Ouachita River Info

[LOREN]

Looking for a 3 or 4 day trip on the Ouachita for some camping and fishing. Any info would be appreciated never been there before.

[A Savage spanke]

Out of your skill range.

[Jim Krueger]

Loren,

I have fished and floated much of the Ouachita River, both upstream of Lake Ouachita and below the lake(s) near Remmel Dam, near Malvern, are you thinking upper or lower?

Best Regards
Jim

[fishhomer75]

The upperouchita is awesome. Easy floating, not many people, lots of fish, easy access, and several campgrounds. Oden to rockey shoals is prolly my favorite stretch for fishing.

[Jim Krueger]

Loren,

I agree with Fish Homer., the upper Ouachita is so very nice for fishing and scenery. However since it's the upper Ouachita, more attention needs to be considered for the water levels, mainly not too low for a decent trip. Currently the Mt. Ida gauge is indicating 2.84 feet. I use this gauge for floating the Dragover section, downstream of Sims, Oden, Pencil Bluff, the areas you might consider to make a several day trip. If you are planning to go fairly soon, the water levels should be just fine, but if later on, I'd sure check the levels as the river can get a little bony. At the same time, if we should get some fairly heavy rains it can become pretty swollen. My personal preferences for that section(s) for fishing and decent floating are as follows; On the Mt. Ida Gauge, 2.50 at a bare minimum to 4.50 feet at most, this should be pretty good. Any more or less, or later on in the Summer, I could recommend the lower Ouachita and it's very different scenery and conditions. One more perk on the Upper Ouachita is that most of the places you might camp will be on National Forest lands, however the Lower Ouachita has some lunar-like gravel bars I like very much although most all of it is on private lands that just require a little more discretion when choosing a site. The fishing can be just super on any part of the Ouachita you may venture on, Hope this helps, have a big time and give us a trip report please.


Best Regards
Jim

[AR-Nimrod]

Jim is right about the levels. We floated Rocky Shoals to Two Spirits Canoe & Campground couple years ago at 2.00 on the Mt. Ida gauge and it was BONY. However the fishing was great. I lost a brownie just below Rocky Shoals that... well it's better that I lost it. It probably would have cost me some money If I had landed it. It was big.

[panicman]

shirley creek campground is a great place on the river to camp. You camp out and put on about 6 miles above and float down and car camp and then the next day put on and float down to odem.

[Owl]

More info. and map here:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/ouachita/maps/d ... ip_003.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;