Gwynns Falls

Robert Farmer-- I caught this the other day when the Villa Nova gauge (I found out later) indicated around 1.25 ft/ 50 cfs; this turned out to be an abusive minimum. Total time from Dickeyville to Wash. Blvd.: @3 hours. I paddled it once before at @70 cfs at VN; this was slightly less abusive. An acceptable level for many people might be around 100 cfs, but the gauge is far upstream, so this is only a rough indicator rather than a true water level. The stated minimum of 150 would be well-padded, but less frequent. I noticed a new visual gauge at Washington Blvd---the only visual gauge that I know of. The abusive-minimum level here is 2.5. A good minimum would probably be 2.75. 4.2 is very nice. Because the telemetric gauges are read only once a day, and the creek can easily rise and fall in 6 hours, the telemetric gauges are often not helpful, except for later reference, which is why the Wash. Blvd. gauge is very useful. Otherwise, the only good place to check the creek visually is at Windsor Mill Rd bridge, where the rapids can give one a rough idea of the level, although there is no gauge there. The best rapids are 1)downstream of Dickeyville and 2) the ledges section downstream of Route 40. The Washington Blvd gauge can be read online at: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?01589352.