Rappahonock River City Docks

Thought I would do a little PSA for anyone wanting to use the City Docks for launching Bass Boats in the upper river.  So we normally go out of Hopyard in a 20 foot Ranger and don’t go any further upriver than Little Falls.  We have also launched there at Little Falls without any problems.  Normally we don’t have any loading launching problems unless it is a lunar low tide, storm tide, wind blown tide or something else.  We decided to try City Docks Sunday to explore the upper river a little more.  Dual ramps were nice but when we came back in to load (we were in the second or third hour of an outgoing tide) the launch was a little dicey. Luckily the river is really clear right now and when my partner dropped me at the dock to go get the truck/trailer, I could see that the downriver ramp had a little more depth and what looked like an extra slab of concrete which allowed me to dunk the trailer a little deeper.  Kayak and Paddle Board rentals made it pretty busy and since we were there at O’dark thirty in the morning and were the first ones at there, there was no marked parking for trucks/trailers.  I took a guess based on what I could see and seemed to be ok but I had to wiggle a little to get out to load.  Lots of cars that will park anywhere they can fit.  I’m not complaining because you only know what you know and I don’t expect people who have ever towed to know how much room a truck/trailer needs to maneuver.  We had a pretty good day and caught a lot of panfish, small smallmouth, largemouths and snakehead. Fishing was tough and it was 90+ degrees.  Our normal patterns from when we launch at Hopyard did not hold up in the far upper reaches.  We were approximately 18 miles upriver from our regular water  We found the largemouth on rocks next to deep water.  We also caught fish on wherever fresh water was flowing into the river. There are not any really bigger creeks and that is a major pattern downriver.  Snakehead came off wood.  Would really like to explore this area more but I doubt we will since the launch is unusable for our size boat at low tide.   Rumor has it that it gets dredged but right now it’s shady.  Be forewarned, there are a lot more navigation hazards upriver as well. Wing dams, barge tie offs, rocks and wood close to the channel.