Flying vs Driving for a Trip - Newest Post

[gordy28]

For our 2020 trip we tried something new - we flew commercially to Thunder Bay and drove to Sioux Lookout. For all of our other trips we had driven right to our jump off point

It was something hotly debated within our group until we pulled the trigger but now that the trip is over and we are thinking about our next one I know what our preference is


Pulled together the pros and cons for both in my (and the groups) humble opinion and posted it up

https://www.northernjacks.com/post/d...n-fishing-trip


Thanks for reading

Andrew

[Fisherman Ted]

Good article. Thanks for sharing

-FT

[gordy28]

Thanks Ted
Glad you enjoyed it
Andrew

[Pooch]

Originally Posted by Fisherman Ted

Good article. Thanks for sharing

-FT

Me too! Enjoyed the read and I had almost forgot what a walleye looked like......

Pooch

[phishfearme]

Andrew - first i hope that charter member Larry S responds as he and his sister have been flying to either TB or Winnipeg from Las Vegas to meet us for our annual flyin trip for years - i think he would provide positive feedback to your list of pros and cons and would probably be able to add to it. he carries a cooler full of dry ice and fillet steaks for our fist night in the bush and has found that car rentals are very reasonable and convenient.

myself and my boat partner have been flying into either TB or Duluth from the Pittsburgh area for years but we have a secret weapon - one of our group members loves to drive and also drives a land yacht that can carry all our gear and dry food. thus we only need to fly with a knap sack for overnight gear then meet him at the airport to do the fresh food shopping.

one comment/addition on your list - on two different trips, our return-to-civilization flight out of the lake has been delayed such that we had to drive hard all night to catch the commercial flight. this was quite stressful. if our return-to-civilization flight had been delayed further or even possibly forcing us to stay an extra night in the bush we would've missed the return flight and rebooking would've been very expensive if we could've gotten a reasonable flight at all.

one other thought has occurred to us but we've not done it yet. at least three of our past outfitters would be glad to store gear for us over the winter (for a small fee) such that we could fly the next year with minimal gear. don't know about fellow WC members but my Canadian fishing gear is pretty much reserved for Canada and i don't really need to bring it back and forth each year.

otherwise i think your list of pros and cons is quite good.

phish

[gordy28]

Originally Posted by Pooch

Me too! Enjoyed the read and I had almost forgot what a walleye looked like......

Pooch

Thanks Pooch - glad you enjoyed

Originally Posted by phishfearme

Andrew - first i hope that charter member Larry S responds as he and his sister have been flying to either TB or Winnipeg from Las Vegas to meet us for our annual flyin trip for years - i think he would provide positive feedback to your list of pros and cons and would probably be able to add to it. he carries a cooler full of dry ice and fillet steaks for our fist night in the bush and has found that car rentals are very reasonable and convenient.

myself and my boat partner have been flying into either TB or Duluth from the Pittsburgh area for years but we have a secret weapon - one of our group members loves to drive and also drives a land yacht that can carry all our gear and dry food. thus we only need to fly with a knap sack for overnight gear then meet him at the airport to do the fresh food shopping.

one comment/addition on your list - on two different trips, our return-to-civilization flight out of the lake has been delayed such that we had to drive hard all night to catch the commercial flight. this was quite stressful. if our return-to-civilization flight had been delayed further or even possibly forcing us to stay an extra night in the bush we would've missed the return flight and rebooking would've been very expensive if we could've gotten a reasonable flight at all.

one other thought has occurred to us but we've not done it yet. at least three of our past outfitters would be glad to store gear for us over the winter (for a small fee) such that we could fly the next year with minimal gear. don't know about fellow WC members but my Canadian fishing gear is pretty much reserved for Canada and i don't really need to bring it back and forth each year.

otherwise i think your list of pros and cons is quite good.


phish

Thanks Phish - great points
I hear you about flight delays - for the last few days of our trip our sat phone was struggling to grab a signal - had we been delayed on our flight back to Sioux Lookout I am not sure we would have been able to even scramble to change flights. Heck as it was we were perfect but did not have a lot of wiggle room to drive to T Bat, drop of rental and get to our flight

Ah - these trips are a lot of work lol So worth it but lots of logistics
Andrew

[Mojo-NC]

Andrew, thanks for sharing.

We too have been flying to Canada for every trip we've made since 2004. Driving for us is not an option, so I don't have any pro/con information to compare between those options. It does take a lot of planning, but everything has gone pretty well for us to date. I'm the logistics guy and coordinate the trip dates and deposits, and organize the flights, automobile rental, and hotel arrangements. Another guy specializes in menu planning, and he also assembles a grocery list to match the menu that he sends out for group review well in advance. We share our packing lists for required items. We have minimized the clothes that we pack, our rods/reels and tackle, and we try to avoid duplication of equipment like portable fish finders, and other sharable items like sunscreen and insect repellent, etc. We tie our rod carriers together so we can check them as a single extra item and share the expense.

I do sometimes wish we could fish from our own fancy boats, but have decided that fishing out of camp boats and getting back to basics has become part of the allure of our week of fishing and spending time in the Canadian wilderness.

[Larry S]

Originally Posted by phishfearme

Andrew - first i hope that charter member Larry S responds as he and his sister have been flying to either TB or Winnipeg from Las Vegas to meet us for our annual flyin trip for years - i think he would provide positive feedback to your list of pros and cons and would probably be able to add to it. he carries a cooler full of dry ice and fillet steaks for our fist night in the bush and has found that car rentals are very reasonable and convenient.

myself and my boat partner have been flying into either TB or Duluth from the Pittsburgh area for years but we have a secret weapon - one of our group members loves to drive and also drives a land yacht that can carry all our gear and dry food. thus we only need to fly with a knap sack for overnight gear then meet him at the airport to do the fresh food shopping.

one comment/addition on your list - on two different trips, our return-to-civilization flight out of the lake has been delayed such that we had to drive hard all night to catch the commercial flight. this was quite stressful. if our return-to-civilization flight had been delayed further or even possibly forcing us to stay an extra night in the bush we would've missed the return flight and rebooking would've been very expensive if we could've gotten a reasonable flight at all.

one other thought has occurred to us but we've not done it yet. at least three of our past outfitters would be glad to store gear for us over the winter (for a small fee) such that we could fly the next year with minimal gear. don't know about fellow WC members but my Canadian fishing gear is pretty much reserved for Canada and i don't really need to bring it back and forth each year.

otherwise i think your list of pros and cons is quite good.

phish

As my fishing brother phishfearme has stated, I have flown or driven from Henderson, Nevada to Canada since 2001. . The first time I fished with phishfearme was in 2009. I drove to Duluth, Minnesota and met his group at the airport, left my car at the airport parking lot, it ended up costing $80 for 10 days. Drove again in 2011,met group outside Duluth at a Motel ,who allowed me to park in their parking lot until we returned. We stayed at Motel going and coming so motel made money .Several times when my sister lived in Wisconsin, before moving to Nevada,I met her at Minneapolis/StPaul Airport and we drove up to Canada meeting group in Thunder Bay Area before proceeding to destination
I retired in 2011 and since I enjoy driving the 3 or 4 times driving to Canada has been OK. Now though since getting a bit older Flying is the way to go .I have flown into Thunder Bay or Winnipeg, rented a car and then met the group at various places. If you have a Costco Card I have found that renting a car through them is quite reasonable

I now fly from Nevada All the time,rent a car and drive to where we fly out(We go on fly-ins all the time)

Larry S

[RichA$1970]

This is a good post and I’m glad to be in the 12-15 hour drive range to not have to worry about flying.

[7 Mag]

Enjoyed the read Andrew, I’ve flown for hunting trips but never for fishing trips. Never put much thought into traveling on a commercial plane with my fishing gear.