Need Summer Jacks Fork Floating Advice

[Levi Michael McQueary]

A couple I know has a once a year family and friends float trip. This year they are moving it to the Jacks Fork. They have never been on it and it's one of the few rivers I have not floated before. We will be going in July. I'm wondering what are the best stretches of the river to float that time of year? I'm sure nobody wants to be dragging most of the way. Some will be in canoes and some in rafts. Of course I will be fishing. The campground we will be at Jacks Fork Campground in Eminence. Any info would be appreciated.

[GloryDaze]

Eminence to two rivers... or Alley to Eminence will be your best bet. That time of the year your probably gonna be dealing with decent crowds.

[Levi Michael McQueary]

Thanks GloryDaze. As long as it's not as crowed as the stretch we did on the Niangua. It was so crowded that you had to bump people out of your way just to move down river. It blew my mind. I had never seen anything like before. It seemed like a 1000 people were in a 7 mile stretch of river It was wrong.

[Al Agnew]

If you float on a Saturday you're liable to run into about the same number of people as you did on the Niangua. There are five or six canoe rental places serving the Jacks Fork, and they'll all be putting all their customers in for those two floats, since the upper river above Alley will almost certainly be too low. Eminence to Two Rivers might be slightly less crowded because there is one canoe rental at Alley and three at Eminence, and the one at Alley always wants to only put in as close to their place as possible, and the ones at Eminence always prefer to put in people upstream to float down to their place, instead of putting in at their place and going down where the canoe rental people have to sit and wait for the drunks in the evening. Only Two Rivers Campground does that on the lower stretch, but they have plenty of boats to rent and rent most or all of them every weekend.

The Eminence to Two Rivers stretch is better fishing, though you can get into some nice pickerel in the Alley to Eminence stretch.