Looking For A Float

[OzarksRiverman]

Are there any outfitters that will put you on the Bryant? Looking to do a one-day float/fish this weekend somewhere, and I've never been on the Bryant. I'd like to check it out.

I'd like to float the 8 miles from Hodgson Mill to Warren Access. Is this Smallmouth water?

[Gavin]

Call Justin @ Sunburst Ranch....he knows that creek pretty well.

[OzarksRiverman]

Call Justin @ Sunburst Ranch....he knows that creek pretty well.

Yeah, already tried Sunburst. They don't put anybody on the Bryant.

[gotmuddy]

if they dont then very likely no one will.

[Gavin]

A weekend might be tough for em down at Sunburst...weekday...they would probably do it...another option would be Roy's store up the road a bit, or some of the campers down at Patrick.......strike up a conversation with the locals, offer a bit of $, and they might just help you out.

[gotmuddy]

.another option would be Roy's store up the road a bit, or some of the campers down at Patrick.......strike up a conversation with the locals, offer a bit of $, and they might just help you out.

thats how deliverance started. "that river don't go to aintree'"

[Justin Spencer]

We can do weekdays, but Gavin is right weekends are the problem, if you bring two vehicles we can give you a canoe and you can shuttle yourself, but that is really the only option on the weekends. That is smallmouth water, upstream might be better, but that is really not an option unless you do a self shuttle as accesses are few and far between upstream, plus water starts to get low. The reluctance of outfitters to put people on Bryant is one of the reasons it is a special place, otherwise it would be the Elk, good fishing but way too many people.

[OzarksRiverman]

We can do weekdays, but Gavin is right weekends are the problem, if you bring two vehicles we can give you a canoe and you can shuttle yourself, but that is really the only option on the weekends. That is smallmouth water, upstream might be better, but that is really not an option unless you do a self shuttle as accesses are few and far between upstream, plus water starts to get low. The reluctance of outfitters to put people on Bryant is one of the reasons it is a special place, otherwise it would be the Elk, good fishing but way too many people.

You're right--I'd rather not ever be able to get on the Bryant than have it overran by party people. However I think I've found my way on, I work with a guy that owns a few hundred acres about a mile above Hodgson Mill and he's agreed to put us on the river at 95 hwy and we're going to float down to his place. It looks like a 8 1/2 mile float, and that might be pushing it for a one-day float with as much as I stop to fish.

The problem now is the water level. It's running at 117 CFS at Tecumseh. Does anybody who's floated the Bryant know if it's doable at the level (two people and a loaded cooler in a canoe)?

[OzarksRiverman]

I got to float the Bryant this past Saturday. Riverside Canoe & Camp was nice enough to put us on at 181 and we floated down to Warren. Didn't get on the water until 12:30 and the water was a little high. Fishing was very slow until the sun started to drop behind the trees around 4:30. I caught around 20 fish on the last mile of the 8 mile float. Only a few of any size. This stretch of the Bryant is a little big and slow for my taste, next time, I'd like to go from 95 down to 181 (and start much earlier). But this trip will have to wait until I get a boat of my own.

Traffic on the river was very light--only a few family groups, and one group of drunk good ole boys who did play-by-play as I casted the bluffs near the gravel bar they were parked at.

*By the way, anybody worried about the low reading the the Bryant's gauge, don't be. It's underwater and not functioning.