Fly Fishers that CAMP!

[foambug65]

we do all our camping now in a g.p. medium (the hex kind)an it takes me around 30 min to set up the tent ....an 30 min to set up camp ...good during nice weather ...bad during the rain ....but i am considering a pop-up just cause that tent can be a bear ..somedays ...we spend no less than 2 weeks camping ...an yes on long road trips we stay in a motel or whatever ...but i still like camping ...keeps me in my youth !!!

[DaleW]

Oh my. I felt my heart racing when I saw that picture. DaleW, pray tell, where is that?

That would be in the Nanatahala National Forest (near Robbinsville) in western North Carolina ~ and that's the Santeetlah Creek making it's way down to the Santeetlah Lake, which is maybe two miles below.

[24mileboy]

My wife and I camp on average 10 weekends and 3 weeks a summer. We have a 25 foot bumper pull trailer that replaced a 20 ft trailer which replaced a popup trailer. After the kids grew up and left we upsized. I share a 15 ft trailer with a buddy that is our steelhead/hunting camp for several weeks a year. We also backpack to areas closed to vehicles for elk and deer and tent camp. I enjoy it all but the best times are with my wife and puppies by the fire in Island Park.

[anglerdave]

My only aversion to camping is getting up in the middle of the night and having to walk across anything other than carpet to get to the bathroom. And having to walk a great distance at that. A self contained camper would solve that problem. But I just don't have the $$$ or time that it would be used to justify buying one.

[Ron Eagle Elk]

When I was young I thought nothing of sleeping on the ground with a tarp and a wool blanket as my protection from the weather. Got up in the morning raring to go. 23 1/2 years in the Army Airborne Infantry changed my thoughts on camping. I've slept in rice paddies, tropical jungles, mountains, snow caves, and swamps. I've had leeches suck my blood, snakes crawl over my sleeping form and had a mountain lion chase a deer over my mountain tent. Bat hammocks on a mountain face have been comfortable quarters for many nights.

Now that I'm much older, uh..62 or 63, I find sleeping on the ground uncomfortable. My old bones and joints don't work so well on a cold morning anymore.

After doing the motel, cabin thing, VEE and I went back to tent camping, with a twist.



12 X12 tent with a vestibule and yes, that's a stove pipe sticking up there. The picture is from the 2009 Idaho Fish-In.

A comfy cot, being able to stand up to put my clothes on, and a warm tent make all the difference.

REE

[Donat]

Sully, thanks for starting a great thread. This is our truck camper that's going to Alaska and the wife and I are very comfortable in it. We have been camping all of our 49 years of marriage. Started with a tent, then a pop-up, then a truck camper, then a travel trailer, gone back to a truck camper. My pair of Eagle Denali Bino's arrived and there great.

[jeffw]

I haven't camped in anything other than a tent or the back of my Ranger PU for years. I think the last time I camped in an aluminum box was Z's camper at Rocky Ford in a snow storm. At the Idaho Fish In in 2002, I spent the week in a one-person tent. It was my first Fish In and it was a blast!! I drove my blue '90 Escort all up and down the Lochsa and Selway.

Jeff

[Sully]

Well...personally I can remember back...spending years living in a hole scooped out under the roots of a large Sycamore blown down. With just a loin cloth and an old scrap of canvas tarp worn as a serape...a large sharp knife and one match.

All my fishing was done with a limber willow limb and a line made from the twisted hair of a muskrat and my hook was a sharpened piece of bone....

Then the wive nudged me and I woke up...so to each their own.

Never forget..."Whats dancin to some is wrestling to others"....

[Diane]

The old girl scout in me still likes to keep my camping primitive. The arthritic middle-aged lazy person who has taken up residence in my soul is starting to think about a pop-up. My favorite camping lately is to pack a week's worth of stuff into a solo canoe and head out on an Adirondack lake until the power boats are behind me and the fish look hungry. I set up a screened-in hammock with rain fly, build a fire, and stay until I get tired of the facilities. Life is good.

Meet Amelia. She 16 feet long and weighs only 30 pounds and if I feel like it, I add some outriggers and I can stand up and cast with ease. Mostly, though, I prefer to keep my seat. When I'm in a hurry I put on the heat with a double blade paddle. Otherwise, I can J stroke all day long.

[Cold]

Diane, that's absolutely beautiful. I've spent some time in your neck of the woods and it was a 100% great experience every time.