I finally gave in to the compelling urges that had been building in my brain for the last two months. I loaded the canoe and the Basswife into the truck and drove to the Upper Potomac on Saturday. I had convinced myself that the water levels had come down to something acceptable and just had to get out in pursuit of smallmouth. Our target for the day was the boat launch at Nolands that is just south of Point of Rocks on the Maryland side. We drove the hour to get to Point of Rocks and pulled in at the edge of the river to check it out before going downstream. Under the bridge, the current did not look too bad and there was about 6 to 12 inches of visibility in the water. I was not pleased to see the cloudy conditions, but put a happy face on it for the Basswife and we headed down to Nolands to launch the canoe. My strategy was simple. Throw the canoe in the water, motor upstream and then slowly drift downriver with the engine in reverse to hold our position. Unfortunately, the current had other plans. I know from running the motor on lakes that I can do 4 miles an hour with our typical gear load. Grinding upstream, the best I could do was 1.8 mph. The current was strong! There were other places in the river where I barely made upstream progress at all. As you can see from the map, we did not cover that much ground and I spent most of the time looking for slack water where we could fish without being swept downstream quickly. I've mentioned before that I'm not allowed to bring my fly rod in the canoe after hooking myself on Beaverdam Creek Reservoir last year. While I was successful in sneaking it in when we were at Mountain Run a week ago, the wind was up on this day and I decided to leave it at home. However, I did the next best thing. I rigged up some spin rods with slip bobbers from which I hung split shot and small powerbait grubs or micro nymphs. In effect, I deployed surrogate streamers using the slip bobber to hold them in position while they drifted downstream. Using this rig, we were able to fish them just like I would have fished using my fly gear. With my fly rod, I use six weight, bass taper line with a short intermediate sink tip rig at the end. I throw a short leader on the end of that and cast in a quartering fashion upstream and let the lure bump along the bottom.  Same thing here.  Thankfully, we started to pick up small bass and bluegill right away. The Basswife is not particular about species and was just as excited to catch a small bluegill as she would be to catch a 20 inch smallmouth. As long as we were catching fish, the trip was successful. In a desperate attempt to find calmer water I drove around to the other side of Nolands Island hoping for better conditions. Instead, I found an equally quick current running over a very shallow bed. On that west side of the island, the water was barely 2 feet deep in most places -- something to remember when the current calms down enough to allow wading. The typical depth on the east side of the island was 3 to 4 feet in places that I measured. The river bottom on both sides appeared to be a mix of sand and gravel with no clearly defined rock structure visible given the high water conditions. At the south end of the track, we ground our way up past the inlet of Tuscarora Creek and chatted with a few guys sitting on the bank. They said they had not caught any bass but were catching good numbers of catfish in that location -- something to remember the next time I come back here. After a few hours of fighting the current, I decided to give up, pack it in and wait for the water levels to drop some more. Hopefully that will occur by this coming Friday. Bottom line: I think this is a pretty good spot. Based on the limited number of measurements I took using my paddle poking at the bottom of the river, it looks like most this area will be wadable. I have had feedback from a reader who recommended the area off of Cox Island, a little bit to the south of where we fished. I will certainly come back later in the summer when this is more navigable.	Pressure Trout Size N/A Physical Fitness Bass Size Access Regulations Hard to Find Stocking Scenery Overall Remember to refer to my rating explanations - these are based on what I look for - so RED for Physical Fitness translates to easy physically - you do not need to be in shape to fish this section.  I prefer terrain that is tough to get into and out of. Getting There:   I hate to do this, but I support the site by selling books.  My book on the Upper Potomac - "Wade and Shoreline Fishing the Potomac River for Smallmouth Bass" is available in both ebook format (instant download) or traditional print. This book walks the 57.3 miles upstream from the Chain Bridge in DC to Harpers Ferry, WV using words, annotated maps and over 200 pictures to provide you exact references while removing any doubt about what to expect in each section of the river.  The 230+pages include detailed directions, 42 maps, 45 tables and 208 GPS coordinates - more detail than you will see in any other fishing guidebook. You can purchase the eBook version for $9.95 by clicking on the buttons below:        To purchase the traditional print version: Secrets Revealed?  No.  This is a very public location that is documented in Fishing the upper Potomac River Date Fished: 06/27/2009 Tell a friend about this article by clicking on this link
Looking downstream from the launch	Upstream from the launch -note the milky water
Looking downstream from the west side of Nolands Island	Upstream from the west side of Nolands Island