College towns with good fishing to retire to; suggestions?

[AboutThere]

I have a 7 year FIRE horizon but DW will still be working for a few years after I dial it back. She's a university administrator and we like the balance and vibe of university towns.

We currently live in the upper Midwest and would like someplace warmer, and we'd like to start spending some longer vacations as dry-runs in some of these places.

My hobbies are fishing and fine and performing arts. She likes access to beaches.
I would love to be someplace where there is cold water (trout) fishing, as well as bass fishing. I'm not a saltwater guy. The place people always suggest is Asheville so that's on the list - any others?

College or university town
Warm/mild weather
Good fishing for trout and bass
Access to beaches within 4-5 hour drive
Access to museums and classical music within 2 hours

 

[Rustic23]

Huntsville, TX

Ok, It won't exactly fit all your criteria, but close. (not much on trout fishing) but Lake Livingston (30 min east) and Lake Conroe (30 min south) are great fishing lakes.

45 min to 1 hr. to Houston, Ballet, Opera, Museum of fine arts, and just about everything else you would expect.

Sam Houston State University is located in Huntsville, with U of H, Rice and several others located in Houston.

Weather - Warm, well hot in the summer, but A/C makes it livable.

Galveston is 2 hours south. Ok beaches, great sea food.

Best of all, reasonable real estate prices, and no state income tax. (I hesitate to mention that last one as all government get their due from one form of taxation or another, In TX. Property Tax is high, but values generally lower)

 

[mh]

Durango co
Eugene or

Are two that may be of interest


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[rodi]

When I first started I reading I thought immediately of Bellingham, WA... But then I read you want warm weather (not in B'ham), and don't like salt water. It has some lake fishing, though.... But most of my friends in that area go out on the sound.

 

[MRG]

I have a 7 year FIRE horizon but DW will still be working for a few years after I dial it back. She's a university administrator and we like the balance and vibe of university towns.

We currently live in the upper Midwest and would like someplace warmer, and we'd like to start spending some longer vacations as dry-runs in some of these places.

My hobbies are fishing and fine and performing arts. She likes access to beaches.
I would love to be someplace where there is cold water (trout) fishing, as well as bass fishing. I'm not a saltwater guy. The place people always suggest is Asheville so that's on the list - any others?

College or university town
Warm/mild weather
Good fishing for trout and bass
Access to beaches within 4-5 hour drive
Access to museums and classical music within 2 hours

Springfield MO.

Good/great fishing some in parks. Ever go spoon billing?

College town(11 of them)

Weather uh, not a great fit but the spoon billing makes up for it. Probably warmer than the upper Midwest.

Beaches, on the lakes

Museums either St. Louis or KC are within 2 hours.

Plus a really low COL!

 

[travelover]

Not to be a wet blanket, but my FIL was a very avid fisherman - until the retired. After that he rarely fished. Maybe it fulfilled a need that went away after retirement? Just saying....

 

[W2R]

Not to be a wet blanket, but my FIL was a very avid fisherman - until the retired. After that he rarely fished. Maybe it fulfilled a need that went away after retirement? Just saying....

Good point! Maybe it would be a good idea to retire first and see how it goes, and THEN move after a year or two.

I had the same thing happen with gardening. I envisioned a lovely, peaceful retirement doing lots of gardening, but in the 6+ years since I retired I haven't gardened for even ten minutes.

The retirement that one imagines is sometimes a little different from the retirement that one finds one really wanted all along.

 

[REWahoo]

Echoing travelover and W2R above, I had a list of activities I planned to get involved in after retiring - some new, some existing. With a couple of exceptions, it didn't happen. Things I thought I'd love to do once I had the time weren't all that interesting - I suppose because I no longer needed them as an escape from work.

Waiting a while to make any big change in retirement, especially relocation, is very good advice.

 

[MichaelB]

Another opinion along these same lines. I'm still haven't gotten to the list of "things to do during retirement". My priorities changed in a most unexpected way, away from the things I learned to enjoy while working and toward the things I enjoyed earlier in life.

 

[RunningBum]

The OP did say he was looking at dry-run long vacations.

I want to know which beach is within 4 hours of Durango, CO!

How about Chapel Hill, NC? I don't know much about fishing but would assume you have to go to the mountains to do cold water fishing in the southeast, so that would be a 2-3 hour drive. Depends on what you mean by warmer weather, I guess. Ashville winters can be cold, but not upper Midwest cold.

 

[braumeister]

Echoing travelover and W2R above, I had a list of activities I planned to get involved in after retiring - some new, some existing. With a couple of exceptions, it didn't happen. Things I thought I'd love to do once I had the time weren't all that interesting - I suppose because I no longer needed them as an escape from work.

Waiting a while to make any big change in retirement, especially relocation, is very good advice.

Exactly the same story for me. I actually do most of the things I wanted to do, but not nearly to the extent I imagined I would.

We have moved twice since my ER, but both were within the same area (a circle with an eight mile radius covers all three homes). I believe we finally got it right with the last one, and there won't be any more moves (except maybe to a CCRC).

 

[MRG]

Another vote for stuff (including hobbies) can change. Not for everyone but it has for us too.

Before I retired we shot pistol frequently, like 25-30k rounds yearly, we've gone twice in almost three years.

 

[fishndad42]

Lots of college towns showed up in Forbes 25 Best Places to Retire a couple years ago.
25 Best Places To Retire | Forbes

 

[haha]

I think that pier fishing, or if the jetty is not hazardous, jetty fishing, is likeliest to retain a retiree's interest. I sure knew a lot of retired guys in SoCal who fished almost every day. It is not just a hobby, (ie a time waster) it is good high quality food that would be expensive if purchased. People are designed to find food, not to waste time and money. You have to live near the pier or jetty, so that a lot of time or money is not wasted getting there and back, finding bait, etc.

If it were me, I would find someplace good on the gulf coast or Florida Atlantic coast and find a place near the pier or piers and try it out.

Ha

 

[RunningBum]

I think that pier fishing, or if the jetty is not hazardous, jetty fishing, is likeliest to retain a retiree's interest. I sure knew a lot of retired guys in SoCal who fished almost every day. It is not just a hobby, (ie a time waster) it is good high quality food that would be expensive if purchased. People are designed to find food, not to waste time and money. You have to live near the pier or jetty, so that a lot of time or money is not wasted getting there and back, finding bait, etc.

If it were me, I would find someplace good on the gulf coast or Florida Atlantic coast and find a place near the pier or piers and try it out.

Ha

From the OP:

I'm not a saltwater guy.

 

[WhoDaresWins]

Southside VA has Buggs Island/Kerr Lake/Lake Gaston and is about 2-3 hours drive to the beaches of VA/NC. No university towns there, but if one lived in the environs of Chapel Hill/Raleigh/Durham it would be about 1.5 hours to the lake.

 

[braumeister]

Without trying to sort through any lists, if you just asked me if there was a place in the USA that met all the criteria in the OP, I would say absolutely not.

Maybe if the OP were to prioritize or weight the criteria, it might be possible to suggest some places that were a decent fit, but otherwise I just don't see it.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I don't know much about fishing, but Davis, CA is a college town within 2 hours of all the museums and performing arts in the San Francisco Bay Area and maybe an hour or so to the Sierras, where there are many forests, rivers, parks and campgrounds.

 

[haha]

From the OP:

Thanks, I did notice that, but I once had the same idea. The main difference is that in saltwater you are likely to catch a lot of quality eating fish and not spend a lot of money getting there and back.

Anyway, it seems so much more inviting to live on the coast walk down to the beach, buy a beer and some bait, and head out on the pier to catch more fish than you can carry home than to drive miles into the mountains, catch some undersized trout and buy a lot of gas.

But, for fresh water meat fishing I would figure you are going to need a boat, and locate near one of the big impoundments in Texas or Southwestern KY and TN, and start hauling home your fish.

Ha

 

[RunningBum]

Thanks, I did notice that, but I once had the same idea. The main difference is that in saltwater you are likely to catch a lot of quality eating fish and not spend a lot of money getting there and back.

Anyway, it seems so much more inviting to live on the coast walk down to the beach, buy a beer and some bait, and head out on the pier to catch more fish than you can carry home than to drive miles into the mountains, catch some undersized trout and buy a lot of gas.

But, for fresh water meat fishing I would figure you are going to need a boat, and locate near one of the big impoundments in Texas or Southwestern KY and TN, and start hauling home your fish.

Ha

Makes sense to me, but I don't know how committed fisherman are to their types. I could see someone being a lot more relaxed on a boat in a lake than a pier. But I assumed since he mentioned not wanting to do saltwater fishing, he meant it.

 

[Balance]

I would have to agree on Asheville as an top option, but if you wanted a milder winter than how about Athens, Ga? You can be in mountain Trout streams or Bass filled lakes in 2 hours or less. Athens has a great arts scene and you can go into Atlanta for the weekend to hit museums and such. The coast of Ga and SC (Hilton Head, Kiawah) is 4 hours away so 3 day beach weekends are accessible. Cost of living is reasonable. UGA has a good division 1 sports program to enjoy.

For the record, I am an avid fisherman, primarily saltwater. I have a waterfront home on the coast. While Charleston is not where I live, if you thought you might be a saltwater convert then that town would hit most of your other requirements. Though it has a higher COL.

As you may know, places like Athens and Charleston can be brutal hot for a few months in the summer. That's where Asheville has the edge.

 

[HadEnuff]

trout fishing and mild weather may be a tough combination to find.

 

[pjm-7]

You want to know where the beach is near Durango Colorado? Check out the Great Sand Dunes NP. www.nps.gov/grsa. They have the tallest dunes in North America. Be sure to bring a board if you want to "surf".

 

[RunningBum]

You want to know where the beach is near Durango Colorado? Check out the Great Sand Dunes NP. www.nps.gov/grsa. They have the tallest dunes in North America. Be sure to bring a board if you want to "surf".

Even that's over 3 hours away, but no matter. The OP hasn't been back since asking the question. Hit and run.

 

[woodguy00]

Fayetteville, AR -without the beaches
Ashland OR