Considering a pop up

[04LJ]

I'm needing some advice from those who have experience with pop up campers. My wife and I are considering one for my 3/4 ton Dodge.
I fly fish at the state parks in Missouri nearly every weekend but they are typically day trips. Last weekend, I pulled a 30' camper for a "guys fishing trip" and I really enjoyed having the comforts of home but pulling a huge camper like this was way overkill. One of our neighbors in the campground had a hard side camper and it got me thinking. This camper had everything I would need for my wife and I without having to tow (my wife doesn't feel comfortable driving with a trailer) and store a trailer. My biggest concern with a truck mounted camper would be that, when I get up early to fish, I need my truck to get to the fishing spots. This would mean my wife would have to drive me down with the camper or take the camper off of the truck. How hard are these campers to remove and leave at your campsite? Are they stable enough to occupy when they are off of a truck? I've looked on craigslist and it seems they can be had for a reasonable price and storing it would only take up my third car garage instead of paying for storing. Everything seems to be pointing towards this if I can leave it at the campsite.

 

[FlyTime]

I have a GMC 2500 HD standard bed with a Hallmark Guanella, mounted with torklifts & fastguns. Manual jacks. in theory its an easy thing to take off and mount, in practice its a pain in the *****. Personally with my rig I wouldn't consider taking it off at camp unless I was on a level. paved surface, and I was staying in one place for at least a week. Like you, my primary motivation is fly-fishing trips.

But, its easy to clean up and drop the top, and motor to where you want to go, as long as your wife is of like mind....

 

[Freebird]

^^^^^ yep. What he said. Theory:easy. RealityITA.
Second person to watch/guide/direct/blame almost a necessity. Especially if a high bed PU so the camper is high on spindly legged jacks during the process....
Ooops did I say blame? lol

 

[ripperj]

Especially on a high truck with wide bed and small camper, I should have spaced my Jacks out more, but it was fine in the driveway, but get it off level and you end up with scrapes and dents on your new paint

Sent from my Passport using Tapatalk 2

 

[doctorit]

There's no way my wife and daughter would break camp to take me fishing in the morning!

Yet another vote for: no, it's not that easy. Now that I have 2yrs of practice, I can do it in 15min on my driveway with one-arm behind my back, but I've never had the guts to do it at a campsite, even a nice fairly flat gravel one. It's just not worth the hassle.

The beauty of a small popup: you can tow a small trailer with an ATV/UTV to get to fishing spots!

 

[Rot Box]

Another vote for pita. I can have mine on/off in less than 15 minutes (old school hand crank jacks) but it's a headache every time


Maybe the answer here is a much smaller camp trailer or maybe a pop-up camper in a truck bed trailer?

EDIT: Or like doctorit said bring along an ATV, UTV or even a small enduro motorcycle.

 

[craig333]

Plus the FWC/ATC campers aren't designed for such use. You'd need to build and bring some kind of support structure to set it on. You can drive with the top popped. Might make mama upset to wake up in a different spot though

 

[Regcabguy]

I can dismount my Northstar in 20 minutes single handed.
As Freebird posted mounting it takes another soul to help jack it up and keep me from bowling the sucker over.
I only trust my friend down the street as my wife gave up years ago.
Jack extensions for use with dually would widen the jack stance but i persevere.
If it didn't look so ghetto I'd dismount the camper more often but with a short driveway..ain't gonna happen.

 

[LuckyDan]

I've done it in the past with my FWC Grandby but wouldn't recommend it as a standard practice because:

#1 it's not very quick to mount/dismount, especially if you go the internal tie down route
#2 in the FWC case and I'll assume most others is you need to bring base support along because as Craig pointed out they are not designed to be used without base support
#3 Mine would tip over with more that one person in the cab over bed without the tail tied down somehow

 

[bearman512]

Here is my setup. +++ on the PITA
Jeep with a towbar works great and it will follow you anywhere.

I have a recent pic of the truck and jeep in tow at Big Bend Ranch State Park.

 

[Umtaneum]

Another vote for PITA. 15 minutes to take off, closer to 30 to put back on. However, my Phoenix IS supposed to be designed to be able to be occupied off of the truck, no secondary support is required. I have spent the night in it once off of the truck, it would have been a lot more comfortable if I set a couple of 5 gallon buckets under the floor or something, just provide a little more stability than the four jacks. Even lowered way down below truck bed level, it wobbles an annoying amount.

 

[ripperj]

More concerning to me than the wobbling being annoying: the leverage attempting to rip the jacks off the camper is huge!

Sent from my Passport

 

[dlh62c]

What temperature do you plan to camp in. A pop up doesn't offer
much in the way of insulation.

Here is a great truck camper site; http://www.truckcampermagazine.com.

Be careful, you'll spend way to much time there.

Having fished at Bennett, I'd say there's no reason your wife couldn't remain in the camper parked near the stream. You could walk back to the truck camper to get sandwiches, cold drinks or hot chocolate on a nippy March morning, or even take a nap.

I made the switch from western style fly fishing to Tenkara. Have you seen anybody Tenkara fishing at any of Missouri's trout streams?