The day · Richmond, Virginia
Golden hour · 2 min left
Sun 0.8° below the horizon, in the west · Northeast Atlantic Coast & Piedmont
The kind of day it is
Bluebird
Clear, bright and still. The most pleasant day to be out and the hardest one to fish: with no cloud to break the light, fish go deep or under cover and only really feed at the ends of the day.
Go at first light or golden hour and skip the middle of the day.
The day, phase by phase
Happening now · 18:23–19:19
56 min long
Golden hour
Where the sun is this minute. Its highest today: 55.3°.
The sun drops back through the low angles and the long atmospheric path returns, warming the colour of everything. Shadows stretch to many times the height of what casts them.
Where the light lands · Northeast Atlantic Coast & Piedmont
The sun sets inland here, behind the dunes and the pines, so the water is in shadow while the sky over it is still lit.
Up close
The dune face releases the day's heat and a thin warm layer sits over the sand. Insects rise into it, and the swallows and terns work that layer until dark.
The whole landscape
Bait balls up on the evening tide and the birds find it before you do. A working flock of terns over the water is the most reliable fish-finder on this coast.
In the water now
Smallmouth bassbest now
Rock points and current seams; up on top at first and last light, and willing to chase a surface lure then.
Rainbow troutbest now
Working the seams and feeding lanes where current delivers food, rising freely to a hatch.
Cruising the weed edges, pads and shallow flats, ambushing anything that moves across the top.
In the riffles and at the heads of pools, taking insects off the surface as the hatch comes off.
Bright and still pushes fish deep, into shade and under structure. Work the edges of the day.
In the garden now
Out earlier and later than any other bee — a bumble bee can shiver its flight muscles warm and fly at 5 °C, in drizzle, in wind.
Feeding hardest in the first and last hour — it burns through the night's reserves by dawn and must refuel before dark.
Motionless on a flower head or stem, waiting. A mantis hunts by sight and needs the light.
Sitting head-down at the hub of the web. Many rebuild the whole orb at dawn, eating the old silk.
Peak photosynthesis and peak water loss. Beds dry fast and transplants sulk.
Sitting this one out
Honey bee · Hoverfly · Monarch butterfly · Swallowtail butterflies · Lady beetle · Green lacewing
The full guide
Everything for Richmond this week in one place.
Northeast Atlantic Coast & Piedmont
The region this day belongs to, and what lives in it.
The almanac
The year's arc: day length, the moon and the water behind the air.
The week ahead for Richmond
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