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Home › Waters › Arkansas › Ouachita River
River · West central Arkansas, in the Ouachita Mountains above Lake Ouachita, running east past Mount Ida through Montgomery County · Arkansas

Ouachita River Fishing Guides

The upper Ouachita above the lake, a mountain float stream running clear over gravel with smallmouth holding in every shoal.

A quiet river winding through dense hardwood forest

Map of the Ouachita River

19 numbered points: 7 access points, 1 campsite, 1 outfitter, 3 parks and conservation areas, 6 hazards, 1 USGS gauge. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Oct 22, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (7)
  • Campsite (1)
  • Outfitter / canoe rental (1)
  • Park / conservation area (3)
  • Dam / hazard (6)
  • USGS gauge (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.

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All 19 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1RiverView Cabins & Canoes
Canoe rental and cabins, upper Ouachita		Outfitter / canoe rental34.60869, -93.77419Canoe rental on the forest reach, 0.21 km off the centreline. OSM tags it tourism=chalet; re-typed to outfitter because the rental, not the lodging, is what a floater needs. The usual source of a boat for the Oden-to-Rocky Shoals run.
2USGS streamgage - Ouachita River, upper forest reach
Reference gauge for this water page		USGS gauge34.61000, -93.69750Real-time flow and the gauge the water page links. Coordinate taken from the site roster, not typed by hand; it sits on the centreline in the forest reach above Lake Ouachita. The USGS station name was not confirmed this run.
3Fulton Branch Recreation Area
Ouachita National Forest; canoe launch		Access / boat ramp34.62595, -93.65935Forest Service recreation area on the float trail, 0.11 km off the centreline by its own polygon. The access road beside it is named Fulton Branch Canoe Launch Rd in OSM, which is what confirms the launch.
4Dragover Recreation Area
Ouachita National Forest; float trail access		Access / boat ramp34.64260, -93.63075Forest Service access on the Ouachita River float trail, 0.19 km off the centreline. One of the standard put-ins and take-outs on the free-flowing reach above Lake Ouachita.
5River Bluff Recreation Area
Ouachita National Forest; riverside camping		Campsite34.63982, -93.62603Forest Service camping area on the bank, 0.08 km off the centreline, immediately downstream of Dragover. The usual first-night camp on an overnight float trail trip.
6Buddy's Landing
River access and campground near Oden		Access / boat ramp34.62619, -93.54238An unnamed slipway on the centreline, 0.32 km out, with an unnamed campsite 0.2 km away and the OSM place node Buddys Landing between them - the three together place and name it. The only X Landing node that ships.
7Blakely Mountain Dam
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; forms Lake Ouachita		Dam / hazard34.57251, -93.19480The Corps dam that ends the free-flowing reach and forms Lake Ouachita, 0.09 km off the centreline. Hard take-out: the float trail stops in the lake above. AGFC manages the cold tailwater below as trout water.
8Carpenter Dam
Forms Lake Hamilton		Dam / hazard34.44277, -93.02637Second dam of the Hot Springs chain, 0.10 km off the centreline, forming Lake Hamilton above and releasing into Lake Catherine below. The lake is a separate water page; nothing on its arms is on this sheet.
9Remmel Dam
Forms Lake Catherine		Dam / hazard34.42695, -92.89433Third dam of the chain, 0.09 km off the centreline. Below it the river is free-flowing again and the gentle float to Interstate 30 begins; scheduled release weekends raise it to whitewater at Rockport Ledge.
10Ouachita River Whitewater Park
Rockport Ledge, northwest of Malvern		Access / boat ramp34.39427, -92.84158The Rockport Ledge play reach a few hundred yards above Interstate 30, 0.15 km off the centreline. A boulder drop-off paddlers use on release weekends, a gentle float otherwise. Scout it before running it high.
11Ouachita River Park
Arkadelphia, on the river		Park / conservation area34.11986, -93.04646City park on the bank at Arkadelphia, 0.11 km off the centreline - the one Arkadelphia green space that is actually on the water. Three other city parks and two campus lawns nearby passed the distance gate and were dropped.
12Sandy Beach Park
Camden; park with boat ramp		Access / boat ramp33.59382, -92.82016Riverside park at Camden, 0.21 km off the centreline, with an unnamed slipway 0.17 km away that the park names and places. Ships as one point, not two. The last developed access above the lock-and-dam reach.
13Calion Lock and Dam
Lock and Dam No. 8, Ouachita-Black navigation project		Dam / hazard33.30734, -92.48181First of the navigation structures on this sheet, 0.07 km off the centreline. Commercial lock chamber - a paddler needs to portage or arrange passage, not drift into the gates. An unnamed duplicate polygon 0.98 km away was dropped.
14Moro Bay State Park
Arkansas State Parks; Ouachita and Moro Bay confluence		Park / conservation area33.30123, -92.34625State park at the Moro Bay confluence, 0.46 km off the centreline, with two unnamed slipways within 0.13 km of the water that it names. Camping, a ramp and the ferry crossing; the main access on the middle navigation reach.
15Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service		Park / conservation area33.16426, -92.16488Refuge covering the lower Ouachita bottoms, 0.30 km off the centreline by its own geometry. OSM types it leisure=nature_reserve; re-typed to park. Flooded timber and backwater sloughs - navigation here is by the refuge's own marked routes.
16Crossett Harbor Recreation Site
Boat harbour inside Felsenthal refuge		Access / boat ramp33.14929, -92.10430Harbour and ramp on the refuge reach, 0.40 km off the centreline, with an unnamed slipway 0.12 km from the water beside it. The practical launch for the refuge pool.
17Felsenthal Boat Ramp
At Felsenthal Lock and Dam		Access / boat ramp33.06693, -92.12967Named ramp 0.34 km off the centreline, just above the lock and dam. The last ramp on this sheet with a name in OSM; a second unnamed slipway 1 km away was dropped as a near-duplicate.
18Felsenthal Lock and Dam
Ouachita-Black navigation project		Dam / hazard33.06096, -92.11375Navigation lock and dam 0.85 km off the centreline by centre point, controlling the refuge pool above. Portage or arrange passage; do not approach the gates.
19Lock and Dam Number 6
Last structure above the Louisiana line		Dam / hazard33.03263, -92.08902The lowest navigation structure on the Arkansas Ouachita, 0.05 km off the centreline and roughly 4 km above the state line. Below here the river is Louisiana's and off this sheet.

Guides on the Ouachita 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 Ouachita River

The Ouachita is best known for the huge impoundments on its middle course, but the river above Lake Ouachita is a mountain stream with an entirely separate character and a devoted following among Arkansas float fishermen. It rises in the Ouachita National Forest west of Mount Ida and runs east through a valley of pine ridges and hardwood bottoms, clear and gravel-bottomed, with the moderate gradient that makes for good smallmouth habitat and easy paddling.

Smallmouth bass are the headline fish and the upper Ouachita has a reputation for producing them in both numbers and quality. They hold on the shoals, at the heads of pools and around the rock structure that the mountain geology provides throughout the reach. Spotted bass are common, largemouth occupy the slower deep pools, and the sunfish population is excellent – longear are everywhere and Ozark bass, the regional rock bass relative, hold in the faster water and take a fly readily.

This is float fishing country in the traditional sense. A canoe or kayak covers the water properly, and outfitters around Mount Ida and Norman run shuttles for the popular reaches. The classic trips are day floats between bridge accesses, with plenty of wadeable shoal water to get out and fish along the way. Above the lake the river runs through national forest for much of its length, which keeps the corridor undeveloped and the water clean.

Water level is the practical constraint. The upper Ouachita is unregulated and rain-fed, so it runs well in spring and after summer storms and can get scratchy in a dry August. The gauge near Mount Ida is the number to watch. Arkansas Game and Fish manages the river under statewide black bass regulations in most reaches, but special smallmouth regulations apply on some Ouachita streams, so confirm the current rules.

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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.

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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.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Ouachita River cfs

Now: 14.8 cfs, read 7:30 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 07356000, Ouachita River near Mount Ida, AR).

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Access

Mount Ida - the gauge reach and the main access point on the upper river.
Rocky Shoals - Ouachita National Forest access and a popular float launch.
Highway 27 crossing near Norman - bridge access on the upper reach.
Dragover - a classic float access in the national forest corridor.
Pine Ridge area - upper river access above the main float water.
Highway 270 crossings - access at several points along the valley.
Upper end of Lake Ouachita - the bottom of the free-flowing reach.

Seasons

Spring: the best flows of the year and the strongest smallmouth fishing of the season.
Summer: low clear water, wading and sight fishing, with floats needing some dragging.
Fall: cooling water, active smallmouth and excellent color through the Ouachita valley.
Winter: slow and cold, with fish stacked in the deepest pools.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Ouachita River?

As of Nov 2, 7:30 am, the USGS gauge Ouachita River near Mount Ida, AR reads 15 cfs. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Ouachita River?

Anglers target Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Longear Sunfish, Ozark Bass, Rock Bass, Shadow Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Spotted Bass on the Ouachita River in Arkansas.

Are there fishing guides on the Ouachita River?

GuidedFloats lists 3 guides and outfitters on the Ouachita River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Ouachita River?

Mount Ida - the gauge reach and the main access point on the upper river. Rocky Shoals - Ouachita National Forest access and a popular float launch. Highway 27 crossing near Norman - bridge access on the upper reach. Dragover - a classic float access in the national forest corridor. Pine Ridge area - upper river access above the main float water. Highway 270 crossings - access at several points along the valley. Upper end of Lake Ouachita - the bottom of the free-flowing reach.

When is the best time to fish the Ouachita River?

Spring: the best flows of the year and the strongest smallmouth fishing of the season. Summer: low clear water, wading and sight fishing, with floats needing some dragging. Fall: cooling water, active smallmouth and excellent color through the Ouachita valley. Winter: slow and cold, with fish stacked in the deepest pools.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Ouachita River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Arkansas agency site: https://www.agfc.com/regulations/general-fishing-regulations/