Do you enjoy fishing a new lake?

[Cwsmith410]

Fishing is a lot like golf, do you perfer to play the same course everyday or drive out of the way for a new challenge?  Even if you live by a great fishery, do you get board with it?

[Bluebasser86]

I fished 38 different bodies of water last year. No idea how many so far this year, but it's safe to say I enjoy the challenge of learning a new body of water. 

[Mike L]

Down here there's always somewhere else to go, but I like fishing the same 1/2 dozen or so lakes I frequent the most. I've already spent so much time trying to figure them out that now I'll fish a pond or canal around the house only when trying something new. 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

[Catt]

At my age & level of experience there are no new local bodies of water I haven't fished. For me to have that new body of water experience I have to fish one I aint be on in a couple years.

[scaleface]

I do but I equipped myself to fish a couple of lakes quickly .

 

 There is an almost unknown lake about forty miles away . Its on an obscure , badly cared for gravel road   .  The type of road where you have to drive 10 MPH . A guy told me  it had giant crappie . In my experience lakes with giant crappie also  have giant bass . There is a sign  that gives the lake regulations .It reads channel cats  12 daily limit .That is all . No mention of crappie or bass . There is  a boat ramp where I  can launch my Bass Baby.  I have a gut feeling my PB swims in those waters .

[geo g]

I love fishing new bodies of water, but there are not many I have not fished in a 50 mile radius of the house.

[Jar11591]

It is exciting to fish a new body of water, but I also like to really learn a lake by fishing it over and over.

[flyfisher]

It is all about the time i have for me.  Within an hour or so rive I have pretty much fished every lake that isn't private.  I do fish the same 4 or 5 lakes though with regularity so i can become somewhat familiar with them.  

[A-Jay]

I'm fortunate to have A TON of fishable water within 90 minutes of me. 

Some of the smaller ones I do like to let "rest" and only visit them once or twice spring, summer & fall.

With that, there are so many it's actually hard to fish them all every season so quite a few get skipped each season.

Several I only fish at night, others are better in the spring or fall and not in the summer.

The larger lakes require much more time on the water and I'm all about that.

So I am sort of fishing old & new water at the same time several times a season . . .

Good times.

A-Jay

 

[WRB]

With the quagga mussel issue locking my boat to 1 lake it's very difficult to fish multiple lakes and being retired limits my travel because it's all out of pocket expense now.

Still enjoy fishing new water whenever I get the opportunity.

Tom

[NHBull]

My home lake is rather small compared to some of the surrounding ones, but believe it is in the 10 10 in the country for SM, that said I could spend yrs looking for new spots.  I am totally content.  That said the lakes is some to turn n over and that's going to change everything again

[BuzzHudson19c]

I like fishing new spots. I have a lot of options around me. Two large rivers, several small, and countless lakes within 45 min. Every so often though I will try new lake and hate every minute of it. Recently went out to a spot that looked promising to throw frogs. Frogged it for a day, nothing. Went back and threw the kitchen sink at it another day, nothing. I finally got a few small largemouth and some perch on plastic worms but it was a struggle. It became apparent that carp dominated this lake. There is dairy farm adjacent to it and you can guess where the cow runoff ends up. I will not be heading back.

[Oufb90]

I love all my local spots within an hour of my house but I take the wife, camper, and boat every spring and fall for around 4-5 days to further spots that I hear or read about. It's fun. 

[Koz]

I'm lucky to have 11 good fishing lagoons within 2 miles biking distance in the community where I live. We regularly pull out 2-3 pounders and the largest this year is 4.5 pounds. My gut tells me there are 6+ pound fish in there that we just haven't found yet. Heavy woods surrounding these lagoons make it hard to access much of the shoreline.

 

Within 30 minutes driving distance there are hundreds of lagoons but many of these are in other private, gated communities. Others are in deeply wooded areas that are hard to access through the trees and foliage. But once the cooler fall weather comes we plan to bring a machete and a saw to some of these places and cut some access points along the banks and throw a few lines to see what's in there.

 

Although we've fished a few other areas in SC we stick to our home field most of the time. It's convenient and we know there are decent sized fish in there.

[Jaderose]

On 7/30/2017 at 9:16 AM, scaleface said:

I do but I equipped myself to fish a couple of lakes quickly .

 

 There is an almost unknown lake about forty miles away . Its on an obscure , badly cared for gravel road   .  The type of road where you have to drive 10 MPH . A guy told me  it had giant crappie . In my experience lakes with giant crappie also  have giant bass . There is a sign  that gives the lake regulations .It reads channel cats  12 daily limit .That is all . No mention of crappie or bass . There is  a boat ramp where I  can launch my Bass Baby.  I have a gut feeling my PB swims in those waters .

 

Those are the best and Missouri is full of them

[MIbassyaker]

I get the most enjoyment out of fishing places that I am a little familiar with, but not too familiar -- where there is still plenty yet to discover, but I'm not starting from scratch.

 

For the past few years I have been fishing a rotation of around 20 small natural lakes, impoundments, rivers, streams, bayous, and gravel pits with public access within an hour of my house. each one might get 1 to 3 or 4 trips a year, often in different months. There are about a dozen more I have been to once in the last few years but haven't gotten around to returning. And there are dozens to hundreds of other waters in my area I have never tried. I try a few new places every year with the goal of finding a couple worth adding to the rotation.

 

This year so far I have tried 5 new lakes and a new stretch of a river.  Two were super productive and I'm itching to go back, one was an uninspiring bust, and the other three were "not bad", but will need to check out again.

 

I end up distributing my fishing time about like this:

 

--50% of the time I am somewhere a little familiar.

--35% of the time I am somewhere very familiar.

--15% of the time I am somewhere entirely new and unfamiliar.