Our first demo of our ultra lightweight fishing kayak was on Thursday night at the Lake Guntersville State Park Pavilion and Boat ramp.
Fat Tire Beer provided 40 cases of beer to Apex to serve to the 305 Kayak Anglers who qualified and made the journey to compete in the biggest kayak fishing event of the year.
We showed up at the event with my wrapped truck and trailer and my personal kayak that is one generation before the production boats we are making today.
At this event are the most famous and skilled tournament bass fishing anglers in the USA. Many of them are sponsored by boat brands.
At this demo there was incredible interest- much of which was, at first, just to get a first hand glimpse at the boat.
It seemed to be a consensus that the anglers liked the Wrap on the boat better than the paint job they had seen online. I was glad to hear that as the wrap is more practical to apply, maintain, and the owner can change it out in the future if they want. It also protects the deck of the boat from scratches and scuffs.
The next thing that people started doing was lifting it up. Suddenly their eyes really lit up and their brains started thinking of how cutting the weight of their kayak by 1/2 or 2/3rds or more would make the experience much more enjoyable.
The most awesome part of the experience for me was when these very experienced anglers finally got the Tyr on the water and paddled it. 100% of them lit up in a big way and the most common comment was “That was amazing”. The performance improvements you achieve by reducing weight alone is huge. When you add zero scupper holes to the mix, and then have the high performance hull that is based on a successful SUP racing board hull, you get a real eye opening experience on the water.
The stability of the boat was next in line for what surprised everyone. I am not sure why they didn’t expect it to be as stable or more stable than their “pro angler 14” for example, but they didn’t.
Colton Breeding was there helping with the event, and volunteered with the KBF to help at registration, with sponsors, and to set up at the demo and talk to anglers about the boat. We didn’t bring the Torqeedo to show off the speed simply because I was using the boat in its purest form for the tournament and fishing in water that ranged from 3” to 2’ way up in the woods and flats of North Sauty and Mudd Creeks.
Meanwhile, at the Apex Watercraft plant in Texas, Russ Emanis is working hard on molding our first production boats! We are getting close to ultimate stage in our business- where we can deliver these kayaks to our customers and dealers and watch them have this same experience themselves.
This is a big week for us. Last week I was focused on competing in the KBF Nationals, where my plans for a win certainly didn’t pan out, but I made a good comeback after the day 1 hole I dug for myself. I went from 159th to 95th to make the top 100 cut (out of 305 anglers) and then finished up from there yesterday. (I don’t actually know what place I got yet- as the Tourney X website isn’t showing results yet.). I was on the water fishing, training, scouting hard with my TYR for a total of over 180 hours over the past 30 days on Lake Guntersville, Alabama. It was great to put it to the test, to get so many hours with my butt in that seat, or standing and paddling around.
Some of the highlights of this boat’s advantages were in the thick grass and Lilly pads. The bow pierces through the pads without catching any, and the draft is so low and the hull so clean that it just skims over the grass with so much less effort than any other boat. I was able to paddle through the thickest stuff while my competition had to stay on the boat trails for the most part.
I was also testing out the rod stagers on the deck to hold the rods in an organized way so they don’t cross each other. This worked awesome. I spent way less time untangling lures and was ready in a second if a fish blew up and I needed to change rods, for example.
The new Tailgate prototype was also working well for when I was portaging over trees in the creek and needed my stuff in the stern to stay put.
Stay tuned for more photos and information as this week unfolds. It is a big week for production on the molding side. We are going to get 6 boats ready before we get them from Texas and bring to our Tennessee factory to outfit them.
🙂
EJ