Excellent.  Good luck, seems like a canopy is your best bet then. They make some nice ones.

Your situation is identical as mine when I do the road trip. I’m solo also.   And not getting any younger. I generally will force myself to fall asleep real early and shove off between 12:00 - 2:00am. All I have to do is pull out and go. I’m hooked up and rigged up to just drive. Get there and try to make a full day out of it fishing. On many occasions if not all, I’ll grab something to eat at the rest stop and catch a bit of a snooze there on the way back. Safe and no troubles. I’ll have my wife call me so that I don’t sleep any longer than I have to. I do not want to fall asleep driving. If I don’t pull back in to home till 1:00 am that’s fine. 

1 hour ago, Spankey said:

Your situation is identical as mine when I do the road trip. I’m solo also.   And not getting any younger. I generally will force myself to fall asleep real early and shove off between 12:00 - 2:00am. All I have to do is pull out and go. I’m hooked up and rigged up to just drive. Get there and try to make a full day out of it fishing. On many occasions if not all, I’ll grab something to eat at the rest stop and catch a bit of a snooze there on the way back. Safe and no troubles. I’ll have my wife call me so that I don’t sleep any longer than I have to. I do not want to fall asleep driving. If I don’t pull back in to home till 1:00 am that’s fine. 

All that driving in one day?  That's diehard stuff.  I used to go on 1 day trips that were 2 hours away so I'd leave around 3 to be on the water at daylight and then fish all day with only a lunch break and then come home after it go dark.   But nowadays I fish closer to home and rarely much past 3 in the afternoon.  If I am driving much more than 3 hours I'd want to turn it into an overnight trip.    

I rather sleep in a hotel or in a campground than sleep in a truck. For me it is worth the investment to sleep somewhere comfortable when I am fishing far away from my house. Besides most wives and girlfriends would not like sleeping in the bed of the truck and rather sleep in a decent hotel.

17 minutes ago, soflabasser said:

Besides most wives and girlfriends would not like sleeping in the bed of the truck and rather sleep in a decent hotel.

Ya - my wife's idea of 'roughing it' is a hotel that doesn't have room service.

 

Meanwhile - I could happily spend a week (or more) out in the wild with nothing more than what I can carry in my backpack.

36 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Ya - my wife's idea of 'roughing it' is a hotel that doesn't have room service.

 

Meanwhile - I could happily spend a week (or more) out in the wild with nothing more than what I can carry in my backpack.

I have lost count of the amount of days I have gone camping by myself, many of those trips where several days long. Have slept in my car, on the floor of a boat, and the bare ground looking at the stars. It was a nice experience but I much rather be comfortable in my long distance fishing trips and that means getting a hotel so I can sleep in a comfortable bed the night before a big fishing trip.

 

To me it is odd how bass fishermen spend thousands of dollars on bass fishing equipment yet do not want to invest $80-120 for a hotel so they can get a good night's sleep. There are motels where you can sleep for $40-60 a night in some places and campgrounds often charge less than $40 a night. Another option is to look for free campgrounds in the area you are fishing in.

On 9/11/2020 at 8:09 PM, soflabasser said:

To me it is odd how bass fishermen spend thousands of dollars on bass fishing equipment yet do not want to invest $80-120 for a hotel so they can get a good night's sleep. There are motels where you can sleep for $40-60 a night in some places and campgrounds often charge less than $40 a night. Another option is to look for free campgrounds in the area you are fishing in.

Sleeping in the back of your truck on a raised platform with a nice memory foam mattress gives you an excellent night sleep.  I did it when I had a truck with an 8' bed and a cap and that is what I am looking to get back to.  I would never even take a tent when I had that truck.  With that setup, saving a night's stay at a hotel is a smart move and is money that can be spent on other things.  I always have to stay at a hotel or campground after a day of fishing to charge batteries and take a shower but for the first night on the way to the lake, catching a night's sleep in your vehicle instead of waking up at 2 AM and driving tired is a wise move.  

 

Fish a river and get on the water about 10 am. Most of my fishing is on a small river and I usually see the best small mouth action mid day.

35 minutes ago, MGF said:

Fish a river and get on the water about 10 am. Most of my fishing is on a small river and I usually see the best small mouth action mid day.

 

The Tippecanoe?  My uncle has a cottage on the river.  Caught my first bass there.  

 

I will say that it depends on the time of year as to whether I want to get there at daylight.  During the spring or fall, rolling to the lake at 8 AM is fine with me.  Last weekend it made a big difference.  Our best fish came the first 45 minutes after daybreak both Saturday and Sunday.  

1 minute ago, Junk Fisherman said:

 

The Tippecanoe?  My uncle has a cottage on the river.  Caught my first bass there.  

 

I will say that it depends on the time of year as to whether I want to get there at daylight.  During the spring or fall, rolling to the lake at 8 AM is fine with me.  Last weekend it made a big difference.  Our best fish came the first 45 minutes after daybreak both Saturday and Sunday.  

I think it's called the Mederchuck River. LOL. I have 4 ramps within about 5 minutes of my house and 6 or 8 within about 20 minutes. I have a lot of lakes near by but my wife and I really like the river...and my wife is NOT a morning person. Even in the hottest part of summer we still get some good fishing right in the middle of the day. We do have slow days especially early in the spring but on a good day we generally catch fish all day. Tactics might change through the day but often not.

13 minutes ago, Junk Fisherman said:

 

The Tippecanoe?  My uncle has a cottage on the river.  Caught my first bass there.  

 

I will say that it depends on the time of year as to whether I want to get there at daylight.  During the spring or fall, rolling to the lake at 8 AM is fine with me.  Last weekend it made a big difference.  Our best fish came the first 45 minutes after daybreak both Saturday and Sunday.  

I'm originally from the Chicago area and I used to fish a lot of the DuPage county forest preserve lakes as well as the  Fox river and the Fox Chain.

 

One of my favorite places on earth, that I need to go back to some day, is the backwaters of Mississippi River pool 13 by Savannah, Il.