How far

[Troutaddict172]

I thought this would be an interesting topic. How far do you live from or travel to your favorite streams? Me personally from scpa I'm pretty lucky, I'm maybe 5 minutes from nearest class a. Few stocked streams within 10-15 minutes. And about hour and 15 minutes from the little j although I don't get there has much has I should.

 

[evw659]

I used to be 40 mins from the little j, yellow creek, a handful of small limestoners, and a bunch of brookie streams. Now I live and Pittsburgh and they are all 2-3 hours away. Tough pill to swallow but it is what it is. I will have a 3 week break between work and school starting in may though so I'll probably make it over that way a few times. Hopefully the weather/water levels cooperate.

 

[steveo27]

Im in the northern tip of Westmoreland Co so its about an hours drive to the Laurel Highlands for me. The hours ride takes me to the Donegal exit on the turnpike. Then from there, there's a TON of good fishing up and down Laurel Ridge. I make that trip a lot. The southern tip of ANF is about 2 hour ride (the good fishing is about 45 minutes further north) and its about 2.5 hours to the Allegheny front.

 

[kobalt335]

I'm only MAYBE 5 minutes from a good class a, 10-15 minutes from the narrows on BFC (closer to the class a and stocked section of it), 45 minutes from Penns, and 30 minutes to Spring. I didn't even include Pine or Slate run. It's a struggle sometimes...

 

[SteveG]

Where I've been residing for a few weeks now, about fifty feet. I'm lucky to live very close to a lot of water that may not be "destination worthy", but is still Class A and vastly better in quality to what others may have nearby.

 

[BrookieChaser]

A mile.

 

[John96]

10 minutes puts me on the two nearest class A streams
20 minutes has me on a handful of stocker streams
30 minutes puts me on the LJR

I am lucky and have plenty of choices within half an hour, so most of my fishing happens near by. This season I hope to check out a few more 'destination' streams, just for the fun of it.

When it comes to deciding where to fish, I always have a hard time choosing between investing time in one stream and getting to really know it and exploring new places.

 

[jifigz]

Brook Trout - A short bike ride into the mountains.
Wild Browns - A 10-15 minute drive in a few different directions can put me on numerous streams of varying size all loaded with trout.
Little J, Spring, and Penns are all about 45 minutes.
Smallmouth bass - A 2 minute walk from my house.

 

[steveo27]

Man. The closest class A stream to me is a certain stream in Lawrence Co that is closely guarded by the devil himself.

 

[k-bob]

I live near Philly, fish for brookies at ranges 75-115 mi away. Plan around traffic to get in and out of Philly area if fishing on weekdays. Just traded a 2013 car with 170k miles from commute, other travel, and fishing. Trying to reform a bit on distance per fishing trip. With everything involved, incl. ez-pass, I think it costs me 25 cents per mi to do highway drives. 2013 car was an altima with a 4 (36 highway mpg), new one is 2016 altima (38 mpg), but it still adds up.

I think there is some very good brookie fishing in NEPA, so I think I am lucky to have that +/- 100 mi away from a big city...

 

[troutpoop]

My favorite areas are close to two hours, maybe a bit less.
I have a few places I settle for when I need a fix that are 40-45 minutes.

 

[REDNECK_FLYFISHER]

I am A quarter mile from the Lehigh River, also only about 10 to 15 minutes from the Francis E Walter dam, Nescopeck State Park and Hickory Run state park. So that gets me on Nescopeck Creek, Sand Spring, Hickory run creek A number of class A waters and A few lakes. Lots of choices here . I moved to White Haven A year ago mostly to be closer to all the places I like to fish.

 

[afishinado]

As a general rule, I use the 50/50 ratio to choose how far to travel for a fishing trip.

I take the amount of time I have to fish and try to keep my travel time (round trip) less than 1/2 of the total time of the trip. I seldom want to spend more time driving than fishing.

For example, if i have 6 hours to spend on a fishing trip I would limit my travel time one way to the stream or river to less than 1.5 hours, which would be 3 hours driving for the round trip.

 

[moon1284]

From home - I can walk to fish for steelhead or SMB. I'm not really interested in bass so in the summer when I fish and am based out of my home, I drive a little over an hour to fish for wild trout. I fish for trout/steelhead 99% of the time I fish. I Travel up to an hour from home for steelhead depending on river conditions. DE River system is 4-4.5 hours from home, i try to get down there as much as possible.

Where I used to work, I was about 1.5 hours from the DE River system and I took advantage of being so close. Right now, I work about 8 hours from home. 4 hours to central PA. 4 hours to DE River system. I usually find somewhere close to work to work during the week, where I am at now, there's no fishing that I'm interested in nearby. Most of my trout fishing is for 2-4 days in a row. Where I am supposed to work this summer, there should be plenty of trout fishing nearby.

If I had money, I'd buy a place in the Catskills and one in Island Park, ID. I'd stay at home from Nov through April and fish for steelhead. From April - June my home water would be the DE River System. From July - Nov my home water would be the larger water between the Madison and the S Fork of the Snake River (which is tons of floatable water).

 

[Aducker]

For me I drive a minimum 90 minutes each way. Average 2 hours for a day trip.
Max 3.5 hours but that is always at least a 2 day trip..

 

[tomitrout]

I live a block up the street from the Letort, but it's fenced there and the overhead power lines make for interesting casting hazards. Nearest fishable stretch is another block over and a 5-10 minute walk puts me on the Heritage water, takes me about 40-45 minutes to walk home from Bonnybrook after fishing up through.

Most everything else I like to fish regularly is either 15minutes drive to the Breeches, on up to about an hour and a halfish to get to either Spring, Penns or the Little J. Susky for smallies is probably 45odd minutes to the Dauphin Narrows.

I also subscribe to afish's parameters of drive time

 

[NPflychucker]

It takes me around 30-45 minutes to get to most of the water I fish regularly around the Ligonier area. That being said I have no problem taking the hour and a half or 2 hour drive to head over to towards the center of the state or the 2 and a half hour drive up to my camp in the ANF. Although if Im headed to camp its not going to be just a day trip, id be staying there at least one night.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

I can be on a few small, somewhat decent streams in about 15 minutes. A few more in 30 minutes, a bunch more in an hour, and a ton within 2!

Still, my favorite streams are 4 hours away.

 

[wildtrout2]

Most of my fishing is done within 1 1/2 hours drive. I often drive 4+ hours to fish NC, and sometimes 6 1/2 hours to fish western Pa. More often than not, in the same day. It's a passion!

 

[sarce]

It's interesting down here in NOVA. A few minutes in any direction has good LMB fishing in ponds. 15-20 minutes into DC and the Potomac for everything you can imagine other than trout - bass, stripers, shad, catfish, carp, panfish, snakeheads...even a few walleye when the stars align.

For wild trout, I'm 30 minutes or so from a few very marginal streams with declining brown trout populations. The first really worthwhile wild brown trout fishing is about 45 minutes away. But an hour drive puts me on Catoctin Mountain where I have several excellent brook and brown trout streams to pick from. If I head southwest, an hour and a half gets me to Shenandoah National Park, where a 20 fish day on the brookie streams is a slow day.