yakass

While at work today I was asked a fairly controversial question inspired by assumption, which had I not thought was such an easy assumption to make, I would have been very offended by. That question was this: Is yakass.net a front for Maclean Outdoors. The answer, in case you were wondering - and I'm guessing some of you are - is no. Allow me to explain why it sometimes might look that way, and what I plan to do about it.

Yakass.net is officially supported by several Hobie kayak dealers. They are Maclean Outdoors (Nth NSW), Sunstate Hobie (QLD), Scott Lovig Hobie (Vic) and Hobie Sports (centrall NSW). This site is not a front for any of them. They are merely supporters of the site (and War on Fish) and the site's contributors. For example, Carl is sponsored by Sunstate Hobie and Holger is sponsored by Maclean Outdoors. Every now and then they might help with a little something for me to giveaway as a prize and they all link back to this site. But that's as far as it goes. No money has (or will) changed hands and there is no agreement in place for favourable content intended to bolster these dealers above others.

The only reason Maclean Outdoors gets mentioned as often as it does is because I work there by day, and we are constantly ordering in new products that we think will work well in kayak fishing scenarios. So if I spot a new product worth mentioning here (through the store or elsewhere) I write about it. If any other kayak dealer - be they a Hobie dealer or not, or yakass supporter or not - takes it upon themselves to inform me of a new product worth revealing to the yakass readers, I do it. Right now is a good time to point out that I do not get paid a comission of any kind in my job either.

To try and minimize the 'sell-out' perception, I think I might now refrain from mentioning where the product can be bought, and will instead wait for someone to ask the question in the attached comments.

Its worth noting also that the supporting dealers did not approach me - I hand-picked them and they are the only kayak dealers I have approached to be supporters of the site. The reason for that is that I have worked with all four of them, know them all pretty well, know how hard they work and most of all, that these are the kayak dealers (I'm aware of) that give back the most to the kayak fishing scene and get involved as often as they can. In short, they get behind the sport, so I get behind them.

Numerous times in the past - more so for yakabout rather than yakass - I have also been accused of running the site as an astro-turf attempt at viral marketing for Hobie as well. That to, I guess, is a fairly easy assumption to make, because not only has the content of both sites typically been highly favourable towards Hobie kayaks and various related products, their kayaks have been viewed over a quarter of a million times in my videos alone and the Hobie name gets mentioned here far more than any other brand. As easy as that sell-out assumption is to make, once again it's way off the mark.

The reason the content might look heavily Hobie favoured is because not only is that the brand of kayak I use, but also of most contributors and members, so thats what gets discussed most often. It's not really intentional - it's just the way it's evolved. That said, I'd love to be able to publish more content related to other brands but for that to happen effectively, yakass would need to recruit more contributors that use other brands and that is something I am open to.

The truth of the matter is that although both sites have done a fair bit to promote the Hobie brand just as much if not more so than the sport of kayak fishing itself (which is really the ultimate goal of the site), Hobie doesn't do a lot to promote the activities of this site and tends to keeps a bit of a 'safe' distance. In times past Hobie have given me a lot of support personally in various ways but that was almost exclusively related to my employment when I worked there, not my online exploits.

Whilst I'm sure that Hobie is quietly pleased that the vast majority of Hobie related content here does portray the products favourabily and helps users keep their yaks nicely maintained (less warranty claims for them), I think they're also fairly cautious about what is often spoken of here. Phrases like 'kayaking out wide, off shore' and 'great white shark' appear with some degree of frequency and these aren't terms that sit terribly well with a company that doesn't want to see any one injured or killed using their products, or have potential customers scared away from the sport, which these topics have potential to do. Sure - other topics come up regularly to, but it's those 'danger' topics that seem to get remembered. End of the day, however, these are topics relevant to coastal kayak fishing and I feel that it would be an injustice to the readership to neglect them.

Until open-ocean kayak fishing gains wider acceptence as a not-so-crazy sport and Hobie aren't quite so concerned with public perception (and who can blame them the way the shark topic gets beaten up by mainstream media), this niche market segment is more likely to be championed by companies such as Stealth (who pride themselves on building surf-ready kayaks) and Ocean Kayak (who's very name suggests ocean kayaking). Or to put that another way, if I wanted to be a sell-out, I wouldn't be using a Hobie kayak.

In closing I should also add that I have been asked why I haven't listed more kayak dealers in the Fishing Kayak Dealership directory and the answer to that is that within this directory I am only listing dealers who have a link back to this site somewhere within their own. I did email a bunch of kayak dealers to tell them this but a surprisingly small amount responded. I am now rethinking this strategy (which was somewhat governed by search engine optimization concerns as much as it was reader benefit) to either scrapping it completely (so others don't feel left out) or simply just adding links to every single dealer I am aware of. Let me sleep on that one...