That Arkansas has produced fish of these proportions is no accident. The tailwater trout fisheries of the Ozarks, flowing over and through a limestone substrate, are very fertile, and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is -- obviously -- managing them very well. The White, Norfork and Little Red rivers yield hundreds of lunker browns each year, fish from 4 pounds up -- sometimes way up, as the above instances prove. Special length and limit regulations and designated catch-and-release areas protect these larger fish, and the fertile waters promote rapid growth. Tagging studies prove that on these three Arkansas rivers, trout grow at the phenomenal rate of 4 inches per year.

These factors combine to put the White, Norfork and Little Red at the top of the list when you're ranking the nation's brown trout waters. But which is No. 1? The answer: Who cares? They're all superb. Making them even better is the double-barreled nature of their trout fisheries. Besides trophy browns, all three streams are full of 10- to 14-inch rainbows, providing the catch-and-keep option of skillet-sized fish. The rainbows are managed differently, being heavily stocked for put-and-take fishing, so they rarely stay in the river long enough to attain trophy proportions.

These rivers provide estimable year-round fishing, so pressure is unsurprisingly heavy, especially during the summer. Some of the more popular stretches of these streams see more than 3,000 angler-days of fishing per mile of stream per year, and trout -- mostly rainbows, but also browns, cutthroats and brook trout -- are stocked at an average rate of 10,000 fish per mile per year.

Effective techniques for catching big browns differ considerably from the optimal methods for catching a limit of stocker rainbows: You're not likely to catch a yard-long brown trout by dragging a night crawler and a Berkley Power Bait Power Egg behind a drifting boat. (It happens occasionally, but it's not the way to bet.)

Big browns are probably taken more often on minnow-shaped artificials like Floating Rapalas, Holographic Rebels and Smithwick Rogues than by means of any other offering; of these types of lure, Countdown Rapalas are likely to be resorted to the most. Some anglers also swear by rattling, vibrating shad-shaped crankbaits such as Rat-L-Traps, for which silver and gold seem to be the most seductive colors. The effectiveness of these noisemakers is most pronounced when there's a moderate to high amount of generation going on, especially early and late in the day and during low-light conditions, as when cloud cover is thick or fog lies low on the water.

The most suitable tackle for this variety of fishing is baitcasting gear with 10- to 12-pound line and a rod with both tip sensitivity and backbone. You're dealing with fish that can be as long as your arm, and wimpy tackle isn't going to cut it. If you insist on spinning gear, avoid the ultralight stuff; use a long rod for extra leverage and use the heaviest line your rod/reel combo will handle.

During low-water periods, the techniques you'll want to use on the White/Norfork complex will differ from those appropriate for the Little Red. In the case of the former, wide agreement prevails: Anchoring above a hole to fish downstream with a soft-shell crawfish, peeled crawfish tail or sculpin baiting a dropper rig that incorporates a small bell sinker (to hold the bait in place) is the preferred way to go. The latter's another matter.