“When I started kayak fishing in 1998, anglers had two choices,” starts Paul Lebowitz’s Roots column. My how things have changed. Today, kayak anglers have dozens of kayaks designed for fishing.
You can flip through the Kayak Angler Buyer’s Guide and find boats costing a couple hundred bucks to a couple thousand. You’ll also see boats designed specifically for river, lake, pond or ocean fishing. There is a kayak for every angler and every type of water.
Is kayak fishing growing too fast?
Is bigger better? With the addition of so many variables separating us, do we risk being subject to class warfare?
We’re already falling into categories. “Pedal fishing is a different sport,” Ocean Kayak pro Kevin Whitley always reminds me. He admits pedal fishing has unique skills and challenges, but he’s comfortable putting pedal catches in a different category from paddle-powered accomplishments.
After working at Appomattox River Company for four years, Whitley reports new anglers come into the shop with a preconceived notion that paddles are for beginners and pedals are for serious anglers. I just shake my head and sigh deeply.
Now there are motor-powered kayak anglers in the mix. I was surprised Chad Hoover allowed motorized kayaks in Kayak Bass Fishing tournaments. Then he explained the move was actually designed to promote unity. He says, “You can’t nit-pick who can and can’t use a motorized kayak.” Hoover calls the decision fair. “If anyone can use a motor, then no one can poo-poo the winner.”
Division among price point
When I pull up to the launch with the latest, greatest kayak to test for this magazine, other anglers gather like moths to a flame. When I pull up to the launch with my faded, old beater boat, no one even notices. With price points ranging from box-store bargains to pimped-out super boats, there is a lot of envy at the launch ramp.
Then there’s the “pro” prefix. Rising stars on social media and the tournament scene have formed themselves an elite class. Now we have world-famous kayak anglers.
Thank goodness we’ve passed the sponsorship feeding frenzy when it seemed anyone who caught anything in a kayak was going around with his hand out. The sport has matured to a point where legit badasses are supported to push the sport forward.
We must remember what kayak fisherman have in common
You’ll find stories of five exceptional anglers in the Pro Files feature. Their leaderboard success is checked by a grassroots, down-to-earth attitude giving me hope for unity and peace.
The six-page feature covers top competitors from bass trails to billfish blowouts, but each angler said the same thing: they fish tournaments for the comradery more than the competition. And they mean it.
Sure, they have the competitive push to travel hundreds of miles, fish for days, in any conditions, invest time and money in pursuit of a bigger fish, but they really come for the party. Susie Roloff, the highest-scoring woman in KBF National Championship history, sticks with it, “because I don’t feel like people are judging me.”
Anglers will always argue the advantage of motors, pedals and paddles, but in the end we have more in common than how we propel our pursuits. Jeff Jackson’s Chaos Theory column points to one thing the disparate branches of the sport share: “First and foremost, we fish.”
Even if one guy pushes a $300 box-store boat and another whips his $4,000 micro-skiff, each is drawn by the ease of ownership, independence, simplicity, silence and sense of accomplishment only available in a little plastic boat.
First and foremost, we fish. Feature Photo: Scott Beutjer
Mr. Burnley,
I go way back reading your magazine and have met you a few times through the years — once I fixed a bunch of your rods at the old Atlantic Bait and Tackle on Rosemont. That was a long time ago. Your publication is one of a kind, and I still don’t fully understand how you’ve kept it afloat financially without ever compromising the quality. Hats off to you, sir. Truly one of the legends.
I have to say, when I saw you’d written on this topic — one I’ve been grappling with and arguing about for years — I was a little bummed. I wished this piece had been a touch longer. I thought I was the only one that thought about this stuff.
The ‘icastification’ of the kayak fishing industry — and I was shocked to see you use the term in the title — but class is very much at play indeed. I feel that a book could frankly be written on this topic, and it would be well worth reading.
The history of kayak fishing as we know it today is rooted in a blue-collar, DIY culture. A group of people that made fishing look badass to me as a kid that didn’t have a rich dad with a boat. It captured my imagination, and frankly took over my life. In 2011, after my first time working for a summer in high school, I spent $700 on a new WS Tarpon 120 Angler and I was set for a decade. Suddenly, I could get off the shore with an 11-ft kayak, Kevin’s KFTCB (the first one), and a modified milk crate. I was no longer stuck on banks struggling to catch much of anything. I was out there doing it the hard way, and it was so much fun.
It was skateboarding culture in the ’90s to me. It was punk rock. It was a big middle finger to those people I watched as a child as they booze cruised over spots that I would have done anything to fish. Kayak anglers learned to do it the hard way, and I thought no one in the community would ever have it any other way. I was so naive, obviously.
Now it’s just lost all the local flavor it once had. The authenticity, the camaraderie, and the class solidarity that kayak fishing once had is gone — replaced by an industry that has no memory of where any of this came from.
All of this is to say, thank you. Thanks for platforming this topic, because it can be contentious. But it is very important we acknowledge these shifts and keep the rag tag roots of Kayak Fishing alive.
Tight Lines! (and tired arms)
GC