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Despite being almost skunked the last time we fished adjacent to Occoquan, the Basswife and I wanted to take advantage of a few hours of free time early in October. We accepted that we would have to pay a launch fee at the Fountainhead Regional Park and took the short drive from our home across the river to that location. The time from the garage to the water was less than 10 min.
As we pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the boat ramp, I should’ve taken better notice of the limited parking. There were trucks with trailers scattered as far as the eye could see. After we dumped the canoe on the concrete boat ramp, it took the Basswife a while to park and return.
Like last time, we motored upstream and began to fish under the 123 bridge. I was amazed at how rude other anglers were. We were about halfway up, with only about 30 yards between ourselves and the dam, and another boat pulled in in the space between us. Get a clue. This river is big enough to provide everyone with plenty of space. When I turned around to look back downstream, I was also startled to see two other boats grinding their way underneath the bridge into this crowded water. The heck with that.
We headed down and fished some of the docks with no great results. When those became crowded, we motored farther downriver to fish between the boats and then bounced over to the other side to fish the shoreline. Everywhere we went, other anglers soon appeared. I guess the fishing on the Potomac was not good, and all these guys were retreating to the side channels. It was a proliferation of massive bass boats creating the closest I’d ever seen to a traffic jam.
We plugged away for about two hours, looked at each other, and agreed to give up. I know there are fish here since Charlie Taylor talks about them all the time, but the buzz of propellers and the bleeps of sonars must’ve put them down from the thousand boats that speckled the scene.
Secrets Revealed? No. This is a very public location that is documented in the Fairfax County Park website.
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Date Fished: 10/8/2011
Packed with boats
Wide and deep
Plenty of docks to fish
Plenty of kayakers to get in your way
Unless stated otherwise, this article was authored by Steve Moore