How far do you go?

[NorcalBassin]

It's about 45+/- minutes to a ramp for my 3 closest lakes. I would love to live on a lake someday, but the only one of those 3 that has homes on the water starts around 7 figures for a small place... my wife will need to pick up a second job to make that happen (no sense in that being me otherwise I'd have no time to fish). ?  

 

For being in CA and a world class fishing lake Clear Lake is probably one of the least expensive lakes to live on out on the West Coast. Sad thing is there are a lot of reasons that make people not really want to live on those parts of Clear Lake. 

[Bass Ninja]

I have 11 decent sized ponds (average 100 acres or so) and 3 small lakes all within 30 minutes or less from my house. My favorite pond that is pretty secluded and doesn't allow motors is only 5 minutes away, and that is where I caught my PB last year. 

[Rpratt]

The lakes I mostly fish are strip mine lakes that are 20 minutes away. Years ago when they shut the mines down, the state dredged out alot of it so they could combine alot of the smaller pits into much larger lakes. 

 

The larger lakes I fish which are Kinkaid, Rend and Egypt are an hour or two from me. Any larger lake close to me is not all that feasible because all of them have horsepower limits on them, and I don't feel like trolling around on that big of a lake.

[Boomstick]

Anywhere from 3 to 70 miles really, depending on the day of the week, length of time I have and so forth. It also depends if I'm meeting someone somewhere and where they live.

[Koz]

I was spoiled for a lot of years living in the SC Lowcountry. I literally had thousands of lagoons to choose from within half an hour's drive. I had 12 within my own community and down the road where my father lives there were another 300. And the fishing? Three, four, and five pounders all day long plus some big girls out there. As a bank fisherman, it was paradise.

 

Now that I moved to Upstate SC the only small bodies of water are on private property and have posted no trespassing signs. I have a number of reservoirs within an hour's drive but the bank fishing is almost non-existent. Even the kayak fishing is lousy. I talk to a lot of anglers and no one is catching much of anything, let alone anything of decent size. But thw good news is that when it gets warm I'll be able to head back to the SC Lowcountry one or two weekends a month and get my fishing fix. But I really miss being able to head out for an hour or two after work.

 

The good news is that I'll be retiring within 10 years and hopefully I can spend the rest of my days fishing and watching my son play ball.

[C.S.]

I have 4 lakes (1000 acres+) to choose from within an hour of my front porch.

 

My favorite lake is a 5-6 hour hop, skip, and a jump away. ? 

[GReb]

I’m about 30-45 min away from the best two lakes with boat ramps but I live on a nice pond and my parents live 2 miles away on a small lake so I can get my fix rather quick if needed

[Logan S]

You have to be willing to put in travel time around here...We have more options than most would think though. 

 

Local electric-only lake is about 20 mins away and is among the best bass fisheries in MD....Great option to have even though I have to putt around it on the trolling motor.  At 500 acres its workable without using the outboard.  There's another electric-only lake that can be really fun about 45 mins away too, but once I'm driving that long I typically will hit a 'real' place instead.  

 

The Potomac has a ton of ramps as close at 30 mins, but my favorite launch site is about 45 mins away.  

 

Upper Chesapeake and Conowingo are about 1.5 hours for me

 

Lake Anna is 1.5 hours or so in the AM, but 95 traffic can be a killer on the way home.  

 

James/Chickahominey are about 2 hours.

 

Places like Deep Creek Lake, Gaston, Smith Mountain, and a few others are 2.5 to 4.5 hours away...I'll go to these lakes 4 or 5 times a year for multi-day tournament trips.

 

And if I really need to get a fix, there's a creek behind my house that has smallmouth and panfish in it...So I can grab my ultralight and catch a few almost anytime if needed .

[billmac]

I'm 30 to 40 minutes from most of the places I take the boat to.  Other places that I would fish less frequently are within 2 hrs.  I can be bank fishing in 10 minutes.  I probably wouldn't go longer than 2 hrs unless I had additional reasons to travel that far.

[Cdn Angler]

Two rivers run through my city of a million people and both offer better than average fishing. I've caught multiple 4lb smallmouth, a 40 inch musky, some 30 inch pike, walleye on every cast a few times.  In the middle of the city, sometimes between the office and my house.  There are shore anglers confined to certain spots, but even then not crazy pressure, maybe 1 person or two. 

 

It's weird how few people fish this city. Most hardcore fishermen prefer places they can rip a big boat and have better launches.  Casual fishermen in Canada view fishing as a way to get food and think that city fish are "toxic" so often don't bother.  So mostly the people that are fishing are using worms or tiny walleye jigs, so fish aren't even particularly skittish as they haven't seen a ton of different baits. 

[Trox]

Living in San Antonio, The closest lakes for me are Medina (20mins) and Canyon Lake(1hr), unfortunately, they aren't really known for fishing largies. Every now and then, you can get a good one but it's few and far between. And Medina was down to 4% full a few years back and has a way to go to recover)

 

So... 90% of the time I'm driving to one of these. I'm so used to the drives at this point that it doesn't phase me anymore

Choke Canyon - 1.5hrs

Lake LBJ - 1.5hrs

Lake Travis, Buchanan - 2hrs

A few others in the 2.5 range

Amistad - 3hrs

 

[MAnderson]

I’d have to call my home lake Courthouse Park.

[whitwolf]

From the minute I hook the boat up until the first cast is about 25 minutes.