Meg McGuire

The Atlantic shad looks unremarkable, much like a kid’s drawing of a fish: shiny silver coat, fins, forked tail. But it is the source of many anglers’ fascination. To know that feeling, read John McPhee, in his “The Founding Fish” (2002), which is all about shad. Here, he writes about their soul-stirring migration from the Atlantic up the Delaware: “When it warms past forty Fahrenheit, they (the shad) begin their migration, in pulses, pods —males (for the most part) first.

Friends of the Upper Delaware River hosted its second “River Rendezvous” conference and continued the theme of last year — getting scientists and fans of the Delaware River together to share their knowledge and enthusiasm. “It’s electric when we all get together!” said Molly Oliver, executive director of FUDR. “You can see their eyes light up” when attendees meet someone they may not know and discover that they are brothers (and sisters) in their study of the river.

The mostly placid waters of the two branches of the Delaware River (not very imaginatively named the West Branch and the East Branch) hide a turbulence that only sometimes is visible to the communities nearby. Residents have been alerted to the issue by random unsigned notes dropped into mailboxes in support of river-adjacent landowners who assert ownership of those waters — and the riverbed — through historic right.