The acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) is a powerful instrument that can measure detailed vertical profiles of ocean currents. ADCPs are often permanently mounted on research vessels and used to survey ocean currents rapidly over large areas of the ocean. We recently began development of a towed "fish" (instrument package) that would contain an ADCP with the same capabilities as a vessel‐mounted ADCP but that would allow us greater flexibility and improved data. Here we describe our initial efforts, present some of our first results, and summarize our near‐term plans for improving our present ADCP fish system. We are developing the ability to make ADCP measurements from a towed fish rather than from a ship because we want to be able to measure ocean currents accurately even under severe sea surface conditions, reduce the influence of cavitation noise generated by the ship's propeller, eliminate interference caused by bubbles entrained under the ship's hull, and use the instrument on unspecified research ships.