Interestingly, most people, including most of those who fish, which count in the tens of millions in the United States alone, perceive kayak fishing to be an extreme form of fishing, and therefore the fishing kayak to be an extreme watercraft.
Of course, this is relative to fishing from shore, or from traditional, bigger boats such as canoes, dinghies and skiffs, and other motorized boats that are popular for fishing, although nearly all of them are more expensive than fishing kayaks, when both purchase price and cost of maintenance are concerned.
In fact, the ratio of kayak anglers to all anglers is about 1:1,000 in the U.S., a figure that tells a lot.
So the question asked in this blog post’s title is not misplaced, and it should be asked more frequently, and discussed openly and thoroughly, as this “Kayak Fishing As An Extreme Sport” article does.
Excerpt from this article:
…”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…”