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Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 5:07 pm
by Wildwood
Other than the Spring River, are there other streams in Arkansas that are not rain-dependent? Where are the most dependable streams to float? I get grumpy when I can't float pretty often . . .

Thanks.
Jan

Re: Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 5:22 pm
by Clif
There is water in the White most of the time. Lower Buffy usually good. Ouachita by Malvern runs a lot in the summer below the dam.. takeout almost under I40.

Re: Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 6:08 pm
by Jim Krueger
Jan,

As Clif mentioned, the Ouachita downstream of lake Catherine has plenty of water to float year-round. Many times in the Summer ,when other streams are too low to float, we'll paddle the very scenic 5 mile stretch from Remmel Dam to the Ledge, (or the Malvern WW park, just above the I-30 bridge). There is much more of the ouachita that you can float below, including the last four miles of the Caddo River near Arkadelphia. You can have even more river miles than is possible on the Buffalo, sans quite so many of the bluffs. I do hope you will join us this Summer on the Remmel Dam float and we'll visit more about the river below.



Best Regards
Jim Moose

Re: Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 6:16 pm
by Clif
:oops: wrong road... Like Jim sed.. 30 :oops:

Re: Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 10:55 pm
by Tmuse
You can run the lower little Mo below the narrows dam during the week in the summer. That is the run below lake greeson. Have fun! :beer:

Re: Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 6:40 am
by Wildwood
Thanks, guys! That Remmel Dam float will be on my list. I'll watch for a post about it.

Speaking of the White River, do many people float it? If so, which parts? I've only floated it right below Beaver dam. (When they are generating 2 units, I don't like it.)

Re: Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 7:06 am
by Clif
duh... in our backyard... Little Red below the dam at Heber. I would be up for exploring more of that one with ya in the hot summer. Below Sugar Loaf?

Re: Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 8:55 am
by Wildwood
OK, Clif, you're on for that one. I passed thru there yesterday on my way back from Spring River. Someone else expressed an interest in floating Little Red, maybe she will still be interested.

Re: Year-round floatable streams?

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 8:01 pm
by Eric Esche
I've floated the Little Red with my father-in-law in a john boat fishing. I will get put-ins and takeouts from him if anyone wants them. It was all class one, but it did have water cold enough for stocker rainbows and a flowing current, although a very silty one, the times I have been there fishing. I have seen it from a dock when it was clear and low, so it isn't always silty. Sections I have floated on it with JM Park were all surrounded by farmlands and trees. JM may not be the most knowledgeable about trout, but he sure can catch them when the family is gonna have a feed.

I did catch a 22" brown in there, after casting where JM said there would be nothing :D ) so it is not all stocker Rainbows. Rainbows tasted pretty good though - we fed the family.

The Trout Unlimited chapter I belonged to in NE Georgia motto was NOT "catch and release", but "Wha cha gonna eat?" We liked to catch and eat trout so much, we figured we had to do more than anyone else to grow more trout, iffen we wanted our kids to get to catch and eat trout as well someday. We were named TU chapter of the SE US our second year in existance with only 50 members, and 13 of those were school and county libraries whom we gave memberships to so that the kids could read the TU magazine.

Can't say I am a good fisherman, but I do what I can, and I do like to eat trout. I'd go back to the Little Red happily in my canoe if I had a pole with me. Not as scenic as the Buffalo, but it's a float, and it does have good fishing, and the current can get sort of fast when the water gets up.

Eric Esche