{"id":4474,"date":"2018-02-28T13:30:06","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T18:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/?p=4474"},"modified":"2018-05-02T08:46:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T12:46:01","slug":"top-five-places-ive-slept-fishing-trips-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2018\/02\/28\/top-five-places-ive-slept-fishing-trips-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Five Places I’ve Slept on Fishing Trips That Could Totally Have Been Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Above: Less comfortable than at least three of these recommendations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Look, we’re here for the fishing, right?\u00a0 Not the five star lodging and certainly not the fine dining.\u00a0 And that means sometimes\u00a0we<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>have to compromise.\u00a0 Not every fishing camp is the Hilton.\u00a0 So with that in mind, here are five places I can more or less recommend that you consider (maybe) staying on a destination fishing trip, if nothing else is available.\u00a0 Most<\/em> of them are better than sleeping in your car.<\/p>\n

#1 The Brass Door Motel, Gassville, Arkansas<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Above: One absolutely NOT HAUNTED hotel room, with jacuzzi!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What’s not to like? The Brass Door<\/a> is cheap at less than fifty bucks a night.\u00a0 It offers plenty of free parking, including for your drift boat or White River Supreme.\u00a0 The mighty White River itself is less than five minutes from your motel door in at least two directions, not to mention the Norfork River just forty-five minutes to the east.\u00a0 Hey, 86% of people who stayed here kind of liked it, according to their own website.\u00a0 Sure, the rooms have all the charm of a trailer house, with linens bought on closeout circa 1995 and the occasional mold spot in the bathrooms, but they get HBO!\u00a0 You can watch\u00a0Game of Thrones<\/em>!\u00a0Also, this place is TOTALLY NOT HAUNTED.\u00a0 Don’t worry about the homicide in the parking lot<\/a>\u00a0with the subsequent police shootout.\u00a0 That was a long time ago.\u00a0 Repeat: DEFINITELY NOT HAUNTED.<\/p>\n

#2 Foothills Motel & Campground, Dayton, Wyoming<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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For less than $25 a night, one-half of this baby could be yours!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perched on the tranquil banks of the eloquently-named Tongue River, this nostalgic stopover hearkens back to an earlier time, when wood-sided family wagons roamed the West on two-lane highways, and families of seven piled into the same bed and didn’t complain about things like the absence of air conditioning or the festering black mold in the original shower stalls.\u00a0 “Vintage” experiences include sleeping on original mattresses (from the Forties!) and dry-fly fishing to brown trout holding over silted-in car tires (whitewalls, naturally).<\/p>\n

At less than $25 a night, don’t expect anything other than shelter from the bugs and some of<\/em> the rain.\u00a0 I recommend shower sandals.<\/p>\n

#3 Bakerton Bar Trailer Rental, Bakerton, Kentucky<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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More or less what to expect. Pro tip: keep your shoes on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back in the mid-2000s, there was no hotter fishing destination in the East than the Cumberland River, which was experiencing some minor, potentially catastrophic dam failure issues, resulting in low water and ridiculous sight fishing to huge trout.\u00a0 If you really wanted to get right on the fish, you needed to rent a trailer by the put-in ramp.\u00a0 That’s where this sexy little number came in.\u00a0 With all the charm only hollowed-out poverty can bestow, it was both a place to sleep and a cultural experience.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s be honest, this was WAAAAY before AirBnB, but I’m pretty sure if you just ask around the smoking section of the nearby Burkesville Pizza Hut, someone will still be able to hook you up.\u00a0 Prices range from $50 a night to a 1\/2 gram baggie of crystal.<\/p>\n

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Pictured: A National Parks System Ninja Camp done right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

#4 Ninja Camp in the National Parks<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Let’s face it, the National Parks system is getting more expensive all the time.\u00a0 That’s why I occasionally advocate what I call “ninja camping.”\u00a0 Ninja camping is when you wait until after 10:00PM to ghost into a crowded campsite with your headlights off.\u00a0 The trick is to assemble your tent, cook your meal, roll out your bedroll and catch four to five hours of sleep all without alerting the rangers that you’re totally Welshing on their ridiculous $15 campsite fee.\u00a0 The difficulty level goes up with the venue; no one cares if you’re cold-camping a third-tier Mormon Settlement-era national monument, but you’ll get some serious hobo credit for snaking a patch of grass and a free shower in Grant Village. Stick it to the Man with a can of cold wieners, just be sure to get out before sunrise or you’ll wake up on the wrong end of a pair of khaki trousers.<\/p>\n

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Also within walking distance: the liquor store.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

#5 The Sapphire Inn, Franklin, North Carolina<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The clear gem of this list (no pun intended), the Sapphire Inn has everything you look for in a small-town North Carolina place to crash, including Wi-Fi, television, and a door that locks.\u00a0 A mere five minutes from four different greasy spoon breakfast options, its management is also apparently flexible about its no-pet policy, if the pit bulls being kept on a semi-permanent basis by the bikers next door were anything to go on. Don’t neglect to check out the pool, and feel free to take a swim if it contains water on the occasion of your visit.\u00a0 At $59 per night, “The Sapphire” is almost middle-class fancy, but for that little bit extra, they do provide free peppermints in the lobby. If you want one on your pillow, you can go ahead and put it there yourself.<\/p>\n

Bonus Venue: The Super-8 Denver Midtown, Denver, Colorado<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Back when fly-fishing was cool, the industry met on an annual basis at the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver for a trade show everyone just called “The Show.”\u00a0 Technically speaking no one did any fishing at The Show, but we all got to wear plaid shirts and sunglasses on Croakies anyway, so it was pretty much the same thing.<\/p>\n

Back then I couldn’t afford luxurious hotels like the Ramada Inn, so I stayed at the nearest place with four walls and a price tag under $60 a night.\u00a0 That turned out to be what is now called the Super-8.\u00a0 In 2006, the hotel had no name, unless you count the Motel 6 sign turned inside out on the marquee.\u00a0 Nice try, Motel 6.<\/p>\n

These gentlemen were always there to greet you in the lobby.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I can’t say whether they’ve gone downhill since 2006, but back then, this was the kind of venue where the amenities included free hazmat sharps disposal AND a laundry bag of complimentary hooker’s clothes in your closet.\u00a0 The hotel also must have been really safe, because the police cruised the parking lot every half hour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look, we’re here for the fishing, right?\u00a0 Not the five star lodging and certainly not the fine dining.\u00a0 And that means sometimes\u00a0we\u00a0have to compromise.\u00a0 Not every fishing camp is the Hilton.\u00a0 So with that in mind, here are five places I can more or less recommend that you consider (maybe) …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","column","onecol","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/files\/2018\/02\/20101110171246_sleepingflatsmall.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4474"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4506,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4474\/revisions\/4506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}