{"id":1062,"date":"2010-10-21T08:32:24","date_gmt":"2010-10-21T13:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/?p=1062"},"modified":"2020-11-06T18:43:26","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T22:43:26","slug":"first-impression-fishing-kayak-review-by-gary-johnson-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/21\/first-impression-fishing-kayak-review-by-gary-johnson-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"‘First Impression’ Fishing Kayak Review, by Gary Johnson, Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gary is a 61 year old, disabled war veteran from Texas, and he’s also a fairly big guy (6’2″ \/ 280 lbs). Gary conducted a thorough investigation before ordering his W500, including a call to another Texan W kayak angler and wave walker …\u00a0 Gary also spent some time discussing his purchase plans for a W500 with ‘members’ of an online, Texan kayak fishing discussion forum, who made some strange comments about the W500, as none of them had ever seen one, and most of them are affiliated with other fishing kayak brands, one way or another.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read Gary’s full review of his rigged W500 fishing kayak<\/a> >>
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Gary writes:<\/span><\/p>\n

“I took the W500 out for her maiden voyage this afternoon on our 14 acre lake.\u00a0 The W500 was easy to launch and my feet stayed completely dry.\u00a0 The launching area we have is totally unimproved and is rather steep.\u00a0 Neither the steepness, nor the unimproved nature caused any problem with launching.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I had initially thought I might want to add an electric motor for powered use – NOT ANYMORE!!\u00a0 Paddling the W500 is so easy and even going into a 10mph breeze it was almost effortless.\u00a0 For those who say the W500 won’t glide and won’t track straight I say you are FULL OF HOOEY!!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It almost felt like I was overpowering the paddle blade and not being efficient.\u00a0 I got the 9 foot paddle and I wish I had gotten the longer one.<\/p>\n

Getting used to being in the W500 took about 1 lap around the lake (approximately a mile).\u00a0 I learned quickly that when you first are starting and the kayak seems “Tippy”, grabbing onto the sides of the kayak is NO HELP.\u00a0 Raising my hands and bringing the paddle up to my chest stabilized the W500 quickly.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Its not going to happen.\u00a0 The Specs say the max load is 360 lbs – I say hooey – it will handle much more than that.<\/p>\n

Now comes the rigging of the W500 for fishing.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The flag will mount on a piece of galvanized rod that goes through holes bored through the PVC.\u00a0 My fishing pole holders will be above deck mounts that are removable so if I am\u00a0 fly fishing I can remove the ones which would tangle my fly line.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

My wife bought me one of the huge frozen food bags from Costco to use as my fish bag.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Rods will store easily.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Pictures will be coming soon and please wish me good luck on trying to stand up the first time.<\/p>\n

I have also figured out that I am going to have to get one of those automatic inflatable life jackets.\u00a0 My regular one is TOO WARM for the amount of exercise you can get paddling a kayak.\u00a0 My shirt was wet when I was done.\u00a0 Wet means COLD in the winter, and I plan to use the W500 all winter.<\/p>\n

Gary Johnson”<\/p>\n

Read Gary’s full review of his rigged W500 fishing kayak<\/a> >><\/p>\n

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Read more fishing kayak reviews that our clients have contributed ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-category"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23300,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions\/23300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavewalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}