Cuivre River Float Trips

The Cuivre River is quiet and terrific for a family float or a day fishing.

Our Recommended Outfitter

Aww, Shucks! Currently we do not have a recommended outfitter for the Cuivre River.  There are some outfitters listed below.  If you have a favorite, tell them about FloatMissouri.com so we can feature them!

Other Outfitters on the Cuivre River

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Floating Missouri’s Cuivre River

Though not technically considered a part of the Ozarks, Missouri’s Cuivre River has all the trademarks of the Missouri foothills with brilliant colors in spring, summer and fall from oak and hickory trees along its shores, making it an ideal river for your next float trip.  Named after Baron Georges Leopold Cuvier, a French-naturalist and paleontologist, the Cuivre River marks the borders between Lincoln and St. Charles counties before emptying into the Mississippi River.  When French explorers first walked the Cuivre River’s banks buffalo roamed as far as the eye could see.  The buffalo may have left the Missouri valley long ago but prairies and forests of oaks and hickories remain with a virtually untouched landscape perfect for camping, floating and fishing.

Many visitors to the area camp in Cuivre River State Park.  The park has modern campsites, group camps, picnic areas, hiking and equestrian trails, and a lake.  Modern campsites offer basic, electric, water and sewer.  Campsites can be reserved and have access to a dump station, showers, water and laundry.  Firewood and ice are also available for purchase during check station hours.

When it comes to floating the Cuivre River it’s helpful to know the best places to go.  You can float the North Fork and the West Fork of the Cuivre River by canoe, inner-tube, rafts or on a small johnboat during normal flows.  A popular section to float on the Cuivre River is a 5 mile stretch D to Highway 61 on the West Fork Cuivre River.  Others prefer to float 25 miles downstream on the Cuivre River from Highway 61.  Depending on water levels and drought, logjams occasionally interfere with boating on the river’s West Fork.  If you plan to float along the lower reaches of the Cuivre River in the Moscow Mills area you should know that the Cuivre River’s water levels are deeply affected by the Mississippi River’s water levels because of its close proximity to the Mississippi River.  In fact, large johnboats can motor upstream from the mouth of the Cuivre River up to mile 14.  This is 2.5 miles upstream from the confluence with Big Creek.  If the Mississippi River’s water stage is low, there is a shallow riffle upstream from the Chain of Rocks that can impede boat passage.  When this happens, boaters take advantage fo the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Riggs Ferry and Old Monroe on the Cuivre River as well as the R.H. Crouch on the West Fork Cuivre River for launching their boats.  There’s a boat ramp located in Old Monroe that’s open to the public for a small fee.

If you’re not floating along the Cuiver River you must be fishing.  There are seventy-one fish species in Cuivre River waters including largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, channel catfish, common carp, black crappie, white crappie, walleye, white bass, freshwater drum, buffalo, blue gill, green sunfish and flathead catfish.  Some of the more common species you’ll see include orangethroat darter, bluntnose minnow, red shiner and redfin shiner.  There are some species that are on the Missouri River watch list.  If you catch any ghost shiner, you’ll want to throw those back as a way of allowing the ghost shiner species to repopulate the Cuivre River Basin.

Consider camping, fishing and floating along the Cuivre River this summer, another Missouri river that’s less congested with float trip traffic than other rivers.