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.

http://www.njfboa.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=6180&d=1334456447

[Lt1_8U]

great looking boat!

[maroman88]

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

[JL8Jeff]

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

:rofl:

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

http://www.njfboa.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=6181&d=1334498170

[townsend]

you sir are insane

[sweetbmxrider]

How many guys have hit that boulder? :lol:

[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.