Wavewalk Kayaks

Doug Hord is a W-kayak fisherman from Long Island, NY, who got his boat early this year.

Here’s what Doug writes:

-”Just came in from a couple hours in the inlet after work — 1 14# bass.  Got a 30 and a 16 last Sat night.  I don’t fish from it too often; I might throw a swimmer out on my way to and fro.  For the season so far I have around 75 bass over 10#/30″.  I’m running second place in the season long New York Surf Fishing contest.  I’m totally satisfied with the Wavewalk.  If I wreck this one somehow I’ll order another within a week.  It gets me access to good fishing areas and it gets me away from the crowds.  Only ‘problem’ is I put a couple pretty deep gouges on the bottom while fishing in mussel beds and around rock jetties –
Doug”



Doug is a surf fisherman from Long Island, NY, who drove all the way here (Newton, Massachusetts) to pick up his new W Kayak. He told me he chose to get a W after had tried an ordinary fishing kayak and didn’t like the way he had to sit in it. He also wanted to paddle and fish standing. Before that he had paddled a canoe - as a boy…

Doug is middle aged, medium built, around 6′ and 200 lb. He emailed me the following report::

“I got it [the W kayak] out onto Jamaica Bay on Saturday on water not over my head. Went well. I like being able to go in a straight line without paying too much attention to what I’m doing. Paddled standing up w/o too much instability…; Practiced turning around inside the ‘cockpit’ without incident.”

I was satisfied to read that everything went well for Doug, especially in view of the fact that he didn’t get a chance to try the kayak here because of the cold weather we had.

What struck me in Doug’s report was that he able to turn around in his W kayak’s cockpit so quickly: When he was here he asked me about it and I explained to him how it should be done, but I also warned him that it was an ‘advanced’ trick, and that he shouldn’t even think of trying it before he got very well acquainted with his new boat.

In any case, Doug’s success story doesn’t change our basic advice to new W kayakers and kayak fishermen, which still is: “Lower your expectations and progress slowly and carefully in your study of the use of your new W kayak, because stuff happens…”

Yoav