Jeff_L

Thanks. I can barely get this crew through a 2 day float alive with clean water. We typically camp on river, which means a fair amount of gear. Might limit to a one day float this year.

I have a group that is supposed to be floating Hebron to Blair Bridge (using Twin Bridges) next weekend. Any thoughts on whether that is possible / dangerous? I would guess the river is still filled with debris and lots of strainers, etc.

The bridge names are confusing to those of us who aren't there a lot. Does Blair Bridge have a different name? Is it gone? Thanks.

The Buffalo River got hit, but not as bad as some others. It went to 18' at Ponca, which is really high, but not record height, and is almost back down to floatable now. It isn't very good fishing all the way up there, but once you get past Kyle's, it gets decent. Twin Bridges on upper N. Fork is still operating. I have a group trip there in a couple weeks and they assure me we are OK, although I have my doubts about the length of the float. Can probably at least do Hebron to there, but who knows. But there's always fire and beer and stories.

Thank you for the update. Good luck to everyone down there.

I spoke to the guys at Twin Bridges today. They indicated they got lucky and didn't have too much damage, but that "every bridge downstream was damaged or destroyed." Said Hammond was no more, Blair Bridge affected. No idea how much of that is the case, but sounds terrible. I hope everyone is OK.

It would appear the USGS gauge is washed out / inoperable as of sometime Saturday night when river hit 35. I know everyone down there probably has plenty to do, but any reports would be appreciated. Was headed down this weekend and have a big trip in 3 weeks, worried for everyone down there.

We did Pulltite to Two Rivers weekend before last. Weather was pretty good, although unexpected rain starting late Friday night lasted until mid-day Saturday, causing it to be quite a bit chillier than predicted. I agree that is a long float with a south wind if you wanted to fish much. River was great, pretty easy going, only saw a couple boats. The band of horses galloped right by, which was quite awesome. Fish weren't biting, but the beer was cold, fire was warm and conversations were great. New Asend kayak worked out well, could do 4 or 5 days with the gear we brought no problem.

Thanks. We won't be "seriously" fishing, mostly chatting, taking in scenery and drinking beer. Probably fish seriously for an hour or two a day.

I think we are going to do Pulltite to Two Rivers, we will easily have 12+ hours on the river in 2 kayaks, so that should be easy.

Thanks, will do. Is Akers to Round Spring better? We might want to do longer if we can get 3 hours in on Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday morning?

After reading a few trip reports, worried about jet boats on that stretch, although maybe February would be OK? Any 20ish mile stretch that is better? I know water levels will be low. We will pay to have cars ferried to take out as well. Thanks.

Buddy and I looking to do a 2 day trip this weekend on Current, kayaks. He will probably need to rent one, I hopefully will have a new one by then. We've done most/many Ozark streams, but Current is always too busy in the summer, so first time for an overnight. Looking to put in Friday afternoon, camp Friday/Saturday night, off by noon Sunday. I'm eyeballing Round Spring to Two Rivers. We will be fishing leisurely and don't want to have to hurry, but also don't want to be done too fast, and prefer as much solitude as possible. Prefer smallmouth over trout if given the choice, but not a big deal either way. Any suggestions both for the area to float and outfitter that has decent kayaks? Thank you in advance!

Some of you helped me a year ago plan a float on the Upper N.F., we floated Hebron to Blair Bridge and had a great time. Small fishing from Hebron to Twin Bridges was great. Trying to get all the way up to Topaz and wondering if anyone has any info on water levels up there. Yesterday's rain was great, the gauge at Tecumseh shot up but is shooting down just as fast. Hoping it will still be good by Friday. Thanks.

having been on the upper Buffalo when it went up to 9' once...not looking to relive. I will take a pass and rebook.

We floated Hebron to Blair the weekend of May 15 - 17, a group of 15 guys. Twin Bridges outfitted us, and we can't possibly say enough about Don, Judy and Nolan's service. They fed us great meals and helped with all logistics. Way better service than we have ever had from any other outfitter (7th year of doing a big trip like this). The upper float from Hebron to the first low water bridge was my favorite. Hardly any signs of life up there other than us and the wildlife. We camped just below Twin Bridges where two trees had fallen and completely closed off the river. We decided that was the river's way of telling us we should stop for the evening. We lucked out and only had a couple brief downpours and some steady rain in the middle of the night. River level was perfect. While the springs are awesome and the flow is great further down, that part of the river is definitely much less enjoyable (to me) than the upper part due to so many more houses and people, and personally, I would rather fish for goggle eye and smallmouth than trout, especially from a canoe or kayak. It would be quite a challenge to find a sandbar on which to camp below CC also. Not many bars, and lots of property owners. We had a lot of success on the upper part on a variety of techniques. I was fishing mostly tubes and got hauled around by the one in the photo. This was a couple miles above Twin Bridges. Others were consistently catching fish on rapalas and various jigs. I got the feeling that area is fished so infrequently that pretty much anything was going to get action. We had been warned about landowners further up, but Twin Bridges claims they are putting people in at Topaz with no complaints. We certainly had no issues from Hebron down. I think, if we had to do it again, we would float Hebron to CC or Topaz back to Twin Bridges. The water from Hebron to Twin is not skinny at all, at least compared to plenty of other Ozark headwaters. We saw more wildlife on this trip than on any other, including upper Jacks, upper Buffalo, upper Kings, upper 11 Point. Just seemed like the perfect weekend for everything to be out. Including a vast array of snakes, one of which was hanging out in a tree and caused an amusing canoe flip for one of our group. A few strainers here and there, and enough rapids to keep everyone from getting too drunk. Perfect trip!

Thanks everyone. Looks like this tropical storm will probably put an end to this trip anyway. 3- 5" of rain in the Elk drainage at the end of the week is probably more excitement than I need for this trip.

Thanks. I know the upper part gets cleared out by the outfitters pretty regularly because they don't like losing canoes. The part below Noel, though, is probably not as maintained. I'm not going to be getting much assistance from either grandpa or my son, so having a clean river is a priority for this float.

Anyone have an update on status? I know the river is up, is it safe to float? How much debris is there? I'm tentatively planning on taking my dad and my 8 year old on a Father's Day short overnight as that stretch is generally pretty straightforward and not crowded, but I'm not interested in going if there is high water and strainers. Any help appreciated! Also, is Cowskin Camp/Canoe still in business? Thanks!

Thanks for the info. This trip is a highlight every year. Always fun to convince others to subsidize your exploration of Ozark headwaters. This one is easy to plan. Upper Kings a couple years ago was much more logistically challenging with a big group. The year we put in on the Upper Buffalo in a thunderstorm and the river ended up cresting over 9 feet was exciting, although the copperhead bite topped the river cresting, and the Joplin tornado easily topped all that excitement. I will try to post a trip report when we are finished.

Thanks for the info, everyone. Our revised trip will be from Hebron to Blair over two days. We will likely camp either a mile above or a mile below the CC bridge/Hammond, looks like plenty of sand bars and that land looks heavily forested and perhaps less likely to get us shot. Any thoughts? That puts us camping in the more traditionally traveled area.

Thanks or the info and I understand. We have floated the upper parts of pretty much every stream with zero landowner difficulties, but I certainly don't want to get in a pissing match with landowners with weapons, especially not after what happened on the Current a couple years back. We will explore floating downstream, or maybe just Hebron down to Blair, I assume that is more traveled and has fewer problems with camping? I was thrown off by the upper part of the river being in the national forest meaning there wouldn't be too many landowners around.

Thanks for all this information. We floated Upper Kings (Marshall Ford to Trigger) a couple years back and cruised. But the year before we floated the upper Eleven Point, above the springs, and that generally sucked. Lots of dead pools and paddling, the sort of water where a headwind sent you backwards. Also have floated Upper Jack's and dealt with lots of strainers. Assuming water levels are normal or above, is there constant flow, or is it slow pools? I get that it changes after Indian also. Would be fine with dealing with skinny water, not as excited to deal with no flow water. A little concerned about the landowner comments. I was planning on camping between Osborn Ford and Hale Ford. We will have a mess of people, probably 7 or 8 canoes, but are respectful and go out of our way to make friends with landowners and leave their property as we found it. Any intelligence on whether we are going to have trouble?

Reviving this to see if there is any more info. We are floating (or, scheduled to float) Topaz back to Twin Bridges in mid-May. Hoping there is plenty of water. Looks to be roughly 18 miles over 2 days. We typically have done over 20, and sometimes over 30, in two days. But not much info on Topaz to Hebron out there, so no idea what we are getting into. Looks like the gradient is pretty good up there, but guessing we will see some strainers, etc. What is the sand bar situation like? Looks good on Google, but I'm worried those pics were later in the summer and on a good flow May day they will be underwater. Camping on submerged sandbars isn't really all that much fun.... Thanks for any info, appreciate it. Also, we are staying in the new Twin Bridges bunkhouse, so any info on that and the new bar/restaurant would be great. Thanks again.