First whitewater kayaking steps of a kayak angler

Zum deutschen Text: https://hub.jacksonkayak.com/blog/2018/05/16/ein-kajakangler-auf-abwegen-im-wildwasser/

At the beginning of the offseason for predator fishing I started to make my very first steps into whitewater kayaking. I spend two nice Sundays on a river nearby – together with my good friend and fishing buddy Dennis. It’s hard for us to find something that you can call white water here in the north of Germany – so we just had two short “play-spots” on the river.

My interest for this kind of kayaking started with watching the awesome movie Chasing Niagara.

The interest was growing fast and got it’s peak during watching Dane Jackson, Nick Troutman, Emily Jackson, Nouria Newman and all the other great athletes live at the Adidas Sickline in Austria last year.

Just a few weeks later I ordered my JK Karma Traverse 10.

It took a few month till it got it’s first use – besides a short trip on a really slow river without any whitewater.

In the middle of January, Dennis and I decided to make a trip to the first short spot of the river. I actually didn’t own a matching paddle, a spraydeck or even a helmet – so Dennis shared his gear with me this time.

I was really nervous right before the first “race” through this little spot, even if the spot looked really harmless from the outside. If you get into the “cataract” for the first time (even when it’s small like this one), you start to feel the power of the water. It’s awesome, that such a small one is able to turn you backwards – when your timing and line isn’t the best.

With every run through the spot, I got safer with what I’m doing and it’s also getting clearer that this could be a new passion for me.

After this great experience, we decided to make another trip to the second spot the following Sunday. The water on that was a way wilder than on the other one.

I was nervous again, before I made my first paddle strokes. As I got into the first waves the nervousness was blown away and it was a lot of fun again.

Our good friend and passionated hobby photographer Holger visited us for a shooting.

Now, after those first trips I can say: This is going to be my new passion during the offseason for predator fishing and maybe during the other time of the year too. I absolutely couldn’t imagine how much fun it is to be in “whitewater” before I had these two days on the water.

I’m really looking forward to do some “real whitewater” in the future.

My next step will be a visit at the Wildwasserpark Hohenlimburg.

Everybody should try it out – it makes a lot of fun!

Photos: Dennis Kieselhorst, Holger Sauerwald (HS Fotografie – https://www.facebook.com/HSauerwald/ )