I’m floating through a weedy channel in the Potomac River, wearing a life vest, flippers and a facemask. The water is shallow, the current languid, yet I am concerned. I examine the carpet of pebbles and shells. Sunfish and small bass eye me while keeping their distance. I come upon a fat tire, festooned with algae. I knock on the tread to see if anyone is home. A small catfish pokes a whiskered snout over the rim, and then drifts back into its sanctuary.   All the members of the Potomac family were there, but with one exception: sponges. About a year ago, I reported the first recorded …

We adore the wildflowers that pop up along the Potomac in early spring―so pretty, so shy, so delicate. Now it’s late summer, and a completely different gang has moved into the neighborhood. These are the tough guys of the plant world. Some are real bruisers, forming thickets 10 feet tall that make the going tough, even with a machete. Others are aggressive, stinging exposed skin or sending forth clouds of nasty pollen. At least one can even kill you. Each has its story. I learned some of these stories on a recent hike along the Billy Goat Trail, downstream from Carderock. The trail begins in …

There’s another Potomac River out there. Like our own Potomac, this place is well worth knowing. It’s full of life and beauty, and it has a sly way of challenging our ideas and assumptions about nature. It’s also very different from our own Potomac. In fact, I’d argue that it’s not even a river at all. One of the tributaries to this other Potomac is Mattawoman Creek, in Charles County. You reach it by following Indian Head Highway to the very end, where you can launch your kayak or canoe at a peaceful little county park. I paddled upstream, pushed along by the current and undeterred by a …

  Viewing the bottom of the Potomac River through a facemask is a little like peering through a microscope. It’s a different world down there, and you never know what you might find. I was hoping to find sponges. Last August they were right at the head of Watkins Island, near Pennyfield Lock. It was apparently the first sighting of sponges in the river’s main stem. What happened to them? Would they reappear? I examined the bottom, admiring the shimmering pebbles and the green patina of the mussel shells, poking at anything that looked even the slightest bit spongy. Then I saw something that …

Back home, the Potomac River was pulsing with life. Minnows were darting through the stargrass while mussels serenely filtered water down below. Insect nymphs shucked their shells to emerge at the surface as gossamer mayflies. But here in the waters off Annapolis, we were about to make acquaintance with a dead zone. Capt. Paul Bayne plugged one end of a long, black cable into his hand-held dissolved oxygen meter. “Who wants to read out the numbers?” he asked. A woman stepped forward and took her position. Bayne lowered the probe on the other end of the cable into the surface water. “What does…

People here in Potomac River country excel at what they do – but few do much fishing. Even fewer of our children ask at the breakfast table to spend the day fishing. Does this matter? Fishing can help our children get to know the Potomac River and the C&O Canal. It also gives parents a chance to introduce their children to the world of nature.   “But I don’t know the first thing about fishing,” you might say. That’s about to change. Here are six simple steps for teaching a child how to fish: 1. Get a cane rod Start simple. You don’t need or want one of those blister pack fishing sets, with …

  Six months ago, the Potomac Conservancy gave our river a D grade. Now, American Rivers, a nation-wide river protection organization, has ranked the Potomac the most endangered river in the country. Not merely “endangered,” or “one of the most endangered,” but the “most endangered.” This puts the Potomac in the same league as worst automobiles (Jeep Wrangler, according to Consumer Reports). Or worst pizza (Uno Chicago Grill Deep Dish, says Yahoo Health). Or the worst NFL team (the 1976 Buccaneers, according to ESPN). Is the Potomac really the most endangered river in the country? I thought …

  A dead sapling snapped off in my hand, sending me downhill with a clattering of rocks and a tearing of thorns.   I was climbing the formidable west slope of Turkey Island, a few minutes’ paddle from the Billy Goat Trail at Carderock to get pictures of a blue barrel lodged high up in a tree by flood waters. But I couldn’t pass up the chance to get to know another of the Potomac River’s islands. Some, such as Turkey Island, are rocky and picturesque, with imposing cliffs that gleam in the afternoon sun. Others are low-lying and mysterious. Each has its own personality and secrets to share.   …

  When I first arrived, the marsh seemed as dead as the brittle weeds along its shoreline. But in Hughes Hollow, something always happens. I had parked my car in the dirt lot on Hunter’s Quarter Road, a left turn off River Road going west. The path immediately cuts through a large impoundment. Open water lies on the one side. A swamp thick with bushes and trees lies on the other. If Montgomery County had a resident alligator, this is where it would live. I scanned the open water with my binoculars, and then the brushy edges. When a rare bird shows up here, the news flashes through the birder …

Brent Walls pulled over on the side of the country road and started loosening the straps holding down his canoe. He was headed for a place on a nearby stream that was reportedly under assault by a herd of cattle. It’s a common problem in the Potomac’s upper watershed: unrestrained cattle not only not befoul streams with their waste, but also trample the shoreline, causing erosion and sedimentation. As the upper river manager of Potomac Riverkeeper conservation group, Wells’ mission was to check out the problem and hopefully find a solution. The cattle operation was small, less than 25 head, …

Back at about the time Edison started selling light bulbs and Tchaikovsky premiered his 1812 Overture, Dr. James A. Henshall of Cincinnati, Ohio, wrote The Book of the Black Bass. These are the same smallmouth bass that I know so well from the Potomac River, having caught hundreds of them. I consider myself to be quite the expert. Then I met Dr. Henshall. There he was in the engraved frontispiece of my facsimile edition, sporting handlebar moustaches and gazing steadily into the distance. As I turned the pages, I quickly discovered why he is still remembered as the “apostle of the black bass…

If I hadn’t glanced at the ground, my hiking boot would have flattened the first Eastern Smooth Earthsnake sighted in western Montgomery County. It could easily have happened. The tiny brown creature was perfectly camouflaged against the oak leaf on which it was coiled. And who would expect to find a snake out and about in late December? I knelt down to take a picture. The snake looked up at me, and then disappeared under the leaf litter. Was it something new? Or just new to me? I sent my photo into the cyber network of local natural history specialists, and presently it landed in the inbox …

When last week’s rains whipped the Potomac into a mud-colored torrent, my thoughts went to a certain spot on the river that’s home to some very special creatures. The spot is a little channel between two islands, halfway between Riley’s and Pennyfield locks. The creatures are sponges. A week ago, when the river was low, I could see them in the shallow water, safely fastened to the bottom.  How were they managing now? I imagined the powerful current scouring the bottom with blasts of sand and pebbles. These sponges are special to me because I discovered them. Not in the sense that they’re new …

I have a favorite place along the Potomac River where I sit on a rock in the shadow of paw paw trees. There I listen to the sound of running water and think and reflect. People who love nature regard such places natural shrines.   But how about people who don’t particularly like the natural world? Does the Potomac offer them a shrine as well? Yes it does, but it’s not for the timid. I chose to make my visit on the afternoon of the earthquake. Like all pilgrimages, it would be a search for answers. I didn’t yet have any questions, but that would soon change. My trailhead was the parking area …

I’m writing this as the wind blasts through the treetops and rain pelts my window. The New York City subway system is closed, the Martin Luther King memorial dedication has been canceled and nearly 800,000 homes in our area have already lost power.  It may be howling outside, but the Potomac River is not listening. Big Irene might have caused havoc elsewhere, but for our river, it was a big nothing.The National Weather Service forecast predicted as much. On Saturday, NWS said the river gauge at Little Falls, which hovered around 2.8 feet for the past week, would creep up to 3.3 feet by Sunday…

One market research firm found that of 2,000 tweets (as in Twitter, not orioles singing along the Potomac shoreline), 40 percent is “pointless babble,” while only 4 percent is actual news. I don’t tweet (or babble). But I was wishing that I did during my two days at the recent Maryland Streams Symposium. When you have whole rooms full of top experts from our local universities and government agencies all talking about our rivers and streams, you’re bound to pick up things you want to pass along.   Here’s a sampling:   A Sobering Thought A lot of taxpayer dollars are spent trying to fix up …

There are a lot of reasons why more people don’t get to know the Potomac River, like snakes, bugs, or just yuck. The news media doesn’t help with stories about floods, pollution, and sharp-toothed snakehead fish. But I think that the main reason is simply that people don’t know where to go and what to expect. The river is a stranger. So it comes down to getting over your shyness and stepping up to that stranger and saying, “Hi, I’d like to get to know you.” I’ll break the ice by telling a little something about one of my favorite spots. It’s a jewel of a place called Violette’s Lock, a short …

The River Watch column has been running for about 10 months, so we should be about ready for a quiz. Just how much have we learned? One thing is that the Potomac is a river full of personality, sometimes of a mischievous sort. So this quiz skips over such geographical verities as the river’s length (383 miles from the Fairfax Stone to Point Lookout), its average flow (7 billion gallons/day at Washington, D.C.), and the number of people who use the Potomac for drinking water (about 4.3 million). Each question below refers to a photo. Answers appear at the end.   Question 1:  These four scenes …

My backyard is the Potomac River, and I have long fancied myself quite the backyard barbecue chef. Many times I’ve made my little fire on a gravel beach and threaded a hotdog on a stick, attempting to crisp its skin before the stick bursts into flames. But recently, I learned a better way to dine on the river--thanks to a plan hatched by my wife Antje and her friend Maria, both teachers at Potomac’s German School. This is how we put it all together: The menu: Tube steaks would still command the culinary center stage. From scores of traditional German favorites, Antje and Maria chose spicy …

In that 1967 classic The Graduate, Mr. McGuire (William Daniels) famously tells his son Ben (Dustin Hoffman), “I just want to say one word to you... plastics.” We see the downside of McGuire’s prophetic words in the profusion of plastic trash in the Potomac River, notably water bottles, but also children’s toys, fishing lures and just about everything else our society consumes. This is “wild plastic,” aka trash, as in “wild urban plants,” aka weeds. But, plastic has also done the river tremendous good. Cheap and tough plastic boats have enabled thousands of ordinary people, young and old, to …