As we dream about ER (1.5 yrs away) we want to do so much, but how do you realize the dream of trying new fishing spots and camping, but not in a tent? Pull the boat and tent camp/motel or pull the pop up and stand on the bank and wish.
Great question! We've been working on the answer for a couple of years and are almost there.
Currently we pull a hard sided pop-up with a short bed pick-up truck with cap. We carry our kayaks on top of the truck and we carry fishing gear, including an outboard motor, trolling motor, clamp on seats, fish finder and much fishing gear, inside the cap. For limited fishing we use the kayaks. My boat, more so than DW's, is set up to fish and it's actually quite a bit of fun to fish from a kayak and doing so is a growing hobby. (Google "kayak fishing.") If we're camped on bigger water, we look for a rental and deploy our own motor and other misc fishing goodies. The strategy is that it's relatively easy to find someone with a row boat to rent but much more difficult to find a rental with a good-running outboard and appropriate fishing accessories. So, just rent a bare-bones boat and slap on your own equipment.
Our next step, since rental boats are not always available, is to get a Porta-Bote as already suggested. I've looked at them at a dealer and they're great! Our only delay in getting one is the approx $2k cost would have put our travel budget in the red for 2010 so we put the purchase off a year. We'll carry the Porta-Bote on top between the kayaks.
This is how we look while traveling. Here, we're on Madeline Island, off Bayfield in Lake Superior, waiting for the ferry to take us back to the mainland. We camped on Madeline for a week and enjoyed paddling Lake Superior and also fishing a small, inland lake on the island.
