Help

[Daffron Outdoors]

Could really use some help guys. Desperately trying to float Friday and Saturday. No shuttle services are available on the upper current. Yes, I tried. I don't know how to read the huzzah gauge, as I have never floated it. I know its gonna be low, but is it too low? Its at 60 cfs and 2.3 feet. And if it is far too low, what's a recommended river? I just did the JF two weeks ago, so I don't really want to go that route. Thanks in advance guys 

[Gavin]

Huzzah is low, so is the Current, but the Current fishes better this time of year.

[snagged in outlet 3]

Everywhere is dead low.  60 cfs sounds like a good walk.  

[jdmidwest]

Was on the Spring River this weekend and crossed the 11pt and Current River in several places.  This drought has everything down to almost nothing.  I doubt I could get a boat off the trailer at Greer Crossing on the 11pt and nobody there this afternoon in the parking lot.  Current river below Van Buren bridge looked like it may have been impassible in a jet boat also at the shoal below the Landing.

May be a reason the shuttle and float camps are shut down.  Huzzah Valley on 8 looked shut down for the season a few weeks ago when I went thru there in mid Oct.

[tjm]

In this post it was stated that any stream in the Ozarks needs 75CFS to be marginally floatable a canoe and 150 CFS to be easily floatable. https://forums.ozarkanglers.com/topic/68322-cfs-vs-gauge-height-debate/?do=findComment&comment=597149

He goes on to explain why and how, the whole  thread might be interesting to you as it covers reading and interpreting the USGS gauges.

[Al Agnew]

I wasn't on here for a few days so missed your original question...don't know if you were able to find a shuttle for the Huzzah, but here is what I would have told you:

The river gage on the Huzzah is at the Hwy. 8 bridge.  That is just barely below the mouth of Dry Creek, which adds a significant amount of water to the Huzzah.  So the gage reading is basically useful for the lower Huzzah below Hwy. 8, and not for above Hwy. 8.  60 cfs is, as I said in that earlier thread that tjm linked, below my benchmark figure of 75 cfs.  That means that the Huzzah is basically too low to float easily even below Hwy. 8, and definitely too low upstream.

I've talked about this use of cfs and the benchmark cfs figures in many places.  And if it's a paddling group or forum and not a fishing site, I use the figure of 100 cfs, not 75 cfs, as the minimum flow for floating without a lot of dragging and scraping.  We anglers are more tolerant of lower flows.  But 100 cfs is an easy number to remember.  To dive down a little deeper (no pun intended) into these figures...25 cfs and below will mean you will not float any riffle cleanly and will have to walk any really rocky or really wide riffle, or any split channel.  25-50 cfs will mean you'll have to walk almost as many riffles as below 25 cfs, but if it's a narrow riffle without big rocks, you might float it cleanly.  50-75 cfs, you'll float maybe half the riffles cleanly, but still have to walk split channels and wider than average riffles.  75-100 cfs, you'll float 3/4th of the riffles cleanly as long as you are good at picking lines and maneuvering, and will seldom have to walk a riffle.  100-150 cfs, you'll float nearly all riffles cleanly as long as you read the water well.