Video brought back some memories. When we drove down to the ranch, we didn't go beyond the ranch, as the temps hit 100 degrees and we took shelter close to the river bank near one of the outbuildings and next to a line of large trees for the shade. Got the dogs in the water to keep them cool and saw a beaver. As noted above, it was quite a few years back and, at the time, their was a university archeology group set up at the ranch studying cultural resources along the river. Also, the downside of the experience was because it was mid summer, they had irrigation pumps running most of the day to water the crop growing along the river. Quite the racket.
The first time we floated the river was in 1984. At that time, the takeout for the lower Owyhee run required one to go all the way to the Owyhee reservoir and row or paddle 10 miles to the Leslie Gulch boat ramp. Would not have been fun with rafts. Before the trip, we arranged for a local guy with a power boat to meet us where the slack water started at the south end of the lake. He roped up all 4 rafts and pulled us all the way to the takeout. Was a very relaxing cruise at the end of the float trip. That was a in 1984 in the middle of June and the river was running 5,000 cfs. Two weeks earlier on Memorial Day weekend '84, it was at 10,000 cfs. Normally by mid June it would be too late to run in rafts due to low water. However, 83 and '84 saw record snow packs in SE Oregon, which cause serious flooding in that part of the basin. Malheur National Wildlife refuge and ranches to the west were inundated with vast lakes of water. I recall reading that some ranchers were wondering if there was some way to breach the Malheur Gap that was caused by ancient laval flows 32,000 years ago blocking water from reaching the Snake River system. Needless to say that was a bit of wishful thinking in response to the severe flooding being experienced by the local agricultural community. From a precipitation standpoint, those were certainly some outlier years for that very arid region.
The next time we did it in canoes and took out at Birch Creek Ranch after the BLM acquired the property. I had close friends who boated the Owyhee way more frequently than I did and I recall them having some rigs get stuck on the way out after some spells of rain.