Better yet, sell the boat, give the $$ to Squire and me. We'll spend it on fishing stuff and send you periodic emails about what it feels like to catch a fish. That way you don't have to worry about learning how to catch one.
Seriously, there's an old Army tool that may help you. The decision matrix. Set up a short series (NMT 5) of criteria against which you'll judge your options. Stuff like length of drive from home, proximity to water, security, power access, etc. if any one of these is more important than the others then assign a weighting factor to it. Plug in your options and score them. And the winner is . . .
He can't fish either so we're back to selling the boat.
It's cheaper to drive your vehicle 15 extra miles than drive the boat 15 miles if you will usually fish the same parts of the river. Will you be fishing other bodies of water? If you will be going to get the boat, and taking it somewhere else, the nearer option may be better.
I enjoy having my boat at home, and having a garage to keep it in, maybe you could move?...lol.
I think the no brainer is the option that allows you to access your boat 24/7. That is what I do with my boat in storage and there is no way I would have my boat somewhere I couldn't access it in the early am or return late in the PM.
Did some advance scouting this weekend, and both Swan Creek and Ft. Washington Marina are OUT, period. Smallwood is (by far) the leading candidate, even with the distance.
I've updated the original post with the details of my visit, I'll be visiting the other one this weekend.
When I was in Northern VA, I had my boat stored at Gateway Storage on Rt. 1 just north of the Rt. 1 - I95 Interchange. They had spots with electrical hookups and spots without. I had a spot with electric and it was great. You get 24/7 access to your boat, and it is only 5 miles from the Pohick Bay ramp and 10 miles from the Occoquan River ramp. I think the price for an electric spot was around $145/month when I had it there, but that might have changed in the last year or so. Definitely worth checking out if you are still looking for a spot.
- rfrankli