# Kayak fishing is exploding... someone alert the authorities!



## Guest (Oct 5, 2007)

Not literally, but figuratively, at least. A quick glance at the most current membership at this site speaks volumes. By my reckoning (Red, correct me if I'm wrong) membership here has increased by some 50% in a year or so. And although I can't quote figures, I can say that kayak dealers I speak with continue to inform me of how busy they are and how many more yaks they are continuing to sell (as compared with last year, for example). Personally speaking, its the waterside encounters I have on a near daily basis that proves to me how much more interest 'joe public' is taking in kayak fishing (yakabout memberships is another indicator for me). And I probably shouldn't reveal the actual latest figure here relayed to me, but the recently released online kayak fishing mag (apparently) has membership in 5 figures, after only one month of existence. Wow. There's really no doubt - this sport is a massive growth industry.

Yet, many tackle shops I walk into give me a blank, unknowing, almost disbelieving stare when I tell them I fish from a kayak. Some of these guys - selling tackle, no less - have never even heard of it. WTF? Some manufaturors and distributors seem to have a similar response. I can't explain why these guys are so slow on the uptake, but I do know this - they're going to be caught off guard by those who aren't.

Whatcha reckon?


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## Guest (Oct 5, 2007)

Thanks Red. An impressive 'meteroic rise' by anyones account. Cheers


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## L3GACY (Sep 2, 2007)

Kayak fishing is going off at the moment i reckon, i only heard about it maybe 3 months ago and even in that 3 months i've seen things grow, for example my local tackle shop now stocks specialist kayak fishing gear like purpose built kayak rods, he ordered in 6 of one model on the first order (its a small store in terms of more specialist rods he's usually looking at half that) because so many people had been asking for them. By the looks of things down here its really taking off.


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## Cuda (Sep 18, 2006)

Yeah, reminds me of an old avert on TV years ago - a crazy meglomaniac saying 'today I control all this - tomorrow the world :shock: Let's face it - stink boats are becoming too expensive to buy, run and maintain - plus they contribute to pollution, whereas yaks are green and mean and damn great exercise + fun to boot. Even the greenies can't argue with that :lol: 
A new dawn is beginning - the age of the yak is here and we're all part of the ground swell - oops, I'm getting carried away again, Baz where's the nurse, I need my pills mate :lol: 
When you think about it, we pay a fair price for our yaks in the first instance, but we don't cop registration fees, fuel bills, maintenance cost etc like the stinky's do every year - heck, some of the catches from yaks are outstanding and very comparable to stink boats when you take bag limits etc into account.
Yep, I believe things can only get better for yak fishing - we all know don't we


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## Guest (Oct 5, 2007)

To be honest, as big as it is getting, and as many members we have now (and I have watched it grow from he begining), it is still such a tiny slice of the market. I would take an educated guess and say less than 1%. I would love to see more kayak gear in tackle stores, and we all will as time goes on, but from a point of view sitting on the buisness side of the fence the turn over for conventional gear to kayak gear would be 1000 to 1. The sport is growing yes, and does not seem to be slowing down, so I hope that the retail market follows suit. I am in the buisness and find it frustrating trying to purchase particular gear that I need or want for my kayak fishing.


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## varp (Sep 12, 2005)

Walked into the Compleat Angler (major chain in Melb) in Box Hill yesterday and they had half a dozen Hobie's on display. The penny has well and truly dropped now I thought.

If I was made of different stuff I'd start a shop geared exclusively to the yak fisho. When you think about it, the customising and outfitting of a yak chews up a fair percentage of the coin involved in hooking into a few fish. While I love the DIY nature of the sport, you are having a lend of yourself if you think you can make a decent cart from PVC for example. There's a quid to be made from this nascent industry.


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## Guest (Oct 5, 2007)

Thats probably right Keljad - our numbers are still relatively small. Thats exactly why it's such a growth industry. Here's something to consider though. Lets say we do make up merely 1% of the market (and yep, I'd agree we're probably less). Sure, that probably means you only see 1 in 100 customers that fish from a kayak. Probably less if competitors have seen the writing on the wall sooner than you (or where you work), like Compleat Angler in Box Hill (as mentioned by Varp) or Anaconda, for examples.

I'm not exactly sure how many people fish in Aus, but I do know that generally speaking, it's the largest sport in the nation. From memory, there's more than a million people who fish here. 1% of a mill is 100,000.00. Not too shabby really, and we're just getting started.

You just don't see stinkboaters being flocked to when they launch and land and that happens to me nearly every time. I started to get so tired of it I actually requested catalogues from Hobie Vic because I just wanted to be able to hand them the catalogue and say 'read this mate, sorry... gotta run... I'm goin fishin'. The interest is genuine and it's profound.


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## varp (Sep 12, 2005)

When we go down to our van Josh and Bobby gets into the Hobie and has a morning peddle along the length of the foreshore, people run for their cameras, their partners and their kids and point. If she had a jet pack strapped on and was doing aerial donuts she'd get the same result.


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## Guest (Oct 5, 2007)

Yep Varp, I've seen that phenomenon many times - there's just something about pedal-powered kayaks that gets people very intregued. I think it happens with all kayaks loaded with rods to be honest, but not to the same extent as the Hobies seem to attract.


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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

I would say that at Redcliffe on any given day there would be at least 1/4 of all fish vessels being kayaks or canoes. Its nothing to see 10 or more kayaks around Scarbie on the weekend. I would get someone coming up to me at the ramp quite often keenly interested in getting involved in the sport.
But still the local boat, bait & tackle stores have no or next to nothing in the way of accessories. Some half hardily stock kayaks, but aren't very serious about them. There would definitely be an opening in the market for a kayak shop, especially at Scarborough.
Then again if the EPA get away with locking us out of all the good fishing spots around Redcliffe the market might not be so great  .

Hey L3GACY...... Wheres that local tackle shop?


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## L3GACY (Sep 2, 2007)

Brighton SA, Todd's Tackle and bait. http://www.toddstackle.com.au/ the rods will show up on the site in the next week or so. I am not affiliated with them in any way other than buying a lot of my gear there. I went out to practice my surf launches and re-entries today as it was nice and calm, when i finally caled it quites i had 3 blokes all wanting to know about my kayak (quest).


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2007)

Hi 5th, totally agree mate. I would love to pack up and go into a kayak store. The only problem is that I would get absolutley no work done :lol:


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## Astro (Nov 27, 2006)

the usual beach landing...as you get closer and closer you start to see people watching, then pointing and then meet you would you land......

sold another 2 yaks to today......should ask for comission.....

btw...don't alert the authorities....they will want some the action....


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## fisher (Aug 30, 2005)

L3GACY said:


> Brighton SA, Todd's Tackle and bait. http://www.toddstackle.com.au/ the rods will show up on the site in the next week or so. I am not affiliated with them in any way other than buying a lot of my gear there. I went out to practice my surf launches and re-entries today as it was nice and calm, when i finally caled it quites i had 3 blokes all wanting to know about my kayak (quest).


I'm not affiliated with this shop either, and it is a long way from being my closest fishing tackle store, but I'm completely impressed with his shop and his service, but I suspect he might stuggle against the bigger retailers. I'm certainly going to make an effort to direct my business his way, and in fact just bought a new raider rod though him. We had a chat about kayak fishing - glad to see he's getting some kayak gear in!


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## Seasquirt (Jul 17, 2007)

Every time I launch now I get attention and 50 questions from serious onlookers and similarly when I am trying to pack up. This is eating into valuable time on the water. I now find that as I glide in I quickly grab all the expensive stuff and race to the car and bring it close so that way I can talk and pack up without additional questions like " how do you find that sonar or camera or whatever".

As I parked the car on a recent trip I watched this guy circling my yak and I was almost set up except for my sounder and best rod, I quickly stowed these excused myself and pushed off with questions still following, I paddled out a bit then 50 metres parallel and back in to the toilet which was where I was trying to get to in the first place. :?


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## DiveYak (Feb 5, 2007)

Just a note re the numbers, but 1% of 1 million is 10,000......not quite the 100K mark


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## L3GACY (Sep 2, 2007)

fisher said:


> I'm not affiliated with this shop either, and it is a long way from being my closest fishing tackle store, but I'm completely impressed with his shop and his service, but I suspect he might stuggle against the bigger retailers. I'm certainly going to make an effort to direct my business his way, and in fact just bought a new raider rod though him. We had a chat about kayak fishing - glad to see he's getting some kayak gear in!


Todd's a great bloke and yes he does have trouble competing with places like sportfishing scene but (for me at least) he matches any price they give me so, close to me, price matches, friendly and doesnt just know but also fishes the local area, what more could you want? Next time you're in tell him Jon said you'd have some kayak rods coming in (i think they'll be Ugly Stiks but dont quote me on it), i'd give you more details but i was more focussed on my new shark setup lol.

Anyway back on topic, i would like to see kayak fishing compete with the boats, i know it will never happen but imo its a much better way to get on local waters than boats. More exercise than a tinnie, can be cheaper than a tinnie, easier to launch than a tinnie, can go places even some tinnies wont go, environmentally friendly, no rego fees, the only possible downside in calmer local waters is you need to work to get to fishing spots but for me its a pleasure, i love going for a paddle. If only everyone knew about it...


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## couta1 (Sep 10, 2005)

keep it quite.DONT LET THE GOVERNMENT find out about kayak fishing,they will want to make money out of it,or come up with some stupid rules or bans!!!!,then more people will be winging that fishing areas are less.Let us enjoy it in solitude and keep our big catches between ourselves


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## varp (Sep 12, 2005)

You've touched on something there Occy. I reckon that if you make it sexy the wankers will come. When you get the yak equivalent of lycra for the pushbikies i.e - a chance to frock up to keep fit and you get nicely colour co-ordinated with a good looking yak then the sport will snowball. You see it with the well heeled tossers in their matching Columbia gear...very de rigeur I believe around the north shore to pull up to the moorings in the sleek glass tourno bream platforms with twin Mercs, flick a few SP's around then bugger off to the next smart mooring.

I might have a jaundiced eye here, but I think a lot of the stinkboat fishos are in it for the one-up-man-ship. Granted they love their boats, but when the price of a run out to the reef starts costing them big bucks in juice they will look for something else and yak fishing could be the parallel of blokes with smart cars getting into smart bikes. Smart boaters could find the same in smart yaks. We are at the start of something big IMHO. As the dedicated fishing yaks and their outfitting gets better so will the appeal.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2007)

Well, I'm another to add to the list. I only thought about fishing out of a Kayak about a month ago and now I'm on the brink of buying a Fishing Kayak. Any day now. I also got sick of waiting for a mate of mine to take me out fishing in his new boat (Turns out his partner doesn't like him going fishing with the boys)

Told him I was buying a fishing Kayak and he reckons I should just buy a Tinnie.

Can't wait to get my Kayak. I'm almost busting with anticipation.



> When you think about it, we pay a fair price for our yaks in the first instance, but we don't cop registration fees


Give it time. The powers to be will find some way of making money from Kayak fishos (Like a licence or something)


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## DGax65 (Jun 7, 2006)

When I got my first kayak in early 2002 the local kayak fishing community was relatively small. On a busy Saturday in the summer you might find only 20-30 kayak fishermen out in the La Jolla Cove. This year you might see that many on a weekday. Weekends sometimes draw well over a hundred yak fishos to La Jolla. Last weekend there were 56 entrants in a kayak fishing tournament. This was a low turnout due to a conflict with another kayak event in the area, opening night of lobster season and a $40 entry fee. The sport is definitely growing by leaps and bounds. It has taken the rest of the fishing industry a while to recognize this fast-growing segment of sport fishing. Now that there are so many yak fishermen we are starting to see kayak-specific products. Even Shimano has started designing gear for kayak fishing. I imagine that as fuel prices continue to rise we will see more people getting into kayak fishing. While it might mean more crowds at your favorite fishing hole, it will also lead to greater choice of fishing-specific kayak designs and more kayak fishing gear.


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## andybear (Jan 15, 2006)

Yay! Great that kayak fishing is exploding........Please Please Please do not alert the authorities though!
1. Limit length 3.2 metres
2. Rod holders 1
3. Paddle, Canadian one ender.
4. Rudder not allowed
5. Fish finder. Restricted weapon
6. GPS Paddler a terror suspect.
7. Medical, eyesight test, and a note from your mother
8. Exam, 1000 questions multiple choice.....cost of test $4000
9. All paddling plans to be submitted and approved 30 days in advance.
10 All yaks to be remeasured each year to ensure that they have not been shortened or lengthened.....

I hope I do not have a severe mental illness!

Cheers all Andybear :lol: :shock: :shock:


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## Biggera Yakker (Jan 25, 2007)

1% of a million is 10,000.
Still a lot!


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## L3GACY (Sep 2, 2007)

andybear said:


> Yay! Great that kayak fishing is exploding........Please Please Please do not alert the authorities though!


It's too late Andybear, loook what i saw yesterday...


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## couta1 (Sep 10, 2005)

Dont forget the priviledge tax,as we dont have to by fuel


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## milansek (Apr 20, 2006)

i have been selling yaks for fishing for 2 years in my tackle shop and sold a lot off them but to go out and stock every thing would not be good business sense as it is still a small part.
milan


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2007)

Yep, I think it would be stupid for any retailer, major or otherwise, to simple stock everything. But those who are interested in making inroads into the growing sport of yak fishing, at least having a hand-picked range of commonly sought items would make a hell of a lot of sense. If I was doing it, I'd have an online shop as well (not ebay) because I reckon a lot of business would come to a well promoted online store as well. Such as the guy who sells lures that many here are fond of: http://www.lureworld.com.au

Niche industry, yes. But growing the way it is, I'm not sure it'll just be niche for long. This sport has got a long way to go yet, but it is getting there, steadily and not so slowly.


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## fisherdan (Apr 17, 2007)

Maybe we should start playing it down a bit? Today there were as many Yaks as boats at Long Reef and if it goes the way Doug has pointed out, it might get a bit crowded out there... Yak-Rage!?? Imagine... :shock:


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## andybear (Jan 15, 2006)

Gahhhhhh!

Cheers Andybear :shock: :shock:


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## troppo (Feb 1, 2006)

With all due respect to the kayak fishing fraternity, practically all kayak fisherfolk are exceedingly positive promoters of their once-thought-crazy sport. They are friendly, fit, fish-catchers, fun and fantastic. It is their positive energy and dynamic soul power which is pushing up kayak fishing as the pastime to be in. But not all kayak fisherfolk are like that. I am thinking of sour, dour, critical, argumentative, unsmiling, petty-minded, hard-to-please, whinging, tight-fisted, lazy and small-brained. Do you know anyone like that? I confess, it is me! But it is not all bad. If ya favourite spot is getting too crowded, invite me along and in my own natural style and lack of underarm deodorant, I will wow people out of their socks, in fact out of their yaks and out of ya old top fishing spot. Just one look at my face, which resembles a mullet left in the sun for a week, and they start thinking there must be more congenial sports to try. Then once they observe my fishing techniques and accurate casting, they usually want to create some space around themselves where they feel more secure from falling bait and lost-in-space sinkers. So, do not despair that yakking is becoming popular, rejoice that I am on your side and providing balance to the pressure trying to take yak fishing out of the hands of the few into the hands of the many.


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

troppo... stay out of the sun mate,,,,, its doing funny things to your head.....again. :shock:

PMSL. :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## troppo (Feb 1, 2006)

Davey G said:


> troppo... stay out of the sun mate,,,,, its doing funny things to your head.....again. :shock:
> 
> PMSL. :lol: :lol: :lol:


Davey G, do you charge for that advice? I have been told that exact same thing before but I had to pay a heap for it from a dude in fancy clothing that I didn't trust because he kept asking me to lie down on the couch. 8)


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## fisherdan (Apr 17, 2007)

troppo said:


> With all due respect to the kayak fishing fraternity, practically all kayak fisherfolk are exceedingly positive promoters of their once-thought-crazy sport. They are friendly, fit, fish-catchers, fun and fantastic. It is their positive energy and dynamic soul power which is pushing up kayak fishing as the pastime to be in. But not all kayak fisherfolk are like that. I am thinking of sour, dour, critical, argumentative, unsmiling, petty-minded, hard-to-please, whinging, tight-fisted, lazy and small-brained. Do you know anyone like that? I confess, it is me! But it is not all bad. If ya favourite spot is getting too crowded, invite me along and in my own natural style and lack of underarm deodorant, I will wow people out of their socks, in fact out of their yaks and out of ya old top fishing spot. Just one look at my face, which resembles a mullet left in the sun for a week, and they start thinking there must be more congenial sports to try. Then once they observe my fishing techniques and accurate casting, they usually want to create some space around themselves where they feel more secure from falling bait and lost-in-space sinkers. So, do not despair that yakking is becoming popular, rejoice that I am on your side and providing balance to the pressure trying to take yak fishing out of the hands of the few into the hands of the many.


I've booked your November tour dates Troppo,

3 Nov.- Clovelly Cove and foreshore

7 Nov.- Rose Bay Marina

11 Nov.- Special Guest appearance at AKFF Budgewoi Bash

17 Nov.- The pristine shores of Balmoral Beach Sydney

*18 Nov.- Due to high demand Troppo will also be at Long Reef boat ramp for a chat 8-10am olny!

Opportunities available for sponsorship now!

(and where can I get me some of that "Dynamic soul power"?)


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## troppo (Feb 1, 2006)

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Very funny indeed Fisherdan, well done.


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## andybear (Jan 15, 2006)

Troppo is absolutely correct in all respects.

With my rubber stamp marked "SANE" I Spiritually dub him. Have you ever noticed, that nearly everyone on this forum is NORMAL....more or less... :shock:

Cheers all Andybear :lol: :lol:


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## Eberbachl (Jun 21, 2007)

When I first bought a Dagger Drifter each for myself and my wife four or five years ago, drilled a hole in mine, stuck in a rod holder and went for a fish - I had never even or heard of a yak fisho.

I then had a few years break to have some kids and build a house - and hey presto - I get back into it, and find it's exploded (and run into you lot )!

It's fantastic to see the phenominal growth yak fishing is experiencing. I only think positive things can come out of it's poularity.



If everyone was paddling, rather than pushing around oversized polluting stink boats, think of how much greener fishing's image would be


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