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Home › Waters › Oregon › John Day River
River · North-central Oregon high desert between the Blue Mountains and the Columbia · Oregon

John Day River Fishing Guides

The longest undammed river in Oregon, a high-desert canyon float famous for wild summer steelhead and a smallmouth bass fishery measured in hundreds of fish per day.

A wooden drift boat pulled onto a gravel bar on a Pacific Northwest river

Map of the John Day River

23 numbered points: 5 access points, 5 campsites, 1 outfitter, 4 parks and conservation areas, 1 agency office, 5 hazards, 1 USGS gauge, 1 point of interest. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Sep 15, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (5)
  • Campsite (5)
  • Outfitter / canoe rental (1)
  • Park / conservation area (4)
  • Agency / conservation office (1)
  • Dam / hazard (5)
  • USGS gauge (1)
  • Point of interest (1)
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Points are curated from OpenStreetMap and state agency sources; confirm access and hours before you go.

Print it. Bag it. Bring it.Phones die, screens crack, and most of this water has no signal. Print this map, fold it into a zip-top bag or dry bag with your license, and you have a backup your electronics can’t give you. Every marker is numbered so you can say exactly where you are.

Open the printable map
All 23 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1Blue Mountain Ranger Station
Malheur National Forest · John Day		Agency / conservation office44.41600, -118.94311
2Grant County Fairgrounds RV Park
RV park on the river in John Day		Campsite44.42094, -118.95200
3Clyde Holliday State Recreation Site
Oregon State Parks · Hwy 26 at Mount Vernon		Park / conservation area44.41592, -119.09049Day use and campground on the upper main stem; the campground node sits 60 m away and is merged here.
4Fish House Inn and RV Park
Lodging and RV sites · Hwy 26 at Dayville		Campsite44.46748, -119.53569
5Spray Riverfront Park
Town park and river frontage at Spray		Park / conservation area44.82514, -119.79500
6Muleshoe Recreation Site
BLM recreation site above Service Creek		Campsite44.80763, -119.96655
7Service Creek Recreation Site
BLM launch and campground · Hwy 19 / Hwy 207		Access / boat ramp44.79369, -120.00094The standard put-in for the Service Creek to Clarno float.
8Service Creek Resort
Store, lodging and shuttles at the put-in		Outfitter / canoe rental44.79731, -120.00824
9Shoofly Rapids
Named rapid below Service Creek		Dam / hazard44.76327, -120.09114
10Twickenham Boat Launch
River launch at the Twickenham bridge		Access / boat ramp44.73681, -120.16551
11Priest Hole Boat Launch
BLM launch · primitive camping at the same site		Access / boat ramp44.74001, -120.27129The BLM Priest Hole recreation-site node 90 m away is merged here.
12Lower Burnt Ranch Campground
BLM campground at Burnt Ranch		Campsite44.74620, -120.36454
13Pine Creek Conservation Area
Conservation property above Clarno		Park / conservation area44.91031, -120.43941
14Clarno
Locality at the Hwy 218 river crossing		Point of interest44.91474, -120.47338The BLM Clarno launch is not separately mapped in OpenStreetMap; this is the crossing it sits at.
15Clarno Rapids
Named rapid below the Hwy 218 crossing		Dam / hazard44.96543, -120.47942The rapid the Clarno reach is named for; the upper and lower nodes 12 m apart are merged here.
16Lower Clarno Rapids
Second drop below Clarno		Dam / hazard44.97235, -120.47937
17Basalt Rapid
Named rapid in the lower canyon		Dam / hazard45.10285, -120.50341
18Thirtymile Boat Launch
River launch in the lower canyon		Access / boat ramp45.16020, -120.47063
19J.S. Burres Boat Ramp
State wayside ramp at the Hwy 206 bridge		Access / boat ramp45.47704, -120.46882The J.S. Burres wayside and trailhead nodes within 50 m are merged here.
20Lone Tree Campground
Campground at the Hwy 206 crossing		Campsite45.48388, -120.45855Cottonwood Canyon State Park itself is not named in OpenStreetMap; this is its campground.
21Rock Creek Recreation Site
BLM site on the lower river		Park / conservation area45.56862, -120.40218
22USGS 14048000 — John Day River at McDonald Ferry
USGS streamgage		USGS gauge45.58763, -120.40949The flow reference for the whole lower river.
23Tumwater Falls
Falls near the mouth		Dam / hazard45.65720, -120.50075The last drop above the Columbia backwater; two nodes 130 m apart merged here.

Guides on the John Day River

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

Order on this page: premium and outfitter plans first (labelled Premium placement), then claimed free profiles, then unclaimed — one published price, no bidding for position. How placement works

About the John Day River

The John Day is the longest undammed river in Oregon and one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the country, running roughly two hundred and eighty miles from the Blue Mountains northwest to the Columbia. The gauge at McDonald Ferry sits near the bottom and watches about seventy-five hundred square miles. It carries discharge, stage and a live water temperature series, and on this river the temperature reading is not a nicety: summer water here routinely climbs into the range where fishing becomes a conservation question rather than a comfort one.

Because nothing regulates it, the John Day is a boom-and-bust river. It runs big and brown with snowmelt in March and April, drops through May into the best rafting flows of the year, and then falls away to a warm, low, clear late-summer trickle in the lower canyon. Multi-day float trips through the roadless canyon between Service Creek and Cottonwood Bridge are the classic way to see it, and permits and shuttle logistics are part of the planning.

The fishery has two halves. Smallmouth bass in the lower and middle canyon are extraordinarily abundant, and a good May or June day genuinely produces fish in the high double or low triple digits, which makes this one of the best introductory fly-fishing rivers in the West. Wild summer steelhead enter from the Columbia in autumn and are fished from October into winter, entirely wild with no hatchery supplementation.

The John Day is also a place where the season matters more than the spot. Guides here work a spring bass window and a fall steelhead window and largely stay off the river in between, when heat and low water make it a poor and unkind place to fish.

This water needs a real photo

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Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

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We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Fished this water? Add a photo

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Posting to John Day River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the John Day River cfs

Now: 210 cfs, read 8:45 am CDT, Sat Oct 24, 2026 (USGS 14048000, JOHN DAY RIVER AT MCDONALD FERRY, OR).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Service Creek - the standard put-in for multi-day canyon floats.
Twickenham - upper access and an alternate launch.
Clarno - a major access point and the head of the lower canyon run.
Cottonwood Canyon State Park at the Highway 206 bridge - the main lower takeout with camping and trails.
McDonald Ferry near the gauge - the flow and temperature reference for the lower river.
Kimberly and the North Fork confluence - upper river access and cooler tributary water.
The mouth at the Columbia near Rufus - the very bottom of the system.

Seasons

Spring: snowmelt runoff early, then the best rafting flows and the beginning of superb smallmouth fishing.
Summer: hot, low and warm-watered; the river is largely left alone through July and August.
Fall: wild summer steelhead arrive and become the focus from October onward.
Winter: cold and quiet, with steelhead still present and very few people on the water.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the John Day River?

As of Oct 24, 8:45 am, the USGS gauge JOHN DAY RIVER AT MCDONALD FERRY, OR reads 210 cfs, with water temperature 48.4 F. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the John Day River?

Anglers target Channel Catfish, Chinook Salmon, Mountain Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, Smallmouth Bass, Steelhead on the John Day River in Oregon.

Are there fishing guides on the John Day River?

GuidedFloats lists 2 guides and outfitters on the John Day River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the John Day River?

Service Creek - the standard put-in for multi-day canyon floats. Twickenham - upper access and an alternate launch. Clarno - a major access point and the head of the lower canyon run. Cottonwood Canyon State Park at the Highway 206 bridge - the main lower takeout with camping and trails. McDonald Ferry near the gauge - the flow and temperature reference for the lower river. Kimberly and the North Fork confluence - upper river access and cooler tributary water. The mouth at the Columbia near Rufus - the very bottom of the system.

When is the best time to fish the John Day River?

Spring: snowmelt runoff early, then the best rafting flows and the beginning of superb smallmouth fishing. Summer: hot, low and warm-watered; the river is largely left alone through July and August. Fall: wild summer steelhead arrive and become the focus from October onward. Winter: cold and quiet, with steelhead still present and very few people on the water.

Where are the fishing regulations for the John Day River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Oregon agency site: https://myodfw.com/fishing/regulations