Best Float Trips in the Ozarks

If you live in southwest Missouri, you live near a river. And that’s something to celebrate. Ozarks waterways shaped the land where we live, work and play, and our way of life would look very different without them. That’s especially true for people who enjoy spending time outdoors, and for those whose livelihoods are linked with outdoor tourism.

Rivers have always been crucial to life in the Ozarks, says Mike Kromrey, executive director of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks located at Valley Water Mill Park.

Indigenous people, early settlers and explorers like Henry Rowe Schoolcraft were drawn to Ozarks streams for access to drinking, growing crops, running grist mills and transportation. And while public use leans more recreational now, “economically speaking, they’re still tremendously important,” he says.

Not only do rivers and lakes provide natural places to swim, fish, boat and float, the outdoor tourism dollars they generate are an economic boon. For instance, the Missouri Department of Conservation estimates trout fishing and related activities contribute $382 million to our state each year. Roaring River, Bennett Spring and Montauk state parks—three spring-dependent trout parks in the Ozarks—saw nearly 3 million visitors in 2023. That doesn’t include anglers casting for trout and other fish in nearby rivers and lakes.

In addition to their economic and recreational benefits, a river is a place to find peace and balance: “Rivers have healing and grounding power,” says Kromrey, an outdoor enthusiast and longtime advocate for clean water, healthy rivers and conservation practices. “I haven’t met a single person who doesn’t love the river.”

For all those reasons and more, spending time at a river is an Ozarks tradition. For one thing, people who live in urban areas yearn for green space, fresh air and natural resources, says Dena Matteson, Chief of Interpretation, Planning and Partnerships for the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. And it becomes a generational thing.

“If you are somebody whose family came [to the Scenic Riverways] when you were a child, it’s probably because your parents came with their parents,” Matteson says. Year after year, “we see families that have close personal ties and feel that this is their river, no matter where they come from.”

Lifeblood of the Ozarks

Preserving Wild Rivers

Similar johnboat floats were happening on tributaries of the White, Blevins says, evolving into the float and fishing trips we enjoy today on the watershed’s federally protected wild rivers, so designated as a result of the national environmental movement of the 1960s.

Recreation at wild rivers ticked up after August 24, 1964, when 134 miles of the free-flowing spring-fed Current River and its tributary, the Jacks Fork, became the first federally protected river system known as the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. The movement also led to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968—extended to the nearby Eleven Point River, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service—and the designation in 1972 of the Buffalo River as America’s first national river. All four wild streams are part of the White River Watershed.

If not for federal management of the Current and Jacks Fork, says Matteson with the National Park Service, you might be floating by man-made “intrusions,” such as public and private homes and buildings instead of wilderness and woods. Or like the White River, the Current and the Jacks may have been dammed. The Buffalo National River was tapped for such a fate before it was saved. “Of course reservoirs have their place and they’re wonderful recreation areas, and provide different things to our lives,” Matteson says. But preserving these rivers in their natural state, unmarked by damming, also preserves their cultural and historic significance to the southern part of Missouri, she says. NPS management of land around the Scenic Riverways—with the exception of two-mile gaps before and after the towns of Eminence and Van Buren—also ensures conservation practices protect intricate cave and spring systems. “This is a world-class spring system, unequaled anywhere else in North America. And it’s one of the highest densities of caves in any natural park in the country. The springs feed these rivers. That they’re available for the public to enjoy today is a wonderful benefit of having these two rivers preserved.”

Fishing Ozarks streams evolved, too. Not native to the Ozarks, trout were introduced to local waters in the late 1800s, and angling for trout has since become a strong outdoor industry. Over time, trout have propagated in wild streams too, with the best sections designated as Blue Ribbon Trout Areas.

Local Stewardship

Federal designation isn’t the only way to protect Ozarks rivers. It’s important we all do our part to help keep them clean and healthy. Our actions make a difference, especially for the nearby James and Little Sac rivers. “We get a lot of our drinking water from the James and a lot more of it from the Little Sac River, which is captured at Fellows Lake and McDaniel Lake, and then brought back from Stockton Lake—all part of the Little Sac system,” Kromrey says.

Whether you prefer to cast a line, dip a paddle, or simply gaze at our rivers, their health should matter to all of us. That’s why the Watershed Committee and other area nonprofits focus on education, civic action and measuring river quality. “There are over 40 species of fish that are indigenous or that live in Ozarks streams,” Kromrey says. “And they’re supported by a whole community of macro-invertebrates—aquatic insects and crayfish. We can use an assessment of what’s living in the stream to gauge how healthy the stream is.”

That health improves when communities care. That’s why it’s important to advocate for our waterways and encourage community members to feel ownership and stewardship. Add native plants to your garden. Reduce erosion. Support greenways. Dispose of chemicals responsibly.

“It’s less about what you do when you’re on the river,” Kromrey says, “and more about knowing that the river truly starts right in all of our backyards.”