So, you’d like to fish the Texas flats, and get anywhere quickly, in a super-stable, ultralight boat that drafts very little?
The S4 Microskiff is a patented catamaran that’s rated for 6 HP, but some of its owners can’t resist the urge to outfit it with more powerful motors, such as seen in this video that was shot on the South Carolina flats, featuring two young passengers that joined the driver on this trip:
The outboard motor featuring in this video is a lightweight 9.9 HP Mercury.
Are you a kayak angler who’s looking into motorizing your kayak, or upgrading to a microskiff? If you are, you may like reading on these subjects in this article about Motorized Kayaks »
First thing to consider are the size and weight of the boat itself.
A bigger and wider boat would be more stable and more comfortable, in principle, and a more convenient platform to fish from during long trips. However, a bigger boat must be transported on a trailer, and launched from a boat ramp as well as taken out there, and this greatly complicates things for you, on top of issues such as maintenance, repairs, etc, and most importantly, how much the boat drafts. This issue is particularly important in shallow water and low tide, because the last thing you want is to have your boat stuck in shallow water, waiting for the next high tide.
So, ideally,you’d be looking for a boat that’s as stable and comfortable as a big boat, but doesn’t require transportation by trailer, and cannot ever get stuck in shallow water. The only boat that fits all these requirements is the S4 Microskiff, thanks to its patented twin-hull (full, true catamaran), its ergonomic jet-ski style saddle seat, and its large size cockpit that can accommodate two large-size anglers and their gear –
At 100 lbs,the S4 has the shallowest draft of all ultralight boats, and since it is designed to work perfectly as a paddle craft, be it with canoe, kayak or SUP paddles, it’s practically impossible to get stuck with it even when the water gets too shallow for a propeller to run in it.
And if the water gets even too shallow for paddling, which can happen at very low tide, you can always get out of your S4 and pull it behind you, because it’s that lightweight.
The second thing to consider is Propulsion.
To begin with, you, the angler, want to be able to cover large swaths of water, and this rules out any kayak, canoe, or paddle board that’s only human powered. Simply, human power, be it in the form of paddling, pedaling, or poling, is too weak to propel kayaks, canoes and paddle boards over more than a couple of miles, and since it’s powerless against strong wind and tidal currents, it works only in fair weather and ideal tidal conditions.
Similarly, electric motors, which are more reliable than paddling and poling, are weaker and therefore slower than outboard gas motors, so their range and usability are more limited.
This leaves you with a choice between different sizes and brands of outboard motors, with the advantage of more powerful motors being that they can get you to your destination (and back) faster, and their disadvantage being that they are heavier, which means that they are not portable, and therefore the boat they’re mounted on must be launched from a trailer, in a boat ramp, even if it’s lightweight enough to be car-topped. For example, the S4 Microskiff weighs only 100 lbs, which makes it the lightest microskiff out there, but when it’s powered by a 9.8 HP outboard that weighs 85 lbs, it becomes borderline non-portable. This said, it is easy to transport and carry when coupled with a motor up to 6 HP outboards that weigh around 60 lbs.
Hmm.. food for thought?…
And if the S4 was more seaworthy than bigger boats, and enabled you to drive it in bays and estuaries even in rough weather and choppy water water with waves up to 2 ft, such as seen in this video? –
Obviously, the S4 is not a kayak just by the fact that it is rated for motors up to 6 HP, and kayaks may be classified as such only if their power rating does not exceed 3 HP. But if the S4 works a fishing kayak and even better than one when you need it to work as such, why bother about such technicalities?
Texas is a bigger state than most others, and typically, Texas anglers have more driving to do before they get to the coast, or to the flats, so they’re highly motivated to save time when launching their boat, which is why a portable boat such as the S4 Microskiff or the smaller and lighter W720 Kayak Skiff are especially suitable for Texas.
So how easy is the W720 to carry (portage) in reality, that is when you get to sandy a beach that you want to launch from, and you want to be on the water ASAP?
The answer is that it’s as easy as you can imagine, and an aging guy can handle it without too much problem, even with an outboard gas motor mounted on the kayak, and in this case even if this motor is a 6 HP Tohatsu that weighs 60 lbs, that is twice as much as a typical 2.5 HP motor that the W720 is rated for –
Watch this:
In other words, you can make one trip from your vehicle to the water, and launch within seconds, literally.
Some people would spend a hundred thousand dollars and more on a fishing boat, but most people won’t, either because they don’t have this kind of money, or because they think that spending this much is excessive. However, most people simply think about what they’d like to have in a fishing boat, considering where they like to fish and how much time they have to spend on this activity, and they shop for the best deal that’s available at the budget that they have set.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that such a person would spend all their budget, since they may be able to find boats that fit their requirements perfectly, and are offered at a price that’s considerably lower than the budget they have. Sometimes good things happen…
And this is the case with Wavewalk’s S4 Microskiff, which is offered at a price point of $3,400 plus shipping from the factory in South Carolina to the client’s address.
The S4 offers a lot of value for this price, as explained in detail in this new article entitled Best Boat Under $5,000 in 2025
Dedicated to Texan clients who have asked to see an S4 in real life – This is the closest thing that we can bring the S4 to you, for now:
Note the front casting deck, the true catamaran form, the deep large-size hulls that offer so much onboard storage space, the tall saddle seat that provides both comfort and stability, the full and easy access to the motor controls, and the unrivaled look of a perfect boat design –
Do you like shallow water fishing, and in particular flats fishing? Many fishermen in Texas do, and if you’re one of them, or just interested in this type of fishing, you know that some boats and kayaks are more suitable than others for it, and some less.
The purpose of this website is to expose new types of kayaks and boats that work particularly well in this context, and deliver the most comprehensive solutions both motorized and human powered, namely paddled.
This category of small fishing boats is not particularly well defined, but generally speaking, it includes small-size, relatively lightweight, flat-bottomed motorboats designed for fishing in shallow water, flats, protected bays, and estuaries. An important attribute of any microskiff is being sufficiently stable to allow a fisherman to fish standing up in it.
Some anglers use push-poling to advance through areas of thick vegetation and/or skinny water, where an outboard motor’s propeller drafts too much. This mode of human powered propulsion is slow and hard to practice, and therefore not convenient for covering longer distances.
Paddling works better, of course, but most microskiffs are too wide to be paddled, and those who do offer such option are still too wide and heavy to enable traveling over meaningful distances, or paddling in adverse conditions, such as wind, current, waves, etc.
At 85 lbs (without a motor), the new W720 from Wavewalk’s 700 series is the most lightweight kayak skiff on the market. In fact, the W720 weighs just a little over half of the paddleboard style, one-person skiff, dubbed a kayak on steroids, which weighs 150 lbs without the motor. This makes the W720 is the most practical cartop kayak-skiff out there.
The W720 features an integrated (built-in) wooden motor mount for a outboard motor up the 3 HP.
Thanks to its patented twinhull form (catamaran), the W720 is extremely stable, although it’s just 31 inches wide, which makes it the narrowest kayak-skiff and a high-performance paddle craft, namely kayak. Note that it works perfectly as a fishing canoe as well, that is paddled with single-blade paddles, both with a crew of one or two (plus a child…)
Microskiffs are considerably heavier than kayaks, and they cannot be be car topped. Some of the smallest microskiffs are not even designed to take a second passenger or angler on board.
The W720 is lightweight enough for one person to car-top, and with its total recommended load capacity of 400 lbs and the super-stability to back it, the W720 works as a full tandem motorized kayak-skiff (I.E. motorized) and tandem fishing kayak / canoe (I.E. human powered addled).
It offers all the advantages of a regular size micro skiff without imposing any of the inconveniences associated with boats, and it offers all the advantages of a fishing kayak, and some more, without any of the problems that plague fishing kayaks, which are instability, wetness, discomfort, poor tracking, and lack of sufficient storage on board.
We ship our clients’ orders from the factory in South Carolina directly to their home or business address, with call before delivery.
Clients from east Texas can also get their S4 microskiff at our dealership in Houma, Lousiana »
Mike Blouin, Wavewalk’s dealer in Houma, is an avid boater, fisherman, and hunter, and he keeps the S4 microskiff in stock.
Where is this Wavewalk’s Louisiana dealership located? –
The S4 is a cartop microskiff, but it’s not limited to flats fishing. This ultralight boat is seaworthy, as shown in this offshore shark fishing movie from Hawaii –
And as for load capacity, it can carry up to three guys in the chop –
Wavewalk has been developing new solutions to work with its S4 skiff, namely the S4 kayak outfitted with a powerful outboard motor.
Aside from these technical developments that enhance the boat’s performance in rough water, shallow water, launching and beaching, fishing and hunting, Wavewalk now offers the S4 in a new color – the Gator Drag Green, seen in some of the pictures below. This color matches the typical drab green color of Jon boats, and it can serve as an excellent base for camouflage.
1. Portable set of large-size, wide wheels for carrying the Wavewalk S4 over rough terrain
The first is a set of large-size, wide wheels that allow for easier carrying of the S4 when outfitted with a heavy outboard motor. This is particularly useful for anglers who want to launch this skiff in remote beaches on the Gulf coast, in marshes, flats, etc. The wheels work well on rough terrain, but pulling the boat in deep sand is still not easy.
2. Large-size spray shield for the Wavewalk S4
Sometimes the Gulf of Mexico gets choppy, and you want to drive your S4 skiff in it at full speed. No problem with that, except that if you have a passenger sitting in the front (e.g. a fishing buddy), they might get splashed when the bow hits waves.
The solution is a large-size, lightweight, detachable, transparent spray shield, and shown here:
Easy to attach. full size spray shield
Since this spray shield is attached to the deck with just a few bungees, detaching is quick and easy, in case it gets in the way during a fishing trip.
Wavewalk does not offer this spray shield for sale, but the good news is that making a DIY version is easy and inexpensive, and the materials can be purchased at home improvement stores.
3. Powerful mud motor for driving in marshes and flats
Chris from Northern Tribe Outdoors use a Wavewalk S4 outfitted with a 6.5 HP mud motor in their duck hunting trips. Since the S4 won’t take all of them on board plus the mud motor, wheels, and retriever dog, they take a Wavewalk 700 kayak too. The S4 can easily hip-tow the non-motorized W700, and carry all the team over long distances, in shallow water, mud, marshes, etc.
The wheels in this picture are just inflated tire tubes. Note that a mud motor weighs more than a regular outboard motor of similar power
