Some friends and I are planning to take a long weekend fishing trip around April. We are in SW Ohio and are looking at Missouri or Michigan. Or anywhere within a 7 or so hour drive. Wanting to hit some streams for trout, bass etc. and do some hiking maybe camping. Can anyone recommend one state over the other or which has a better fishery and overall experience? Is april even a good time to go?

Fishing? Florida or Louisiana.  The rest is catching minnows.

I agree with you. When I am in Florida,  THAT is fishing. But we are looking to do some stream fishing up around here in the midwest since we can drive there easily.

In general stream trout season doesn't open in Michigan until April 27th, and Bass not until May 25th.

You can go after certain trout and salmon in certain rivers during the winter though, but there are some closures, and rig restrictions.

Regs are here: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/2019MIFishingGuide-Feb26_647890_7.pdf

That being said to do all of the things you want and more I would suggest the NW side of Michigan specifically from Ludington, up to Traverse City.  Lots of great fishing, including some of the year round rivers for salmon and steelhead.  Tons of land to roam with trails galore including a large chunk of the North Country trail.  I have a place outside of Manistee in the Huron National Forest and love that area.  It isn't as touristy as a lot of the areas up that way, but there's plenty to do, and plenty of supplies available.

Any questions feel free to ask.  I'll subscribe and check back, or just message or email me.

This is perfect info! Area looks awesome. Let me look into it a bit more and I'll let you know if I have any questions. Thanks!

Thought I'd share this with you.  It's the website for the North Country Trail.  They have great map resources and even downloadable maps for your phone.  This is the online map

http://nct.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Viewer/index.html?appid=23a2c0d674cb443ea9835af2e8c5f13a&extent=-88.9146,43.0239,-83.8581,44.7186

This is the website with downloadable to the app, and printable .pdfs.

https://northcountrytrail.org/trail/michigan-lower/

A hike that comes highly recommended and I hope to take my boys on when they get older is the Manistee River Trail loop.  It is partly NCT, and the rest teh Manistee River Trail.  It goes up one side of the Manistee, and down the other and provides numerous camping and fishing spots.

Awesome I will check this info out as well. Thanks a million.

If you're serious about chasing stream trout we have miles and miles of accessible water in southern MO.

If you're seriously looking for huge sea monster trout we have those too in Lake Taneycomo tailwaters below the Table Rock lake dam in Branson MO.  We're talking potential world record Brown trout in this particular lake which is more like a river in between two lakes.

Good bass fishing of all varieties in Tablerock lake too and tons of places to stay and stuff to do in Branson.

If you decide on MO I can steer you towards some great guides on both lakes.

I try to catch trout in every state I go to and I know as soon as I leave MO I'm leaving the big fish behind.

White river in Arkansas would be my second place to go.  Great fishing there as well.

Drive farther and do a canoe trip in MN's Boundary Waters.
Some of the hardest fighting smallmouth I've ever caught came from the flowages up there.
No shortage of walleye & pike as well.

Any river/stream/creek that holds Smallmouth Bass.  If you've never chased river smallies, you'll have a BLAST!

If you want to do a really fun trip, get some kayaks and go do a 2-night camping trip on the Smokehole section of the South Branch of the Potomac in WV. It’s best in later May though.