Had the skiff out on the river today

[JL8Jeff]

and the Delaware River is almost at the normal low summer level right now! I had to back down completely off the ramp. In the picture, you can see a nice boulder in the front, that is usually under water at this time of the year. It's way out of the water right now. I guess the upside is that the water is really clear and you can see to the bottom.

[Lt1_8U]

great looking boat!

[maroman88]

look at u being all normal with a truck on the boat ramp

[JL8Jeff]

Originally Posted by maroman88

look at u being all normal with a truck on the boat ramp

But to compare the river to what would be normal for April I'll show the difference to remind you I'm not normal. Notice you don't even see the big boulder.

[townsend]

you sir are insane

[sweetbmxrider]

How many guys have hit that boulder?

[JL8Jeff]

Let's just say there are quite a few rocks with marks on them. I was just out fishing and floated past more than one boulder that had white scrape marks on it! I did barely bounce the outboard off a shallow spot with it tilted up while I was floating downstream. The best way to learn where the rocks are is to tilt the motor up and float down slowly. I've been out here on the river with a boat of my own for 23+ years. I've been out on the river since I was a kid so that's a good 35+ years.

[Anti_Rice_Guy]

How deep does that leave the river? The bay is really clear too, I have a picture on my camera from yesterday.

[JL8Jeff]

At my dock it's about a foot and a half deep right now. Some areas are really flat and shallow (less than 3' deep) but even the deep spots that are 6-10' deep have boulders 5-6' tall in them so you still need to know where they are. If we don't start getting some rain soon, it's going to be a long summer!

[Anti_Rice_Guy]

Must've been pretty sketchy with the skiff then. That's really low.

[JL8Jeff]

Had the skiff out again after work yesterday and had a little bit of a wake up call. I was cruising along going up and down the river with some speed runs in the middle section when I suddenly noticed the water temp gauge was at 200 when it's normally around 150-160! So I shut it down right away to check and see if it threw the water pump belt but it was still on. I started it up again and you could hear the exhaust was louder so I knew there was no water going through the exhaust and shut it down again. I thought something might be blocking the water intake and reached back to the cavitation plate and sure enough there was a piece of wood/debris wedged in the intake pickup(the pickup is about the size of your thumb). I cleared it out and started back up and it cooled down right away. This is a good example of why you have gauges and why you should check them constantly.