Fisherville Pond / Blackstone River Reservoir in Massachusetts

Trip Overview

We parked and put in near the soccer field. We paddled south to explore the rest of the pond and the Blackstone River Reservoir. There is a big dam at the south end, and an old abandoned dam with a burnt brick building. The entrance to the Blackstone River Resevoir is nice scenic slow quietwater. We took the right fork and for a while this was a nice easy paddle through the woods, but shortly after going under the bridge we had to get out and start carrying over shallow rocks. We thought from the map that we could loop back to where we entered the river from the pond, but what we thought would be a few portages turned into trudging through rocky water and mosquitoes for a good portion of the "loop" (about half a mile!). When it finally looped back around to the street we paddled under on the first side of the loop, we were rewarded with some nice easy but fun rapids, that lasted for about a quarter mile before spitting us back out to the rivers entrance path that takes us back to Fisherville Pond.

This part of the river was beautiful as the sun was going down. From google maps I expect you may be able to get a similar journey cutting out the long difficult portage by getting out at the bridge instead of paddling under, and walking left down the street until you get to the other bridge where the rapids start.

We then paddled north to the Quinsigamond river with the intent of trying to make it up to Lake Ripple, but it got to dark and we had to turn around. This section of the river is pretty aside from seeing a couple houses and a street briefly, and the water was always slow enough to paddle upstream. The challenge was the several beaver dams and felled trees. I was able to build up speed and row over most of the small beaver dams, sometimes assisting with my hands. There are at least two felled trees to climb over. We almost made it to Lake Ripple so I expect its possible if the water isn't to low with a total of maybe 7 portages.

All in all, we had a blast on the water, saw turtles, frogs, muskrats, a groundhog, a huge beaver (on the quinsig river), hawks, great blue herons, redwing blackbirds, skylarks, swans, and tons of fish hopping out of Fisherville pond.

Accommodations:

Dirt parking lot, no boat ramp, there may have been a portapotty where the soccer field near the parking lot is, I can't remember.

Fees:

No

Directions:

Here is a google maps link to where we parked. You can see on the map where we went south/north to each river described.
https://goo.gl/maps/9cNLvHqkTbz

Resources:

Google Maps