Wavewalk Kayaks

I recently visited a popular online kayak fishing forum serving kayak fishermen in a Southern state. One of the discussions in it was about the negative side of kayak fishing as the participants see them.
Most of the participants fish from SOTs and some from sit-in kayaks, but none of them fishes from a W Kayak.

These are the problematic points that the participants seemed to agree upon:

1. You really can’t do it [kayak fishing] right without getting wet and muddy. Either water will slosh into your cockpit or your scuppers will fill up. You’ll need to get about knee deep to launch comfortably, so you’ll probably encounter mud, grass, sand, or all of them (ergonomic problem)

2. You’ll have to get used to loading and unloading your boat and equipment. You’ll take 15 minutes to unload and you’ll take 15 minutes to load everything back into/onto your vehicle/trailer (storage problem).

3. You can’t take your kid fishing with you.

4. Paddling into the wind is difficult (’windage’ problems).

5. It’s very hard to relief oneself (ergonomic problem).

6. No place to keep your catch when you paddle back in. You need to tie your stringer to the side and drag it, which can be difficult and attract predators, or use the fish-in-the-lap approach (storage problems).

7. Fishing in high winds makes it difficult to cast.

8. You can’t really fish standing. If you’re accustomed to casting in a standing position (power boat, shore or pier) you feel awkward casting from a low, seated position (ergonomic and biomechanical problems).

9. Since there’s little room on deck everything is close to you and you may unintentionally “snag” nearby items with your hook (ergonomic problem).

10. Not being able to stand up and stretch after being seated for a long time - discomfort in your legs (ergonomic problem)

11. Lower back and posterior pains (ergonomic problem).

12. It can get very cold onboard (ergonomic problem)

Compare this to the W Fishing Kayak, that:

1. Offers dry launching and beaching even in difficult spots, and its cockpit protects you against spray.

2. Is a ‘Toss and Go’ boat - you can leave your gear and tackle inside when transporting it.

3. Offers enough room onboard for a second passenger

4. Enables you to paddle in strong wind

5. Offers to stand up anytime and for any purpose…

6. Offers sufficient dry and protected storage space onboard for every possible need.

7. Offers powerful casting positions such as riding and standing

8. Enables fishing standing in confidence even in the presence of wind and eddies.

9. Features a full size, spacious and deep cockpit.

10. Offers to switch between various positions and stand up for fishing anytime.

11. Enables your legs to support your torso and back in a natural posture.

12. Puts you higher on the water and protects you from wind and spray.



It isn’t necessarily a simple problem.

First of all, your fishing gear and tackle need to be secure at all times, which means that come what may they won’t get lost. Rods, tackle box, fish tank, bait tank and cooler come if various sizes, and you need to reach and use them whenever you want.
Hatches may be relatively safe for storage but they are not very practical when it comes to accessing what you stored in them.

Sit on top (SOT) kayaks don’t have a real cockpit to speak of. They feature a shallow depression in the deck, and any object on it (including yourself) may fall overboard or get washed away in case you’re paddling through the surf.
You can secure your fishing equipment with bungees and ropes, but that may not always make them handy, and dipping your reels in saltwater could harm them.

Sit-in kayaks (SIK) feature either a close or open cockpit, but it’s usually rather small, and being low above the water it exposes your gear to spray.

Canoes offer limitless storage space - practically the whole boat, but this comes at a high price of being harder to paddle than kayaks, especially under wind and in the surf.

In contrast, the cockpit of the W fishing kayak is bigger and deeper than any kayak cockpit, yet the boat itself is small and easy to paddle in adverse conditions. In fact, you have ten cubic feet of internal, dry and accessible storage space in the cockpit itself and inside the boat’s four hull tips that you can always access from inside the cockpit.
There are numerous places you can attach gear to, and you can easily add more. On top of this you can use the top of the hulls outside the cockpit for attaching extra bulky equipment.

I chose this picture to show how much storage this kayak has to offer simply because nearly every cubic inch in it is available for storage: