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Home › Waters › Arkansas › Kings River
River · Ozarks · Arkansas

Kings River Fishing Guides

A free-flowing Ozark smallmouth stream running north from the Boston Mountains through bluff-lined bends to Table Rock Lake, best floated in spring.

A paddler working a canoe down a green tunnel of overhanging hardwoods

Map of the Kings River

13 numbered points: 5 access points, 1 campsite, 1 outfitter, 3 bridges, 1 park or conservation area, 1 USGS gauge, 1 point of interest. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Sep 7, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (5)
  • Campsite (1)
  • Outfitter / canoe rental (1)
  • Bridge crossing (3)
  • Park / conservation area (1)
  • 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 13 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1Kings River headwaters (Boston Mountains)
Source reach near Boston · Kings River Falls Natural Area a few miles below		Point of interest35.97742, -93.54241Class III whitewater from Dripping Springs to AR 74 in high water only; not a fishing float.
2AR 74 bridge near Kingston
Arkansas Highway 74		Bridge crossing36.01820, -93.53941Bottom of the upper whitewater run.
3AR 21 bridge
Arkansas Highway 21		Bridge crossing36.08830, -93.54183
4US 412 bridge at Marble
US Highway 412		Bridge crossing36.13721, -93.58131Marble is the usual top of the smallmouth floats when there is enough water.
5Marshall Ford
Low-water bridge crossing (Madison County Road 1505)		Access / boat ramp36.18996, -93.65163Put-in for the long Marshall Ford–Rockhouse float (about 15.7 miles). Placed at the county-road bridge.
6Rockhouse Access
Rockhouse Road low-water crossing		Access / boat ramp36.28007, -93.66287Rockhouse–Trigger Gap is about 7.7 miles. Approximate location, placed by river mile.
7Kings River Outfitters
8190 Hwy 221, Eureka Springs · canoe & kayak rental, shuttles, camping		Outfitter / canoe rental36.31519, -93.66683At the Trigger Gap bridge.
8Trigger Gap (AR 221 bridge)
Arkansas Highway 221 crossing · outfitter accesses on both sides		Access / boat ramp36.31610, -93.66407Busiest put-in on the river. Trigger Gap–US 62 is about 12.9 miles of the best smallmouth water.
9US 62 bridge access
US Highway 62 west of Berryville · public access		Access / boat ramp36.39453, -93.63648Common take-out; the river slows toward Table Rock Lake below here.
10AR 143 bridge (Grandview) access
Arkansas Highway 143 crossing south of Grandview		Access / boat ramp36.42668, -93.62341Last road access above the Table Rock Lake arm.
11USGS 07050500 Kings River near Berryville
At the AR 143 bridge		USGS gauge36.42722, -93.62083Check this gauge before a Marble or Marshall Ford start; the upper floats go thin in summer.
12Kings River Public Use Area
USACE · Table Rock Lake arm, ramp		Park / conservation area36.55217, -93.61040The river is lake water from here down.
13Viola Public Use Area
USACE · campground and ramp on the Kings River arm of Table Rock Lake		Campsite36.56202, -93.59586

Guides on the Kings 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.

About the Kings River

The Kings River is one of the last undammed streams in the Arkansas Ozarks, running north out of the Boston Mountains through Madison and Carroll counties to Table Rock Lake in Missouri. It is a bluff-and-gravel river, clear and shallow, with towering limestone walls on the outside of the bends and long gravel bars on the inside, and it is the kind of water that people who love Ozark smallmouth fishing consider close to perfect.

Smallmouth bass are the reason to be here. They hold on the current seams below every riffle and against the bluff faces in the deeper pools, and a fly rod with a popper or a light spinning rod with a tube jig covers the whole trip. Spotted and largemouth bass mix in, bream are everywhere in summer, and the Kings River Falls Natural Area at the top of the drainage is worth the walk. There are no dams and no reservoir influence, so the fishing is entirely about rainfall and season.

The Berryville gauge is the number that decides the day. Roughly 100 to 500 cfs is comfortable float water with defined riffles. Late-summer readings can drop into the tens of cfs, which means a walk-and-drag trip rather than a float, and spring rain can push it into the thousands and make the bends fast and pushy. This is a flashy Ozark river: it rises fast, drops fast, and clears within a couple of days.

Berryville, Marble and Eureka Springs are the nearest towns, with several liveries running shuttles in season. Access is a series of low-water bridges and gravel-bar landings, and the last few miles into Table Rock are slower, deeper water.

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The photo at the top of this page is not Kings River.

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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.

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.

Fished this water? Add a photo

Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Kings 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 Kings River cfs

Now: 68.2 cfs, read 5:15 pm CDT, Sun Oct 18, 2026 (USGS 07050500, Kings River near Berryville, AR).

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

Access

Kings River Falls Natural Area: headwater access and a short hike to the falls.
Marble and Marshall Ford: upper river low-water bridge accesses.
Trigger Gap: the most-used put-in on the middle river.
Rockhouse and Grandview: mid-river gravel bar accesses.
Berryville area: access near the gauge.
Kings River Access on Highway 62: the standard lower launch.
Table Rock Lake: the bottom of the river, slow deep water into the lake.

Seasons

March through May: the reliable float season, good flow and prespawn smallmouth.
June: still floatable most years, warm water and topwater fishing.
July through September: usually too low to float; wade the riffles and pools instead.
October and November: fall rain can reopen the float window, with the best smallmouth fishing of the year.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Kings River?

As of Oct 18, 5:15 pm, the USGS gauge Kings River near Berryville, AR reads 68 cfs, the 57th percentile for this date. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Kings River?

Anglers target Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Longear Sunfish, Smallmouth Bass, Spotted Bass on the Kings River in Arkansas.

Are there fishing guides on the Kings River?

GuidedFloats lists 1 guide and outfitters on the Kings River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Kings River?

Kings River Falls Natural Area: headwater access and a short hike to the falls. Marble and Marshall Ford: upper river low-water bridge accesses. Trigger Gap: the most-used put-in on the middle river. Rockhouse and Grandview: mid-river gravel bar accesses. Berryville area: access near the gauge. Kings River Access on Highway 62: the standard lower launch. Table Rock Lake: the bottom of the river, slow deep water into the lake.

When is the best time to fish the Kings River?

March through May: the reliable float season, good flow and prespawn smallmouth. June: still floatable most years, warm water and topwater fishing. July through September: usually too low to float; wade the riffles and pools instead. October and November: fall rain can reopen the float window, with the best smallmouth fishing of the year.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Kings River?

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