Del valle pedalyak shakedown

My wife and I celebrated our 22nd anniversary at Del Valle Saturday and had our first opportunity to try out the Wavealkers. The boats kicked ass and lived up to the claims. I fished a little. Here is a senko fish caught in 15 feet of water. I also lost a 2-3#er at the boat caught trolling a river to sea lipless crankbait.

Saw lots of wildlife including turkeys, deer, egrets, herons, and the resident bald eagle.

egret

my deer

baldy

more wildlife

wildwife

Yesterday I started the mods. Found excellent pole holder hack.

made from

got rid of my hand sawn pvc and went to this Berkely holder.

Also hung soft rubber paddle clips that won't snap off

The drawbacks with the pedal yaks were few. At 120# they are a bitch to load. The rudder retraction cord is already frayed and won't last due to no chamfer/deburr of a metal bracket the cord passes through. The drive is a bit tough for my wife to retract. However I would HIGHLY recommend these things as fishing machines. Micro adjustments to boat position can easily be arranged both forwards and backwards. So staying positioned with respect to structure is a snap even when breezy. We easily paddled from the launch to the dam with far less back pain, no shoulder pain, and minimal leg pains.

Looks pretty cool.

One thing I'm curious about is the high center of gravity.  What is the side to side stability with all the weight so high up?

MolBasser

Where is the rudder control?  How do you steer?

So 22 years is a gift of polyethylene?  Congratulations.