Hi

We hoping to get some suggestions. We are looking for a place to settle in for retirement. We are looking at Southern or Central New Hampshire and also Southern or Central Maine. My other half and I would like to relocate to an area known for good small mouth and large mouth fishing with some trout waters if possible. (We fly fish as well as spin fish) It would be nice to find multiple bodies of water with good fishing a short driving distance from each other. We have a fairly small boat so large lakes like Winnapasauki would not be our first choice. Our ideal retirement would be fishing 3 or 4 days a week in a rural setting. We would appreciate your thoughts.

Congratulations

good luck

I can't wait to retire in 30 years  8-)

3 or 4 days a week for about 1/2 a year in that area.  Although ice fishing is always an option  

I picture myself some place warmer for retirement

Good luck with retirement ;D ;D

WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

You all like cold weather and ice fishing I see. ENJOY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NH and Maine are perfect if you can handle the winters. An even better retirement plan would be to fish NH and ME in the summer and FL in the winter but that depends on your budget. Southern NH and South/Central Maine are dotted with thousands of small (<=1000 acres) lakes that are brimming with bass. Plenty of great fisheries that will be almost deserted during the week.

Check out the Smokie Mountains. Wife and I bought a cabin back in 96 out of Townsen. We love it.

Check out the Adirondaks In Upstate Ny? Lots of great fishing waters, Im from Ny and thats where ill be ritiring to in about 40 years. d**n 40 years!!

Maine is an excellent choice. We have tons of water to fish and a great variety of fish to catch with world class brook trout fishing (Rapid River in particular, but you can find brookies almost everywhere) and awesome fishing for smallies and landlocked salmon. We also have a strong largemouth population (thanks to illegal stocking >), pickerel, pike, some scattered muskies, rainbows, browns, both varieties of perch, cusk, whitefish, black crappie in select areas, and lake trout and the state stocks places with splake (brook trout/ lake trout hybrid). Saltwater fishing is pretty good as well with stripers and bluefish being popular. The stripers also run up many of the rivers like the Kennebec and Penobscot. Also the state has been experimenting with giving out small numbers of Atlantic Salmon permits (We have done a lot of work trying to get the population to rebound with aggressive stocking and destruction of many dams allowing them to return to spawning grounds).

(Edit)*  Re-reading the original post, I would suggest moving to the outskirts of Auburn/ Lewsiton, there are plenty of small towns nearby to choose from.  It would also be pretty close to a great variety of places to fish (Belgrade region, Androscoggin and Kennebec Rivers, Cobosseeconte, etc) not to mention less than 1 hour from Portland and about 1/2 hour from the 24 hour L.L. Bean Headquarters Store in Freeport.  Auburn and Lewiston are decent sized cities (the mall kinda sucks compared to the one in Bangor or the even bigger one in Portland) but there is lots of places to shop/ eat right in downtown Auburn.  

Thanks for the responses. We will check out the outskirting areas of Lewiston-Auburn. The fishing sounds good. As well as some other areas in Maine. We are definitely thinking small town instead of a 'city'. We don't need a lot of stores as the wife isn't into the shopping, thank goodness. We are pretty much alike and just need the necessities (like a good place for fishing supplies! ) We live a pretty simple life. We are also considering the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire and the Sebago Lake area of Maine. We like the cooler climate. Florida is a mite hot for us. Visiting family there is good, but really don't want to live there. We really like the idea of being able to fish without getting eaten by an gator, or bitten by something poisonous! The New York or Smokey Mt. (Tenn.) areas sound nice, too as long as the snakes aren't too thick! But, we really love the freshly caught seafood though! I guess we are a bit spoiled!

Now if only gas prices would drop so we can do more of our exploring by boat instead of online! If you have a few names of good smallie lakes we could try out and explore their nearby areas for housing etc, let me know! Thanks again!