Patapsco River in Maryland

Trip Overview

Well, Fred Taft and I were sitting around and decided to take a trip. He lives about 5 houses up from the Woodstock Inn bar (Rt 125), which happens to be right on the Patapsco River. It has not rained since I dont know when. We drove up to Marrietsville road bridge to check it out...way too dry, so we went back to the bar and it looked low, but still ok.

We launched across the street from the bar, next to the RR Tracks there is a horse trail that goes down to the river. So we dropped in his Coleman Scanoe and started off. Only about 8" deep, but we carried on, started the Garmin Legend eTrex GPS. We hit a few little fast spots, and off course about 5 times we lifted the boat a few feet over a dry or rocky section (still not bad though). Ok, we took our time and really saw some great nature stuff. One Beaver (nice size, he was really cool looking), One large Snapping Turtle (the shell was about 1 1/2' long), and a bunch of striped bass, several of them were over a foot long (next time I will bring my rod).

We took the river all the way to the damn. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We did 4.6 miles in about 4 hours. We could have gone faster, but we kept stopping to check out stuff along the way. This is also a great place to bring the kids. They would love all the animals and stuff... I hope it rains its butt off this week so I can go next weekend again with a little more speed.

**When you get to the end (The Dam), the river gets wider and slower, you will see a small muddy/sand area on the right side. That is the place to get out. The dam is just around the corner. We pulled out and then called for our ride.

Accommodations:

None.

Fees:

None, unless you fish.

Directions:

695 to Rt 70 west to Marrietsville road exit, bare right on the ramp and follow to railroad track and bridge, there is a place to park there.

Resources:

Just a GPS for fun.