Paddle Prattle

A Public Forum For Paddle Related Discussion

Provided by The Monocacy Canoe Club


The message board is provided by the Monocacy Canoe Club (MCC) as a service to the paddling community. It is offered as an open communications forum. Some posts may offer useful information, others are best ignored, and others may fall somewhere in between. Most posts are personal opinions -- don't rely on them as "fact". Please visit the Paddle Prattle Policy FAQ link below for more information about this message board.

[MCC Main Page]..[MCC Cruise Schedule]..[MCC Smoke Signals]..[Paddle Prattle Policy FAQ]..[Email to Admin]


Paddle Prattle

Post a reply || Back to Paddle Prattle


April 1 Trip Report

Delete this post Submitted by Ed Evangelidi on 01/Apr/2015
68.55.136.31

Message:

Trip Report April 1
I was scratching my head trying to figure out where to take a novice group while also doing something that I wanted to do for years - follow a fish migration. It finally occurred to me - I could take the group upstream on the Potomac. The beginning and the end were easy water with a few rapids in between. We put in at Flechers Boathouse after shuttling to Violette's Lock and it turns out that no one in the group (including me) had done this trip as an upstream paddle before. In a short while I had netted a large shad and explained to the group that I didn't have the money or resources to buy fancy schmancy electronic tags that other researchers put on fish to track them with expensive remote receivers, so I would attach a loud (waterproof) radio on the fish using Gorilla Glue. Others were skeptical but I released the fish and you could hear the loud music when ever the fish was swimming near the surface. Lucky that the fish were running on this fine April 1. We continued upstream to Little Falls and I could still hear the music ahead of me.Most of the group could not attain Little Falls, so they opted to turn around and head back to Fletchers. I had to quickly attain Little Falls to keep up with this determined fish. I was getting tired as I approached Brookmont Dam and dreaded the carry around the dam - it is illegal to boat near dams on the Potomac and I wasn't going to start April getting arrested and this fish didn't have to portage - co he was getting ahead of me. By this time the other remaining boater decided to head back downstream, muttering about never going on one of my trips again. Even though I was more tired after the portage, I I was able to catch up with this fish by the time we got to Stubblefield Rapid. Don't know what the fish was doing for fun to slow him down in the flats, but I had to slow down and take a surf break before attaining Stubblefield. I briefly lost sight, or should I say hearing, of the fish as we approached the main islands upstream - I was afraid we would take different channels and I'd lose him. I attained Yellow Falls and asked some yakers if they had seen or heard a fish with a radio attached swimming anywhere around here. They looked at me funny and didn't say a thing, so I continued upstream as I knew that that was the fish's objective. Just before "the chutes" I caught up the slimy rascal and we both kept pace as we went up Wet Bottom Rapid but I was falling behind again through Fish Ladder and O Deck rapids. I was now faced with the toughest rapid - Great Falls. I once considered doing this rapid going downstream on another April 1 trip, but I never had considered this as a upstream trip until now. I knew attaning the rapid was complicated by having to do it on the first attempt or risk or sliding back down into a nasty hydraulic. As luck would have it, I still had enough strength to get upstream and was continuing up to the next dam and nasty %$#& portage when I realized that I hadn't heard the musical fish for a while. I decided to walk up and down the towpath a bit during my portage to see if I could hear anything. I heard some very loud music coming from one spot near the river but quickly figured out that it was some lounging tourist. Then I saw some commotion nearby as some guy had netted my fish with the radio and was showing it to a park ranger. The ranger didn't look very happy and was calling in some fish and wildlife people on his radio. I figured it was time to get out of there and make myself scarce. Hard to do that wit my boating outfit on while not near my boat. Guess I'll never figure out where the fish would have ended up as I will probably have to do a different trip next April 1.


Replies to this post


Reply to this post

Name:

E-mail (optional):

Subject:


Message:

Insert styled text: Bold | Italic | Underlined
Disable styled text

Insert smileys (Opens a new window)
Disable smileys

Powered by Free PHP message board 1.3 from PHPJunkYard - Free PHP scripts