What Do The Numbers Tell Us?

How Big Is Fishing In The USA?

It’s big, very big. Here’s a quote from a comprehensive report on fishing participation published by Take Me Fishing (TM) -

Recreational fishing is a quintessential American outdoor experience and the most popular nature-based activity among adults and children alike — attracting more than 48 million participants and including over one billion outings in 2008. Equally impressive, fishing is one of the most influential of all outdoor sports, recognized as the top “gateway” activity…

These impressive figures coincide with figures published by other organizations, such as the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) and the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), putting the number of American participating in fishing between 40 and 60 million, against a backdrop of some 17 million boats registered in the US, most of which are motorized and used for fishing, among other activities.

This is to say that since most boats are more expensive to purchase and maintain than kayaks are, it would be safe to assume that the reason why only such a small and slowly growing number of anglers use kayaks for fishing is not an economic one, but has to do with kayak fishing itself: What is feels like, and what real, non-hyped advantages it offers over fishing from shore, and from other watercraft.

In Comparison, How Big Is Kayak Fishing In The USA?

Strangely, no one ever published a similar study on kayak fishing, although kayak fishing magazines and blogs often tell their readers that the sport is a fast growing one, or at least they used to make such claims until some years ago. But any way you look at it, US participation in kayak fishing is measured in the tens of thousands, and judging by the number of participants in the best known kayak fishing events in recent years, it is no longer growing rapidly: The biggest and best known kayak fishing tournaments are the Jacksonville Classic, in Florida, and the Jamaica Bay Kayak Fishing tournament in New York, and neither has seen any substantial growth in recent years, although sponsorships and prizes appear to have increased. Interestingly, the only store in the world that specialized in fishing kayaks and kayak fishing gear closed several years ago, and although thousands of stores in this country offer a mix of both kayaks and small fishing boats such as canoes and dinghies, there isn’t a single store that sells only fishing kayaks and gear that typically goes with them.

Kayak Fishing Is An Unpopular Sport, But Why?

So, the base rate of US kayak anglers vs. the general population of US participants in fishing is about 1:1,000… No one can contest the fact that one to a thousand is a minuscule proportion, and arguably a negligible one.
Most people already know what kayak fishing is, and they won’t even consider fishing out of a kayak, because they see the SOT, sit-in and hybrid fishing kayak as what they really are: extremely uncomfortable, wet, and ridiculously unstable watercraft, offering sub par fishability when compared to other fishing boats.
Some people still get lured by words, images and sometimes even videos promising fun, stability, comfort and results in terms of catching fish, but the overwhelming majority of anglers who face the possibility of switching to a kayak just shrug, because they think that all types of kayaks out there are simply inadequate for fishing, at least if you consider fishing to be a leisure activity, and not an extreme sport, in the sense that practicing it is extremely unpleasant, and not sufficiently safe.
The above unflattering description of kayak fishing is not applicable to fishing out of W kayaks, obviously, but this is another subject that will be discussed in the next paragraphs.

Is Kayak Fishing ‘Irreversible’?

Is kayak fishing such an advantageous and otherwise rewarding activity that once you start practicing it you get hooked for life?
This is an important as well as interesting question, because if kayak fishing had many new participants and just a few dropouts, we could assume that it would keep growing at a healthy rate. But in reality, many people who try fishing from a kayak, and even those who purchase a top of the line SOT, sit-in or hybrid kayak and spend considerable time and resources rigging it, don’t necessarily stick with the sport for long, and they either go back to fishing from a motorboat, or upgrade to a W fishing kayak.
Simply, the hype generated by fishing kayak manufacturers, vendors and their affiliates may suffice to raise the interest of many anglers in these products, but once people are exposed to the rather unpleasant reality of the sport, many get disenchanted, and quit – “You can’t fool all the people all the time…”

Is Your Regular Kayak A Serious Fishing Platform?

How Does It Feel?

Anyone observing a person seated in a traditional SOT, sit-in or hybrid kayak cannot help wondering what it feels like… A brief observation would immediately reveal the discomfort imposed by the L posture, the leg numbness and back pain, as well as the wet butt and excessive wetness in general. Furthermore, if the observed angler happens to be activating a pedal drive, the discomfort and senselessness of their situation becomes even more apparent, and the observer can’t help wondering why would anyone want to suffer that much. Surely, there are better means to catch fish.

How Well Does A Fishing Kayak Perform – The Fishability Test

Not that well, actually -

Mobility and Propulsion – Unsolved Issues

Kayaks propelled by means of a pedal drive are rather useless in shallow water and wherever seaweed is to be found, and they require their users to operate a rudder system in addition to activating the pedals, while trying to compensate for the stability lost by not using a paddle. Rudders are hated by practically any paddler or angler, and they are seen as a necessary evil because without them most kayaks would track far too poorly, and be even harder to drive to their destination, especially under wind. Interestingly, fishing kayaks featuring pedal drives are offered at premium prices, and hyped as being most functional…
Most kayaks designed for fishing are slow and hard to paddle by the nature of their design, which means they offer a restricted range of travel, both in terms of mileage and in terms of the limited weather and water conditions in which these watercraft are safe to operate, such as strong wind, cold, fast currents, and so on.
Years ago, kayak manufacturers and vendors realized the above mentioned problems are crucial for fishing. Those who happen to be in the electric motor business launched a massive marketing campaign, touting the advantages of motorized kayaks, and by motorized they meant kayaks outfitted with small, electric ‘trolling’ motors. Needless to say that such motors must be small and weak, otherwise they’d drain the battery too fast. Following that marketing initiative, many kayak anglers have tried using electric propulsion systems, which are quiet and easy to operate, but heavy, and not particularly reliable. In real world terms, these electric propulsion systems do not extend the kayak’s range of travel by as much as most anglers really want. In sum, electric trolling motors fell short of solving the propulsion and travel range problems with fishing kayaks.

The Stability Of Fishing Kayaks, Or Lack Thereof

If you believed what most kayak manufacturers claim, you’d think that fishing kayaks are dock stable, and offer you to stand up in full confidence, and both paddle and fish in this posture. Very few people believe it, because it obviously isn’t true, and sooner or later people exert good judgement based on common sense, especially when their own safety and well being are concerned. Those who put the stability of such fishing kayaks to the real world test, find sooner or later that hype and reality don’t coincide in this case. You can’t take a mono hull kayak, or small canoe (a.k.a. ‘hybrid kayak’) and have a regular Joe stand in it in full confidence. Period. Anyone attempting to stand and fish in a mono hull watercraft that small is bound to spend both their energy and attention to constant ‘micro adjustments’ of their balance, and as soon as something distracts them, or destabilizes them, they take a swim, along with their tackle and gear.
This is true even if you outfit this kayak with small outriggers attached to its rear end, or integrated in it. Carving tunnels in the bottom of the hulls doesn’t help much either, and if the reader is interested in learning more about these technical issues, they should read this article about kayak stability >>

Fishing Kayak Ergonomics: How Much Are You Willing To Suffer?

Very few (1:1,000…) anglers are willing to suffer being locked in the L sitting posture, and having their own legs act as powerful pistons that constantly compress their lumber spine against a backrest. Kayak manufacturers have never admitted the fact that sitting in the L posture is extremely uncomfortable (painful, actually) and unacceptable for any period of time that even the shortest fishing trip takes. Without conceding that foam and gel stuffed in the seat’s backrest can’t solve the problem, these manufacturers began offering fishing kayaks featuring canvas seats that are slightly higher than the traditional foam seats… The thought behind this new approach must have been that sitting a couple of inches higher may somehow alleviate the pressure on the user’s lower back. But it didn’t happen, because mono hull fishing kayaks are not stable enough, and therefore, a passenger sitting higher in such a kayak inevitably becomes less stable, and feels less stable too, and therefore must push harder on the footrests in order to apply more pressure on the backrest – in an effort to better balance the craft, and regain control over it. This design proved to be yet another fiasco, as have all the pseudo ergonomic designs that offered more foam or more get stuffed in the backrest.
It’s one thing to be a young, fit, lightweight and of small stature as the native Inuit kayak hunters used to be, and a totally different thing to be a middle aged, non-athletic, heavier and bigger person, like the majority of people who fish out out boats are in America. Almost everyone gets it, except some fishing kayak manufacturers, vendors, and people who seem to believe in miracles…

Storage Space – A Bleak Situation

Mono hull fishing kayaks simply don’t have storage space in a sense that a normal angler is used to think about. Hatches are too small, can’t be easily reached, and they’re often leaking. Crates do not present a serious solution to the storage needs that anglers have.

So What’s The Future Of Kayak Fishing?

Does kayak fishing have a long term future?
We think it does, but only as a sensible sport and outdoor activity that would attract many more anglers, and not as the kind of unrewarding experience it currently is, which repels new participants while expelling existing ones.
The only venue is through an increase in use of W fishing kayaks rather than SOT, sit-in and hybrid kayaks. This is because W kayaks offer the solutions to all the problems discussed in this article, and some others, and these are the problems that make kayak fishing that marginal activity it has been so far in the much broader world of fishing.
Simply, as soon as realize that they can fish out of a watercraft that’s as small, nimble and lightweight as a regular kayak (not even a huge ‘barge’ fishing kayak..), and yet is as stable, dry and comfortable as a regular motorboat, and even has a similar travel range as a motorboat – they would adopt kayak fishing in growing numbers, and stick with the sport. The watercraft that combines the advantages of kayaks and motorboats, while offering better mobility than both, is the W kayak.

This year, we started an experiment with local dealers and international distributors who are basically W fans with neither storefront nor prior experience in the kayak business. This experiment proved to be a success, with all having sold W kayaks, and some even making multiple orders.
Our dealers in upstate NY and in the Midwest sold W kayaks not just locally, but also to clients from other states, as well as to clients from Canada. Our distributor in Norway and Sweden was surprised to get a mail order from a duck hunter living hundreds of miles away, who didn’t even bother to come over and see the product before ordering it. Our dealer in Houston got orders for 5 W kayaks in one demo day he organized. One of the clients who picked up a boat from him that day drove 160 miles from San Antonio, and stayed in a motel the night before, to make sure he’d get the W kayak in the color he wanted…
Such stories are normal for us at Wavewalk, and we’re happy to see that our distributors, wherever they are located, are beginning to experience similar things.

Our dealers and international distributors proved to be both creative and productive – Our dealer in Wisconsin developed a way to camouflage the W500 kayak for duck hunting, and posted instructional videos on his website and on YouTube. Our distributor in New Zealand developed a new type of flotation. Our distributor in South Korea successfully rigged a W500 with a powerful outboard gas engine, and our dealer in Minnesota picked up the idea and improved the transom motor mount.
Their efforts resulted in Wavewalk developing two new products: The 502 series that can be outfitted with extra-large side flotation, and an off-the-shelf transom motor mount that fits electric tolling motors as well as outboard gas engines.
These new products are already selling, and our clients are both excited and satisfied with them.

During this year, we’ve learned to work closely with our dealers and distributors, and they’ve learned to provide various services to their clients, including live demos, outfitting, repair, and even finishing and assembly in the case of those who’ve made big orders.

We’re looking for new dealers and distributors in the US and overseas, but we’re also expanding our direct sales, such as in Australia, where we’ve started advertising and selling factory direct as a matter of routine.

This year, more than ever before, our clients proved to be a valuable source of information, ideas and support, both for us and for other W clients. They’ve provided interesting trip reports, pictures and movies, innovative rigging solutions, useful tips, product reviews, and some of them have even battled our competitors in online discussion forums that are not always friendly to us   Both our clients and distributors helped us choose the additional Sand color that we introduced this year, and it turned out to be popular among our new clients.

We’ve produced some amazing and cool videos this year, and a bunch of new technical articles, some of which have become quite popular. Our YouTube channel movies got over 280,000 views this year, a 50,000 increase compared to the year before, and in addition, videos posted by our dealers and clients got thousands of views.  The number of visits to our website was 10% higher in 2011 compared to 2010, and the average time spent per visit increased as well. We hope this means more visitors are finding our website more interesting

The only things that remained unchanged this year are our absolute commitment to our customers, and the fact that our W kayak has no match when stability, ergonomics, mobility, versatility and overall fishability are concerned. As Rox put it – “nothing like it, nothing better”.

THANK YOU ALL, AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!

Yoav

According to the dictionary, we perceive something as being beautiful if it is attractive to us (e.g. a beautiful woman) or pleasant (e.g. a beautiful day), or pleasant to look at (e.g. a beautiful dress), or if it’s done or made very well (e.g. a beautiful goal in the second half), or with a lot of skill (e.g. a beautiful roast).
Beauty can be associated directly with sensory pleasure, or with indirect, social value related to monetary value, or prestige (e.g. a beautiful diamond), or with both.
In case of a product such as a kayak, the beauty we see in it is a measure of how much we appreciate its performance in terms of what’s important to us, subjectively, whether as something we’ve already experienced with this kayak, or something we believe we would experience, if we used it.

In this sense, the saying ‘beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’ is perfectly true.

What’s important?

What’s important in a product varies according to what different people are interested in. For example, if you’re into kayak racing, you’d be interested in kayaks that are as fast as possible, and very fast kayaks would seem beautiful to you, but if you’re into kayak fishing, you’d be interested a number of things, including stability, comfort, storage, etc. offered to you by that kayak. In other words, for a kayak angler, the beauty of a kayaks depends first and foremost on its fishability, which is a composite measure of a fishing kayak’s performance.

For example, if you’re into kayak fishing, and you saw a kayak that’s very fast but also very unstable, it would seem useless to you, and therefore unattractive.
Most anglers fish from motorboats and not from kayaks, mainly because they perceive kayaks as being too unstable and too uncomfortable for fishing.  Therefore, for the majority of anglers, a fishing kayak is just a too small, too uncomfortable and therefore unpractical and consequently ugly fishing boat.

Beauty and love

The more satisfied a kayak angler is with the performance of their fishing kayak, the more they see beauty in it, and in fact, some kayak anglers get to love their kayak, following the good experience they’ve had with it, and the good time they anticipate having with it in the future.

False beauty

Anyone who’s interested in fishing kayaks can see that the common fishing kayak is essentially just a chubbier, more accessorized, and sometimes fancier version of its ancestor the recreational kayak.

The common fishing kayak is very wide because of the desperate need to increase its stability, even at the cost of sacrificing both speed and tracking capability, and most importantly – taking away the pleasure of paddling from the person who paddles it. This is what kayak anglers refer to as ‘a barge to paddle’, and the reason why some touring and sea kayakers still won’t consider fishing kayaks as kayaks at all…

Too much is too little

The multitude of accessories is sometimes required to compensate for a fishing kayak’s deficient functionality. The perfect example is the rudder that most fishing kayaks are equipped with, and most kayak anglers hate, but they have to use it simply because without it their kayak wouldn’t go straight, due to its poor tracking capability. Another good example are the hatches – an uncomfortable, often dysfunctional solution to the critical problem of storage, or lack thereof…

In this context, it is easy to see why manufacturers who offer pedal driven kayaks are more successful in the market for fishing kayaks than in any other kayak market: Common fishing kayaks are so hard and unpleasant to paddle that a hyped, ill conceived solution is seen by some as better than nothing, at least until they realize they’re not necessarily better off pedaling…

When fancy becomes ridiculous

A product that is essentially lacking in performance, and therefore not  attractive enough, is a problem for its manufacturer, and they would attempt to increase its attractiveness by whatever means they have, even if such means present no advantage at all to the client. The typical example for this in fishing kayaks is increasing the amount of foam in the kayak’s seat, which cannot really solve the basic problem of the passenger pushing their lower back against the backrest with all the power their legs have. But extra foam may look more ‘ergonomic’ to some people, and if it’s promoted as being ergonomic, some people could get convinced to buy the kayak – until they realize that’s not what they had bargained for, and get tired of this game, go back to fishing from a motorboat, or switch to a W kayak.

Another common example of overdoing things is the form of the fishing kayaks themselves: Some kayaks feature very elaborate hulls, or decks, or both, as if the extra detail could improve anything as far as stability, speed and comfort are concerned. To the unprofessional or inexperienced viewer, such extra details could seem like an indicator that the kayak is more ‘advanced’, but the truth is that overdoing things can only diminish actual performance, by definition. In other words, nothing beats simple effectiveness in design.

Simple is beautiful

This is the simple truth in design, and it’s even more true in fishing kayaks, which are judged by their performance: A fishing kayak is a technical product that needs to deliver results in terms of what the angler can achieve with it, and how they feel while doing so, as well as after the fishing trip is over.

If a kayak allows you to launch or beach in a spot that another kayak doesn’t, it performs better, and therefore it’s more beautiful. If a kayak allows you to stay inside it for long hours, while no other kayak allows you to do that without inflicting discomfort and pain on you, that kayak performs better, and you’re going to like it more, and therefore see more beauty in it.

These examples come to show that it’s not the amount of time invested in designing or manufacturing a product that appeals to our sense of beauty, but it’s the real life performance of that product, and our own experience with it.  When we realize that in order to get a certain level of performance, the product needed to be made in a certain way, we appreciate the way it was done. And if the result was achieved by simple means, we tend to appreciate it even more.

Once people realize the advantage for themselves in a certain design, form, or feature, they see the beauty in it, and sometime even develop a warm feeling for it, a feeling called love.

Beauty and marketing

Being a technical product, the way to judge and evaluate a fishing kayak is by doing a feature by feature comparison, and preferably by validating the results of such comparison in a live test.

There is no fishing kayak, fishing kayak design, or concept that rivals the W kayak in any of the important requirements from a fishing kayak, which are Stability, Comfort, Ease of Paddling, Passenger Room, Storage Space, Versatility, Tracking, Handling, Mobility, and dollar for dollar Value. Value is not a technical feature, but in this case we’ve included it in the list because it represents certain technical attributes of W kayaks that reduce their cost of purchase and ownership, compared to other kayaks.

Years ago, Wavewalk’s competitors used to criticize its product by raising doubts about its actual performance, such as speed, comfort, tracking under wind, etc.  These doubts were based solely on imagination, and had no basis in anyone’s real life experience, and over the years,  as the evidence presented by Wavewalk improved, and more of its customers contributed positive reviews, this type of critic has subsided.

However, some competitors still say, occasionally, that W kayaks are ‘ugly’, and when such comments are made on online discussion forums, they are intended to create some kind of negative ‘peer pressure’ on kayak anglers who are interested in the W kayak. The problem with such tactic is that if a general and broad argument such as ‘ugly’ is brought forward without any substantial, technical evidence to back it, it sounds hollow, and basically meaningless. But if the ‘ugly’ argument is backed by a specific, technical argument, the reader could go and check its validity on Wavewalk’s website, through the demo movies, technical articles, and customer reviews, and they could then see for themselves that it’s a moot argument.

The challenge that Wavewalk is facing is to convince thousands of anglers who fish from kayaks that W kayaks are better, and worth switching to. We also need to convince millions of anglers who fish from motorboats that they need to give kayak fishing a second thought, and that fishing kayaks are not necessarily ugly, if they can provide a higher level of fishability that’s comparable to what these anglers are used to get in fishing boats, as W kayaks have proved they could.

In sum, the W kayak holds the key to making more people see the beauty in kayak fishing.

Read more about motorizing your fishing kayak >>

Kayak fishing promised a cheaper, hassle free, low maintenance, lightweight, car top form of fishing craft, and a direct, sporty experience. However, today, out of tens of millions of Americans who fish from boats, merely one in every thousand fishes from a kayak, and this is after a decade of promises that ‘kayak fishing is the fastest growing outdoors sport’, etc.  The bulk of US anglers have followed neither the kayak fishing pioneers nor the fishing kayak manufacturers’ hype, and since growth in kayak fishing participation is no longer as fast as it had been several years ago, it is safe to say that the US kayak fishing market has matured. This is partly a result of decreasing enthusiasm from new participants, as well as a high dropout rate that has been typical to this sport since its early beginnings.

Yes, but…

But kayak fishing feels extremely uncomfortable only if you’re fishing from the old fashion, sit-on-top (SOT) kayaks and sit-in kayaks. In contrast, when you fish from a W kayak, you experience a level of comfort that’s equivalent to that of fishing from a regular size boat, and some W fans would argue that you feel even better.

When stability is concerned, the level of stability an angler experiences while fishing from a W500 kayak is on par with what they’d feel fishing in a regular size fishing boat, in the sense that they are not required to constantly address the issue of balancing, and they can fish standing up with ease, comfort and confidence that are outside the world of fishing kayaks.

The W500 is the only kayak offering storage space that’s dry and accessible any time, and as much as any kayak angler may need, even if their fishing trip includes camping, and therefore carrying on board numerous and bulky items that so far only canoes and regular size boats could carry.

The future

This is to say that kayak fishing has a future, and a bright one, but not as the extreme sport it’s been for most kayak anglers so far. The future of kayak fishing as a broad base sport and leisure activity depends on the participation of regular people, who care about their personal comfort, and demand a performance level in stability and storage that is not sub-minimal.  In other words, the future of kayak fishing is W kayak fishing.

WaveWalkOne all decked out with the crate attached, the light/flag pole flying, rod holders (2) in place, the paddle holder based on Jeff's Wal-Mart hooks in place and if you will notice sitting on the seat there are three 2 gal containers and three 1 gallon watertight containers that I use for storage up in the hull tips. You will see in another picture a closeup of how I extract the 1 gallon containers which get pushed way up in the tip.

I think it is important to clarify why I am passionate about the WaveWalk W500 Kayak.
I used to be an accredited Canoe instructor, and have taught lots of Boy Scouts how to make a canoe go straight. For me a regular kayak makes “Pain Management” impossible. I have tried conventional kayaks and NONE OF THEM give me the freedom to stretch and move that I require in order to keep my back from cramping up and making fishing pure hell. The W500 was my last hope for a personal watercraft. If it weren’t for the W500, I couldn’t be a kayak owner – my back will not allow me to sit in a regular kayak for more than about 20 minutes.
The W500 allows me to move into positions that relieve the pain from where it is hurting the most and have it hurt somewhere else for a while. I found the ONLY KAYAK AVAILABLE that allows me complete freedom of movement – something none of SITS or SOTS can claim. I will match my W500 up against anything the SITS or SOTS have shown me, especially since I can use the W500 and I CAN’T use the others. It does bother some other yakkers though that I always have easy answers for the problems they are trying to solve…
I think that eventually I will manage to give HOPE to disabled people that Kayaking is not something beyond their capabilities.

My 2 gallon and 1 gallon ciontainers that fit up in the hull tips attached together. To maintain their watertightness I put silicone seal aroung the holes where the rope goes through their sides. To store, the big container pushes the little one up into the tip and to extract it the big one pulls the small one out. In one of the hull tips I don't attach them together as the big container is filled with water and has an aerator for keeping shrimp alive as bait. When I get to where I am going to be fishing I pour the shrimp into a mesh bait bag that hangs over the side. I keep my cell phone, wallet, and anything else that can't possibly get wet in the small one that has no holes drilled in it to ensure it always stays dry.

Before I found the W500, kayaking was beyond my capability. You couldn’t have gotten me in a kayak for a days fishing on a bet. I would have passed on an all-expenses paid fishing trip with a guide who was fishing out of kayaks. I COULD NOT HAVE STOOD THE PAIN. Hurting just isn’t worth it.
In late January through early April the white bass will be running in the rivers near me. Kayakers have a field day getting into water that others can’t get to. I plan on showing the W500 off to many of those guys and will offer free rides. They will be bundled up in their waders and still be getting wet. I plan to entice them with a DRY RIDE.
I promote your product on the net for FUN. Its something I believe in and would like others who have the same problems as I do to have the freedom to participate in kayaking without hurting themselves more.

I drilled a 3 inch hole in the third setion of the seat and installed a 2 1/2 tank fitting (the black round fitting) that goes through the poly board that hold the holder for my GPS. My depth finder/Fish Finder is dropped down through this hole and extends into the water beneath the hulls. Since the fish finder has side looking sonar on it too it has to go that deep. When underway I have a piece of 3 inch pvc that goes on top of the fitting and holds the sonar transducer just under the water when I am paddling, thus reducing the drag. The 2 1/2 inch fitting screw tight from underneath and reinforces the seat where I drilled the hole. A second, but no less valuable use for this hole is to run a chain through to lock the kayak into my truck when I am not with it. It keeps the kayak from wandering off if you get my drift.

GPS mount swung off to the side so I can move up to bow in boat. To exit the boat I would leave it straight and remove the depth finder and set it behind me and just walk off as usual.

The biggest problem I have faced with my W500 is the comments from non-believers. Some of the things they say can be painful if you don’t have a thick hide. They make their comments UNTIL they get on the water with me. I then do things like reversing direction in the kayak and watch their faces. I also make a big deal about stretching and twisting, standing up to show that I am completely free to move as I desire.

My stake out stick. It consists of a 4-8 ft long roller paainting extension pole from Home Depot with a 1 inch pvc T shaped handle on it on the top end and a roller handle (red part) that has had the part you attach the roller to cut off and then the shaft straightened and sharpened on the end. Works great and I attach it to the large carabiner on my anchor trolley.

I needed a stable kayak, that kept me dry (I mean 100% dry except for sweat) and after almost a year’s search finally decided that a WaveWalk W500 was the ticket. You are welcome to come to my home and try mine out on our neighborhood private lake. I offer this, because I had to buy mine sight unseen, untried, acting only on faith of others testimonials and several phone calls to a preacher in Corpus who owns one. The W500 is stable enough to not only stand in, but to paddle standing up. If you get wet in one its your own fault or because you decided to go wading. It has so much storage space that is so accessible that a crate isn’t needed. Unlike conventional kayaks I have a seat that is 6 feet long that I can sit anywhere on. I can stand, bend, twist, do anything I desire and stay in the kayak. Without doubt I feel I made the right choice, and I am however, a completely satisfied customer.

My flag/360 degree light pole. It's made from 1 1/4 inch pvc in three sections of 18 inches each. The Tektite white 2 led light drops in the top. When storing the pole for transit the pole sections are held in a piece of 4 inch pvc in the crate. I mount the flag/light pole in a 90 degree flush mount rod holder mounted as far back on the Hull tip a possible right next to the flotation foam. To make the 1 1/4 pipe fit into the pole holder I use a decreaser to 1 inch PVC.

I read the Texas kayak fishing boards (texaskayakfishing.com and the kayak section of www.Texasfishingforum.com) and just laugh. “Regular” kayak owners complain about lack of stability, lack of storage space, wet butts and wet feet, etc. An owner of a W500 has NONE of these problems. Take launching for instance – in a regular kayak you wade out half the length of the kayak and then get in – WET already. In a W500 I walk down between the hulls for 2 1/2 feet and step into the cockpit pushing off with the last foot on dry land and have launched completely dry. Landing I do essentially the same. To land I merely slide back in the seat, thus raising the “bow” and paddle or push quite far up onto the beach. I then slide up to the front pinning the hull tips to the beach and walk out between the hull tips – DRY.

Simple method of just using a carabiner to attach the anchor trolley to the handle and a picture of my rod holders. The BIG red caribiner goes over the stack out stick for anchoring.

Don’t believe the hype you will hear from folks who have other kayaks, and criticize the W500, because they have no idea what they are talking about (99.9% of whom have never even seen a W500 much less paddled one) that the W500 won’t turn, is hard to paddle, won’t track. Phooey on them. I can turn a W500 literally in place using 2 methods they don’t have in their arsenal. IF I need to change direction immediately I just turn around in the kayak (don’t try this in a regular kayak) and paddle the opposite direction OR I slide to the back of the seat lifting the front tips and do a couple of back paddles on the same side of the W500 and pivot in place. Regular turning is no problem either. Anchoring is another problem solved in a W500. A regular kayak MUST have an anchor trolley to be able to keep the anchor in the proper position to keep the kayak from going broadside to waves. The anchor trolley moves the anchor from place to place. In a W500, I can move from the back to the front of the kayak and I can move the anchor with me. I do have an anchor trolley on my W500, but its for MY CONVENIENCE mostly with Drift Socks so I can move the socks in small increments to keep me in position on a drift Quickly so as not to interfere with my fishing.

The WaveWalk kayak will keep you completely dry (no scuppers for water to enter to soak your butt) both on using the kayak and upon getting in and out of the kayak. The W500 has more storage than I can effectively use (14 cubic feet). I use a crate, not because I have to, but because it allows me to have a convenient place to fly my 360 light and flag from, and a place to keep my anchor and drift sock where it is instantly available should I need it. I use an anchor trolley because it makes the adjustment of where an anchor is located, not because I have to. Unlike those who use a conventional kayak and are largely confined to one place, I have a 6 foot long cockpit seat that allows me free access to the kayak tips on both the bow and stern which are interchangeable since the kayak can be paddled equally well either direction as they are exactly the same. You talk about turning – I can turn on a dime by sliding back to the rear of the seat and giving a couple of back paddles and the W500 will swivel in place. I can reverse direction simply by turning around in the cockpit and paddling the other direction. I don’t need to add flotation as that comes standard in the kayak tips and no it does not use up some of my storage space. Can anyone who has a regular kayak even approximate these features?? The features are as they are, and I will be posting about the merits of the W500 because I believe for the big guy and more importantly for the person who has disabilities that the W500 is the best kayak going.
It is so much easier to throw a cast net when you don’t have to do it from the sitting L position, and it’s so much easier it is to get things from your crate and from the 14 cubic feet of storage in the hull tips, if you can turn completely around like in the cockpit of a W500.

My favorite small boat cleat. Its called either a zig zag cleat or a W cleat. I'll go with the W. Very quick and easy to attach lines to and more than one line can be attached to the same cleat.

I did a lot of research before I finally settled on the WaveWalk W500, and I am glad that I can continually point out the things that are HARD OR IMPOSSIBLE from a regular Kayak that are so easy from a WaveWalk. It is most important to me for DISABLED KAYAKERS to know about the only kayak that I can own and actually use. As I have said before, my legs and back will not let me sit in a regular kayak for more than about 30 minutes before I have to get out. The having to get out is true for both paddling or sitting one place fishing.
The other fun and easy stuff like having max storage space, having max stability, ability to throw cast nets, are just gravy, because if you can’t get comfortable in the kayak, then you won’t use it and the subject is moot. IF I had a fishing kayak with the pedal drive I could not use it, and would not use it, because my disabilities keep me from using it. That said, after having a WaveWalk W500, I would still not use a pedal drive kayak even if I could. There are just too many other advantages to the WaveWalk that I would want to take advantage of. Why would I use a kayak with reduced capability and comfort???”
Give me a call or better yet come and paddle my W500,

Gary Johnson

Looking down into crate. The 4 inch PVC holds the anchor and anchor rope and chain, also a piece for the broken down flag/light pole, and one for a couple of drift socks which are not here yet. One of my 1 gallon size watertight storage containers fits here too.