fall……………………BAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Fish on and she’s pulling me into the pads with her.

Thank God For good hooksets and heavy line.

I grabbed this fatty and let out a hoot!

Then Lisa says to me, “I want to learn how to fish with your lures, I’m tired of picking wormshit from under my nails”
By now, she has most likely caught over 100 sunnies, perch and rock bass, but said she’d like more of a challenge.

So I hand her Fathers pole (My Pappa George pole he had given me before he passed away) and told her don’t you break it, rigged up the dinger, gave her some pointers, and she went to work.
A while later, she was working it, the drop and pop, and landed her first bass.
A nice little keeper, but her first ever, and liked the new fight.

I sent Lisa to the lilly pads with a 5″ yum dinger and told her to cast it into the lilly pads and work it to the edge, then let it drop and watch the line, any movement, or if it doesn’t feel right, set the hook.

She wasn’t catching squat, so she told me, “this is my last cast”

She cast the dinger up on the pads and worked to the edge, and as it fell…………………….BAM ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, then all you see is the W500 being towed and Lisa’s pole bent to the max………. then the bass buried itself in the weeds, and she drops her tip and says its gone.
I told her to put pressure back on the line and hold her ground, hoping the bass was still there……..then the rod tip starts bouncing, out of the weeds and into the air she comes. Holy Crap, it’s a good one.
It dives then comes up close to my W300’s side, I reach down and snag the fatty for her.
She is one happy camper, and most likely won’t be meat dunking again for a long time.
In fact she ended up with 5 more Bass when we called it a day.

I was happy she got a big Bass, I really wanted her to get the full battle of a big fish.

Life Is Good in a Wave Walk Yak.

Rox

I have had to fish in the local harbour almost exclusively for the last couple of months due to on-going bad weather leaving the sea very rough. [It's winter time in the southern hemisphere]

I have mentioned before that our local harbour has a lot of sting rays. There are 2 varieties, Short tail and Eagle rays. Eagle rays are more numerous and can be spectacular to catch. They will leap from the water – they put up a massive fight. Short tails just tend to stick to the bottom and can be almost impossible to move.

I was fishing at night – about 8pm – and all of a sudden my reel started to scream, and there was no prize for guessing that I had hooked an Eagle ray. It took about 300 metres [330 yards] of line – I wound in most of that in and off it went again – and this was repeated over and over.

Kayak fishers will cut the line quickly with these beasts because they pull so hard you either loose a reel full of line – or if you can’t apply enough drag to stop these things you can capsize a kayak easily.

I wanted to get this fish to the W500 –initially because I didn’t want to lose all my line. and later because I just wanted to see how big it was.

It took me about 1-1/2 hours to get it to the kayak. I had my cell phone with me and tried to get some photos, but because it was so dark, and I was holding the line with one hand to hold the rays head at the surface of the water, it was very difficult. I only really got head shots of the thing.
This fish was much more than a metre across [3'3"] and this link will give you an idea of what these things weigh
http://www.fishingmag.co.nz/surfcasting-raglan-ray-kingfish.htm
http://www.fishingmag.co.nz/surfcasting-nelson-eagle-ray.htm

I would guess that the one I caught was well over 50kgs [110 lbs], and I didn’t give the stability of the W500 a thought even when I had it alongside and was holding its head up so I could get a photo.

As a matter of interest, I was using and Emmrod Kayak King rod.

Dennis,
Whakatane, New Zealand

That superb fishing rod is a new Emmrod, and the reel is a Qualia.