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Home › Waters › Maryland › Town Creek
Spring creek · Western Maryland, Allegany County, the Ridge and Valley country above the Potomac at Oldtown · Maryland

Town Creek Fishing Guides

An Allegany County creek running a long wooded valley to the Potomac at Oldtown, one of Maryland's better small-stream smallmouth fisheries and quiet enough that a summer float can pass without meeting anyone.

A shallow rocky river running clear through eastern woodland
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Town Creek

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About the Town Creek

Town Creek drains about a hundred and fifty square miles of Allegany County and runs south down a narrow valley to join the Potomac River near Oldtown. The gauge sits just above the mouth. The valley is long, steep-sided and mostly forested, and a good deal of the drainage lies within Green Ridge State Forest, which is the reason this creek has stayed as clean and as quiet as it has.

The creek runs over sandstone and limestone ledge with cobble riffles between long pools. Because so much of the watershed is wooded rather than farmed, the water clears quickly after rain and runs genuinely clear during settled weather. Summer flows drop low, and the deeper ledge pools become the whole fishery for a few weeks in August, holding fish that are visible and correspondingly hard to approach.

Smallmouth bass are the reason to come. Town Creek has a reputation among Maryland anglers as one of the better small-stream smallmouth fisheries in the state, and the fish are wild, well-conditioned and willing to take a surface fly. Rock bass share the same pools in numbers. Trout hold in the cooler upper water, with brown trout wild in places and rainbows stocked in the put-and-take sections. Fallfish are abundant and often mistaken for something better, redbreast sunfish and bluegill fill the slow water, and channel catfish and white sucker use the deepest holes.

Wading is the natural way to fish it at summer levels, and a kayak works in spring when there is water enough to float. Flows come up quickly after storms and drop back within a day or two.

Oldtown and Cumberland are the practical bases, with Green Ridge State Forest offering camping right on the drainage.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Posting to Town Creek.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Town Creek cfs

Now: 21.4 cfs, read 5:15 pm CDT, Sun Oct 18, 2026 (USGS 01609000, TOWN CREEK NEAR OLDTOWN, MD).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Oldtown - the gauge location and the community at the creek mouth.
Green Ridge State Forest - public land covering much of the drainage, with camping.
Cumberland - the nearest city, with full lodging, fuel and tackle.
Potomac River - the receiving water at Oldtown, with public access.
C and O Canal National Historical Park - towpath access along the Potomac.
Town Creek Road - the valley road, with numerous pull-offs and crossings.
Flintstone - a small community on the northern side of the drainage.

Seasons

Spring: enough water to float, colored early and excellent once it drops and clears.
Summer: low and very clear, with smallmouth concentrated in the deeper ledge pools.
Fall: the best combination of flow, temperature and solitude on the creek.
Winter: cold, low and clear, with fish holding deep and feeding briefly on warm afternoons.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Town Creek?

As of Oct 18, 5:15 pm, the USGS gauge TOWN CREEK NEAR OLDTOWN, MD reads 21 cfs. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Town Creek?

Anglers target Bluegill, Brown Trout, Channel Catfish, Fallfish, Rainbow Trout, Redbreast Sunfish, Rock Bass, Smallmouth Bass, White Sucker on the Town Creek in Maryland.

Where can you access the Town Creek?

Oldtown - the gauge location and the community at the creek mouth. Green Ridge State Forest - public land covering much of the drainage, with camping. Cumberland - the nearest city, with full lodging, fuel and tackle. Potomac River - the receiving water at Oldtown, with public access. C and O Canal National Historical Park - towpath access along the Potomac. Town Creek Road - the valley road, with numerous pull-offs and crossings. Flintstone - a small community on the northern side of the drainage.

When is the best time to fish the Town Creek?

Spring: enough water to float, colored early and excellent once it drops and clears. Summer: low and very clear, with smallmouth concentrated in the deeper ledge pools. Fall: the best combination of flow, temperature and solitude on the creek. Winter: cold, low and clear, with fish holding deep and feeding briefly on warm afternoons.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Town Creek?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Maryland agency site: https://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/Pages/regulations/index.aspx