After fishing the Kindler Road section, I was desperate to find a fish. The Middle Patuxent could not be all bad! So, I swung around to spend an hour fishing up from Murray Hill Road.
There is a small parking area to the side of the road where Murray Hill Road crosses the Middle Patuxent. Downstream of the bridge, the property is private; upstream, it is public and flows through Gorman Park.
As you can see from the line length on the map, I did not spend much time here. As dusk was falling, I scurried down to the riverbank and started fishing at the bridge. As I worked up, I noticed plenty of tracks in the mud and sand. This place gets plenty of attention.
While you should never really expect to pick up any fish close to the road, I was hopeful that there might be a stocker or three left over from earlier that week when the river was loaded. Sadly, I did not encounter anything. From a philosophical perspective, you never know how to deal with this. Did the delayed harvest section get cleaned out by poachers? Or is it just my inadequate skill?
Of course, being a fisherman, I blamed the paucity of fish on the poachers, not my skills.
The river is decently deep near the bridge. I could see that if fish were dumped in at the bridge, they might be just as likely to scatter upstream as down. But, with my new understanding of the dynamics of stocked trout movement, I now realize that the downstream landowner benefits from any stocking activity here. Bugs me that my tax dollars support that.
Anyway, there was nothing in the short stretch I visited to impress me. The scenery was rural, with no houses, but boring. The river itself was 20 – 30 feet wide and sheltered by trees. As I mentioned above, it is reasonably deep – not like the upper section. However, I bet that it shallows out the farther in you go.
Middle Patuxent River Trout Fishing Bottom Line: Nope. I think this is a loser unless you know it has been replenished with fish and you can get there within the three-day window of stocking. After three days or so, the rainbows will head downstream onto that private stretch. It is my understanding that the local TU chapter float stocks this from time to time. That would be a good time to visit.
Date Fished: 3/12/2008
Getting There: Mapquest yourself to Scaggsville, MD. Go North on 29 and get off at John Hopkins road going east. Follow that to Murray Hill Road and then turn left. Follow it to the bridge.
Secrets Revealed? No. This is a very public location that is documented in the following places:
Maryland DNR
Guide to Maryland Trout Fishing
Looking back to the bridge. The small parking area is on this side on the right.
Looking upstream from the bridge. Nothing remarkable.
Sun hits the horizon early in the spring. This was a decent pool.
View at the top end of my walk.
Unless stated otherwise, this article was authored by Steve Moore